It’s funny. I don’t feel like writing poetry any more. I don’t feel like it’s part of me, to be honest. It’s a part that left with the strokes — took a while to fade, but it feels gone, gone for good.
I have two notebooks left at my folks’ house, I think, that I have to get back — they contain my poems from 1974-1980 or so — so I can do a final reckoning of how many I’ve written (or so — I know it’s bound to be off) and then decide what to do about possibly completing the 10K I set for myself years ago; or maybe not — maybe I just wipe my hands of it all? It will depend on how many are left of the 10K I’d planned. I think it will come to roughly 500 or so. I can’t see myself planning that many poems, but I think so.
This is all a Meaningless Exercise, of course…I know that deep down, whatever I complete will be the Work regardless of how much will be left behind; I know the actual count will be more or less than 10K, probably less. It’s OK. It’s a number I can wipe my hands of…”how many did you write, Tony?” “oh, I dunno…10,000 or thereabouts…” And then I’d wave my hand around, vaguely.
The Work as a whole, as a continuum, is what counts. Individual poems may stand out, but they fade, eventually. What will matter, for a short time perhaps, is that I did the Work.
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onward,
T
Dark Matter 
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