exorcises

these poems
are ghosts

head-hauntings
i have to stop
& exorcise
just to function

unpossessed,
like a normal
person & not
a writer

not some
brainpriest
splashing
holy water along
inner walls

repeatedly, all
hours of the day
just to keep
the spirits
of words from
physically
harming me

from breaking
all my inside
furniture,
from scaring
too many
visitors away.

morning

some days, like today, i feel electric beyond the ends of my fingers and toes. i get that internal resonance with everything around me and feel, for a moment, in tune with life. when the inner discordant wah-wah-wah of being just a little sharp or a little flat disappears and i get to just be, and being is good.

woke up an hour early today, long before my alarm. surprisingly, because i didn’t fall asleep last night until nearly 3 a.m., and i couldn’t go back to sleep. so, i took a nice long shower, took my time getting ready. put on some music and read a few good poems. makes me want to get up a bit early every morning. stop the rush and get inspired. any day started with poetry is a good day. any day when you’re not torn from the cocoon of your bed before you’ve metamorphosed enough to face a new day, is a good day.

feels like when i get a few moments to just get in tune with the day, the little irritations i normally face are given a proper proportion and thus become more easily disposed. i am not generally a morning person, but more and more lately i can find the appeal in it. which, fittingly, is the same appeal i find in the nighttime… people are still sleeping, and it’s quiet enough to think and do things, for myself, without interruption. navigating my way through the stillness that nestles around, and cups, inspiration. and i find my motivations and my reasons easier to reach.

i suppose i just prefer quiet before the day begins, or in general, as preparation for creating anything. it reminds me of that beautiful Ralph Waldo Emerson quote:

"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think. This rule,equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

it turns out that morning is a good time to get a good grasp on my independent solitude, and have it last me through the day.

parenthesis

my poetry
a kind of
postscript significant.

after-the-fact
parenthetical
asides, to read once
i’m finished.

posthumously pertinent
or seashelled:

right now, not
in-hand examined;
merely seen at feet,

objects which curl in
on themselves,
hold something alive.

so i, i will keep
curling.

a little experiment
of toughing it
out here on earth,

just the same.

cardigan

day dawned
already filmy,
grease-stained from
dark dreams.

the last legs of my
indifference
collapsed at 9 am,
everything

engulfed in flames.
ran through
a few rants,

waited
for the caffeine
cooldown & a bit
more clarity.

bad feelings
are not bad
in themselves.
you feel them
& move on,

like you put sweaters
in dressing rooms
back on hangers
when they don't fit.

no luck in store today
try again tomorrow.

pick

a word, pick
a string of words.

a poem can be
a beaded thing, not like
a strand of pearls, more like when you stick
a threaded needle into
a bright pile of glass beads.

a pattern emerges,
an unintended result of repetition.
a single bead that marks
a beginning:
a color, or shape for
an eye to stick to.

a rhythm in
all of the static
and white noise.