Read Trying Not To Blink: A Poetry Collection Page 7


  To hang things

  But who among us can reach that high

  To even try?

  And who has the size or intentions for it

  To even work?

  It’s beyond our scope of range and time

  Still though,

  It serves as a pointed reminder that

  There is more

  To existence than our pithy concerns

  October 22, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  I don’t really know what this one means. A few nights ago the moon was extremely thin and sharp and it, for some reason, made me think of a coat hook. I then thought that when we get caught up in the silly nonsense of daily life in our “modern times,” it’s good to look up and think for a moment on the whole of existence to put things in perspective. When writing this I got more into the visual look of the poem. I don’t know why, but it’s somewhat interesting.

  Releasing Emily

  This week

  With great anticipation

  And trepidation

  I did and felt something akin

  To what a parent must feels

  When they drop a child off

  To college, and turn them loose

  Out in the cruel, wonderful world

  For the very first time

  I fretted and hoped I did it right

  Raising, grooming, instilling, inspiring

  Making it the very best that I could

  And now it’s her turn

  To make her way

  Emily’s failure or success

  Is a direct reflection upon me

  And the job I did

  Looking back at my creation

  I smile, cry, and laugh all at once.

  It doesn’t matter what others may think

  She’s perfect, flaws and all

  And I can’t help but beam with pride

  October 22, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  This week I released my novel, Emily Dickinson, Superhero – Vol. 1.

  What Fear Wrought

  Bullies

  Are children

  Who hassle, threaten, and beat others

  To make themselves feel better

  To assuage the fear they feel

  Bullies,

  Toughs,

  Aggressors,

  Oppressors,

  Tyrants,

  Terrorists,

  Are adults

  Who harass, intimidate, and torment others

  Because they are afraid

  Afraid of change

  Afraid of differences

  Afraid of things they don’t understand

  Acting in an identical manner

  To those they proclaim to hate

  Practicing a different religion

  On the other side of the globe

  The same cause

  The same end

  A self-replicating cycle

  October 22, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  I’m not a big fan of all the fear-mongering that gets so casually tossed about.

  Devolving Culture

  Problems with the system aside,

  How contradictory is it

  That in an educational setting

  A culture of stupidity and ignorance

  Pervades and imposes itself

  Through the bullying

  Of the smartest

  By the dimmest?

  In order to survive

  One has to either walk the fine line

  Of indifference and nonchalance

  Or join them.

  To do otherwise

  You risk standing out

  And becoming a target

  October 22, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  I got to thinking about growing up and being in school. I was a C+ student (got As in the classes I liked, Ds in the classes I didn’t like), but bullies frequently targeted me because I was fat, wore glasses, braces, and read a lot. I sometimes wonder how much more advanced our society would be if everyone worked together instead of spending so much time and energy trying to tear each other down all of the time.

  Crinkly Sweep Sweep

  Crinkly sweep, sweep,

  Sweeping the autumnal floor

  More jump tumble down

  From the woody hands held high

  Mocking the process

  Making me rake more

  October 30, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  NOVEMBER

  The Wind Raged On

  Hundreds of miles away we felt it.

  Tens of miles away, it got bad.

  First came the natural darkness,

  Then nature enforced it.

  Beer in hand, I sat on my stoop

  And observed an unseen situation:

  The city without lights; dead.

  Tiny windows of nearby buildings

  Lit up with candles and flashlights

  While the wind raged on

  Rolling garbage cans,

  Throwing newspaper boxes,

  And blowing noisy things around.

  Piercing blue and red with sirens

  As the disco cop cars

  Raced down the blackened street.

  Their lights crazily reflecting

  On and off every building.

  I sipped a drink

  And took it all in.

  November 2, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  A comic artist I know posted this the following on Twitter during Hurricane Sandy:

  @LucyKnisley: Wandered out to sit on my stoop and watch the disco cop cars race down blackened seventh ave while crazy things blew noisily around. Cool.

  Her words really struck me and I copied it in my phone’s Notepad so I could mold and shape it into something later. That later was tonight.

  Letting The Outsider In

  Strangers are easier

  Than friends.

