I think most of the poems I hear at open mics and slams can be summed up in three words: “Where’s the love?”
This goes for political poems, love poems, and pretty much anything else I can think of.
Any other candidates for a good three word literary theory?
he slides
down the hospital corridor
in foam rubber slippers
and drawstring pants because
they’ve taken his belt away.
he spies her, lying in the bed
with her mummy-swathed wrists,
and when their eyes touch
it’s meat on a griddle: sizzle
and black marks all over.
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It’s odd to me that the next piece of the Jim and Sondra poems should be the last one in the series as I’ve envisioned it, but perhaps I need to figure out the end before I fill in the middle. After all, the Jim Poems weren’t written in order either.
I’ve also decided to take the unusual step (for me) of sharing this fragment before the poem is substantially completed. Just an experiment. I have no idea if this is the beginning, the end, the middle, or whether or not this will even end up in the completed piece. It belongs here now, I guess.
I kinda hate Radiohead, with the exception of “Idiotheque.”
The older I get, the more my listening tastes devolve to:
— three chords and great lyrics whether acoustic or electric
— cool beats, preferably not electronic
— outrageous free jazz and other experimental music — again, not typically electronic
There are individual exceptions, of course.
Onerous
as it may be to admit it,
I’ve got to allow
that inadequacy
has been my greatest strength.
It feels like everyone in the world
is better than me
at anything at which
I’m halfway good.
I wake up as a slouch
all the time, walk my sidewalk
with a dirty shuffle,
snicker when I should laugh
and sniffle when I should cry.
I think it’s because I’m old
and in the way. Overstayed
my welcome, became just good enough
to bother people without stirring them.
My pockets are lined with love notes
I never sent, full of bad grammar and diffidence.
Despite all that, I’ve got something in me
that likes this. I love biting on tinfoil.
I chew it up and spit it out and figure next time
I’ll swallow. All I’ve ever wanted is to be perfect,
and every failure has made me want it even more.
But here it is: the moment when I know
I’ll never be a star, never be a gadfly,
never be anything besides the old man
with bad hair and a decent vocabulary.
I used to trust my weaknesses to keep me strong
and wanting. I’ve got no reason
for that now. I’m winding my self up
in a torn blanket tonight, burning
the notebooks, falling asleep hoping I won’t
wake up — but I will, I’m sure.
Dark Matter 