Six Reasons to Never Try Poetry

They call them mockingbirds, some are nightingales, a few may be owls or ravens,

but all are really pretending to be the pursuers

while they are in fact the ideal prey.

All are moths-

of which there are more than 160,000.

Drawn to their own demise, despite the heat, they repeat the fire dance,

a Danse Macabre in verse.

In all fairness, one should be warned-

1. You will never be good. Or done. Or get there. Never, nevermore. It will always be wrong, could be better, you should have never tried, a waste of your time, a sacrifice for nothing. If you want to feel a sense of completion or accomplishment, this is not the way. You will never be able to make it go away. Get a drawer, carry a pen, try to forget. 

2. You have only copied others far better than you-who copied those that were far better than they. 

All the words that are strewn about and unsorted,

the ones you polished up and put together and

something spectacular, or smooth, or morbid,

were not yours to put your name on. 

You were not the first person

to make your bed.

3. Warning: Also-they All die beautiful, decrepit and anonymous, poor and misunderstood. They pass away, they are evoked and manipulated, worshiped for saying one thing-over and over-apropos to those who know how timeless interpretations remains. They keep their keys. They take thier fortunes with them. The published, finished, are boarded up, condemned-to looting, pillaging and squatting.

The moth never learns from others smoke. The moth must devour the leaves and petals from poets of other seasons if it is to survive famished and cleansed by morning dew. 

Some say violets capture a certain raw nature, many others pine over roses, and there are those of silk, that bare no resemblance to prose, without punctuation or stamen. 

4. The night is shared by good and bad voices, loudest to those who listen.

5. Color is not necessary for presenting a beautiful display. Light and heat are most attractive when removed.

6. A moth is a critical link in the food chain. 

Fake eyes, ink stains, shadow, ash and dirt colored, clicks and sonar are extra like lyricality. Both predator and prey are symbiotic as reader and writer, both flock to the light despite the smoke and despite the act of dying every night. 

Painting By Michel Bouillon, Vanitas c. 1668 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Do, Rey, Me, My, I

I admit-

I hate poems that start with "I",

which means I also hate this poem.

I mean, there is no "i" in "poem".

There is though, in "poesis" and "meta-

morphosis", just one

I mean, the making of one into many

more I's and i's.

It is not as if I care

about bravely baring the skin or showing some soul,

a sweet tooth for eye candy, and me, me, me...

Besides your self 

what is important to the eye is not the you

others see, really. Not fooling anyone in that mask.

I know you smile when others look at you,

but fail to see your eyes,

really,

I see you mocking me, and I do too,

since it was never about you

only I and I hated it. 

 Photo of Norma Talmadge (c. 1919) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The Quantity Quotient

None of it was good.
Others say it must be good enough
and I wrestled with it, tried to full nelson the
blue bloody life out of it
before I quit the last time.

You would think these simple words
which everyone uses every day in all
derivations of misappropriating ways,
would be something quite simple to me
whose word world
never stops flooding
the floorboards.

And I keep flailing around trying to see what will float
but the best words confound me, sunken.
And I cannot begin
to make them make something
to line up and make something.
There is no reaction.

There is no sense to this cold
natural selection, just rejection.
And it need not be the most profound, I most simply
meant to convey complexity in a novel way, some semblance
of chaos in a nutshell, since what sells is
simplicity as it offers beauty for the masses.
There is no madness in ramblings
when there is no place to get lost, and curiosity is what keeps
the clock ticking and nothing is done with
black and white shapes on white paper,
sitting there and undone
from completion
for good reason.

Twenty-four short little stories
abandoned,
seven attempts at a novel,
three keepers, one in no hurry to make it to the end,
or progress, I digress,
I guess it will all make sense later.

After eight hundred and eighty-eighty lousy poems
one word should be worth keeping
the baby in the bathwater.



By UnknownHerkulaneischer Meister, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

Discovered in 1760, is one of the most famous and beloved paintings, commonly called Sappho. Actually portrays a high-society Pompeian girl, richly dressed with gold-threaded hair and large gold earrings, bringing the stylus to the mouth and holding the wax tablets, notoriously accounting documents which therefore have nothing to do with poetry and even less with the famous Greek writer.

In the Rain Singing Purple Poems for the New Year

Another one

bites the motes, spits a clod, 

and is claimed by fame, all in a name.

Again, not I 

anonymous

let the book worms crawl in

and out as though it were all natural

and biodegradable over a lifetime

to deteriorate

this way

all of us bound in romantic tragedy,

we try to forget this poignancy

with age.

What comes

are words not unwise, nor mine.

Summarily, I listen.

My work is done

a hush has fallen.

Including this

one there were four hundred and sixty-nine

times I’ve stabbed at Truth-

only to burst bubbles, finding nothing

inside. I wrestle, is this not episodic

or just melodramatic...

I can guess. 

My pen is dull, I have no credit to my name.

What feels right in living like me

is all wrong for others

(monetarily). I owe them one

for their certainty. 

I feel no Nationalism

or sentiment

may be strong enough

to overcome

its little people. 

And here we are, another orbit around,

One (more) Earth year

To reset

our broken watches and records. 

Play it again Sam. 

Let us dance.

It may be our last chance 

to take it in

Memoriam.

Let us hum(an)

auld lang syne. 

Truce in Puce

I remember tiny patches

of every day.

One

little lyrical line to savour

one 

poetic phrase to ponder,

a vague quote to consider,

a few hundred pieces 

of art that evokes awe, or something

equally confusing.

And too, one or two 

new matters of fact 

to digest as my own

information source

and all is in total

speculation.

I sought likeness in disparaging items

and was most often wrong

all along

I should have been a skeptic.

I need more 

random memory,

and a more efficient CPU

Of course, you are needy too...

I have finally made my way over

terminal money 
        and time circles.

Statistically, 

all that on the line, waves,

vibrations, striations, 

I thought were mine to keep,

I cannot fit any more 

in my baggage

so I leave poems everywhere

it is only fair

for Them. 

Image credit By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ripples of rhyme

There were poems in there...
A whole slew.

Now all I hear is a faint
whisper of you.

The pond is still
from over-fishing.

I have no more pennies
for poetic wishing.

The water waits
without reflection...






Photo By NPS Photo [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.