  No history

  No future

  Just mild hope

  Washed warm

  And tumbled low

  With expectations

  It doesn’t matter

  Where they’ve been

  Or what they are now

  The comfort is there

  The need is filled

  With no messy cleanup

  How easily they blend together

  Just as easily as the months

  Blend into one another

  New page

  New stranger

  Same situation

  Letting the outsider in

  November 2, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  While in town, I saw someone flirting with another person and the title popped into my head so I wrote it down. Later, I tried to imagine someone who just lives in the temporary now as opposed to the long-term present and future.

  First Night Of Standard Time

  Quarter of five

  My view is dipped

  In a tinted shade

  That, not long ago,

  Was more like

  Quarter of nine

  I know the reasons

  For ending the savings

  But the first night

  Of standard time

  Is as shocking

  To my system

  As a glop of snow

  Sliding down my back

  And is the season’s

  Way of saying,

  Summer’s done

  Autumn’s fallen

  Winter’s coming

  November 4, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  It seems almost unfair, in a way.

  Living Between The Xs

  Was a three XLT

  But I’ve been lessening

  And steadily shrinking

  To the point where

  The three is too big

  But the next size down

  Is still too small

  The awkward in-between

  Of living between the Xs

 
; Is like a winding mountain road

  I’m in a place where I can’t stop

  I have to press and drive on

  Or put it in reverse

  And roll back down

  Which isn’t a serious option

  So I keep running

  Toward my goal

  Soon I’ll be down an X

  And there’ll be no going back

  November 4, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  Weighty issues.

  Factories

  Pieces of nature

  Are removed

  And delivered to

  Factories

  Where they are

  Manipulated

  Changed

  Combined

  Distilled

  Decorated

  Packaged

  Revalued

  Trucked

  Shelved

  Marketed

  Purchased

  Used

  Trashed

  And returned to nature

  In an unnatural state

  November 4, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  The other day it hit me that factories take the raw materials found in nature, do lots of things to them, and, in the end, they end up back in nature. I haven’t yet touched on all of the things I wanted to with this, so I finished my thoughts with the next poem, “Consumption Is A Hungry Thing.”

  Consumption Is A Hungry Thing

  Raw chunks and bits of nature

  Delivered to factories

  Repurposed; made civilized

  Turned into pretty things

  Designed to appeal

  To our wants and desires

  So we buy buy buy.

  Consumption is a hungry thing

  Simultaneously soothing

  And blinding us to the fact

  That we’re eating up our home

  November 4, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  The continuation of the theme started by that last poem (“Factories”).

  Notion In Mind

  We, as people,

  Should, in my belief,

  Be improving, advancing, evolving

  What we do and who we are

  With this notion in mind

  It’s interesting to look online

  See people I know from my past

  And who they are today

  Some, have grown greatly

  And advanced their lives;

  Some, have stalled still

  And settled for mediocrity;

  Some, have run reversed,

  And regressed to something less

  There are three choices

  Focusing ahead

  Looking down

  Longing back

  And it seems not many

  Share in my beliefs

  November 5, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  Why is there such a resistance to forward movement?

  The Problem

  Tonight’s culmination

  Of a too-long campaign

  Finds me avoiding the news

  Steering clear of social media

  Or anything of the sort

  I don’t know how

  They can call a state

  In favor of one or another

  When only 1% has reported

  It seems fishy to me

  Too much speculation

  Too much consternation

  Eventually giving way

  To much jubilation

  And much condemnation

  I think what Jesus said

  About a house divided

  Also goes for the Senate

  And the rest of the country

  But no one wants to listen…

  …and that’s the problem.

  November 6, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  Election night. I’m going to shut down the computer now and go read my Kindle.

  Disasters Are Wonderful

  Disasters are wonderful

  Opportunities for companies

  Occurring when natural selection

  Teams up and joins forces

  With planned obsolesce

  Ruining everyone’s everything

  So they have to buy more

  November 8, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  Heard something on NPR this morning where the National Automobile Dealers Association estimated that a quarter million cars would have to be scrapped because of Hurricane Sandy. This sounds like a dream come true for them, but it also got me thinking that all sorts of companies love disasters because disasters ruin everything and cause people to replace it all, spending tons of money on their stuff.

  Consumer

  It’s a horrible thing

  To refer to a person

  As a consumer

  As if insinuating

  Their sole purpose

  In life is to do one thing:

  Buy buy buy buy buy

  And nothing more

  November 8, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  A continuation of the theme from that last poem, “Disasters Are Wonderful.” What gets me about the word “consumer” is that we, as a society, are a-ok with it. I think calling a person a “consumer” is just as offensive as referring to a man as a “sperm donor” or a woman as a “baby factory.” In both of those cases, it is essentially breaking down our genders to their primary biological functions, but my God, we are so much more than that. Same with being called a “consumer.” Despite what the politicians and CEOs think, our life’s purpose isn’t merely to consume, and we as people should be actively rejecting that label.

  There Will Be Duplicates

  There will be duplicates

  I know, I am aware

  Please be patient

  With what I may write

  Now and in the future

  A poet cannot write just a single poem

  About the moon and stop, done,

  Never to broach the subject again

  So you may see some themes touched upon

  Over and over

  But one thing that will happen

  Is the lens viewing

  Combined with

  The mind observing

  Will make the description clearer

  Through the additional experience of life

  And the repeating thoughts

  Should be better refined

  Hopefully.

  November 8, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  It occurred to me that I tend to get inspired by the seasonality of life, and that, in turn, may make for a lot of repeated ideas in my poems. I imagined me, decades from now, looking back over my poems and seeing a lot of the same titles, sighing and saying, “damn it.” After some thought, I realized, hey, it’s ok, Emily Dickinson probably wrote over a thousand poems about birds* (bobolinks in particular). That clears the way for me to write dozens about hearses on fire or glow star stickers on the ceiling.

  *Just kidding.

  The Futuristic Sight

  A woman working at her computer

  Using the Wi-Fi at the local McDonald’s

  Talking to her MacBook

  With her headphones on

  Skyping with a project co-worker

  A large group of older people

  Taking up several tables

  Are all atwitter, bothered, and confused

  By the woman acting crazy

  Conversing with her computer.

  Trying to figure out what she’s up to

  One by one, they go to the bathroom

  On the return trip, they lean and peer

  See someone on the screen, and know.

  Impressed by the futuristic sight

  They report back to the rest of the group

  Ignoring the intense stares,

  Puzzled looks, and camera lean-ins

  Streaming from the group of olds

  She keeps on working

/>   November 13, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  This happened to Kari today.

  Getting The Word Out

  It’s one thing to write something;

  The personal nature of the work

  Can make a writer feel protective

  Naked, and exposed

  But getting the word out

  Can be a double-edged blade;

  The deeply rooted need

  For people to read it

  But also being equally afraid

  That people will read it

  November 13, 2012

  Benson, Vermont

  This is how I feel right now. I’m in the process of sending emails to potential reviewers trying to get them to read Emily Dickinson, Superhero – Vol. 1. I’m happy every time I send off an email, but at the same time, I’m constantly looking at my inbox with a feeling of apprehension and dread…that someone might possibly write back.

  Reading Someone Else’s Poetry

  This is going to sound stupid

  Coming from someone

  Who labels himself a poet

  But wow, when I’m reading

  Someone else’s poetry

  It’s hard not to roll my eyes

  And groan inwardly

  At the layer of pretention

  Slathered thick between

  The obvious end crusts of irony

  Sandwiching in the rancid cuts

  Of painfully melodramatic allegory.

  Glancing at it, I usually pass

  And fill up on chips.

  I say these things

  Despite having frequented that kitchen myself

  Partaking of those very same ingredients

  And preparing the same steaming meals

  That I am refusing to eat.

  Over the years, I’ve learned a lot

  Most notably, restraint.

  Now I sprinkle rather than smother,

  Garnish instead of bury,

  And hint as opposed to ladle.

  Like anything, moderation is the key

  Being too heavy-handed is fine

  And sometimes what one needs

  Once in a great while

  The rest of the time,

  It’s best to hold back

  And offer a varying buffet

  Enticing the reader to return

  November 13, 2012

  Benson, Vermont