purpose of writ

if no one reads is it really writ?

at night i wake
streams of words
some rushing like a swollen river
full of surprises
realizations
like sharp rocks
skinning our ego
shot through the rapids
the lesser to get any deeper
meaning

as if...

others meandering
as though
deep swollen bayous
home to gators
old man bodies
decomposing
here and there
deep stagnant pools
we gag
pulled under
our weakness showing

as if anything else
there was

not troubled to preserve it
none
instead
writing, imagining
the empty space
behind vacant eyes

the moon scuds
cloud shufflings
the dark silence
absorbing all the wrongness
til once more
heaviness takes hold
forcing us down
to another sleep
unknowing as the rest.

In the morning,
whenever we wake,
nothing remains
dim memories
faint in wistfulness
wondering
can we ever reclaim
that short peace

In futility
in ignorance
we write
what we think
we recall
knowing all along
we remember nothing
more than a feeling
strange in its quietude
trying to replicate

If we can connect
though fleetingly
with one in us but not connected
is it not selfish
hoping to connect
with an other
not here?

and so we write
it is writ
unread
the purpose?

Not a clue.

-------------
not that ...
but should a reader stumble
does it matter,
style, form or others, else?
about what is
what should be?
Some
pure poetry
some
anything but.
some connected
seeming so amyway --
here is one
there another
a poetry here,
and others not

and then are the photos
raw and shopped, mundane to soaring ....

is there anything to say
not already said, exhibited better than can be?
No one here has anything to say
and less to show for it
Maybe we all have nothing to say.
Still...
i've done nothing for time
only to have nothing to say ...
not willingly

noise is not better
than not
better to be quiet
put to sleep only to pretend
being, doing
when there's nothing at all.

concerts with the kid, apropos of nothing

Linkin Park
Hoobastank
Simon and Garfunkel
Elton John
Willie Nelson
BB King
Coldplay
Steve Winwood
Tom Petty
Counting Crowes
Michael Franti
Bob Dylan

the last two yet to come -- never saw Dylan or Franti -- her leanings eclectic.
I never went to any concert with my mother, never even crossed my mind. Not him either. So I think it's kind of neat this kid who hates me half the time, refuses to talk to me thirty percent of the time, sees and knows my stupidity well over half the time ... this pretty smart and good in spite of it all kid would want to go to a concert with me. All of them all her idea, even preservation hall in NOLA.
But she's still mad I didn't "force her" to go to David Bowie -- he's old she said. But M, Willie's and BB are dead this year or next, Petty was so loaded he had a nurse on stage to help him light one up, Steve Winwood is just as old; let's not even think about how long Simon and Garfunkel and Elton John are hanging on. But whatever ... I guess she'll be gone more or less for good in less than 2 months, empty nest again, but at least this is closer than Poland and easier, faster, cheaper to go from here to there. And it's warmer too.
So i guess we'll see Franti, and then to Dylan, and one more to Willie -- hope it's not an end -- then off she goes, driven to the sunrise for another new beginning.
I wish I'd done better, been better, given her more, let her be more
I wish I knew now the things I didn't know then, so I could do it right, so she had every advantage -- not material or money stuff (though money for college is always a good thing) -- but the stuff that matters - all the personal strenghts, resources, knowledge, things no one can take, to let her know she's ready, that she can do it all no matter ...
Off she goes, on her way ... nothing to do; I could pray I guess but right now that seems a pretty pointless, helpless thing to do -- just as well I wish I did it right to begin with.

nothing said

not here anyway

poetry feedback

I have the best husband -- sometimes it's frustrating because i don't do loveable well, sometimes it's hard to accept that I am loved, but he sticks in there anyway ... at least so far. He read about a local poetry competition. While being so nice as to never comment or say anything about whatever appears here, or what I write, or more importantly about anything behind whatever shows up here, he does at times read the blog and he suggested I do this thing.
I do not presume to write poetry -- it's that thing of having to do it right so if i deny I am trying to write poetry then I don't have to do it right, but if I said I was writing poetry then I would have to do it right or else ...

"Someone of unbound conscience can dare to get it wrong, because they don't have to get it right. If you have to get it right, that means that you don't dare to get it wrong, which means that you are afraid of what will happen to you if you do get it wrong." James Alison. On Being Liked. New York: Crossroad, 2003. 110

-- but since I can't admit I try to write poetry I could hardly select a poem for this project. So R made the selections. The required submission is 5 poems on 5 pages. I tried to pick -- not because I think I have anything (I'm still stuck on being wrong) but because R thought I should pick, and if he thought there was anything to any of it then I should try to pick. But I had no idea how or what to choose. No one has ever even suggested there's any merit to my writing, so ...

I may not have picked the same five he picked but I think they go together in a way and here, I will say it, those five don't suck so bad.
One wasn't even really written as a poem ... but R saw it differently and when I read it as he selected it, it was more than I thought before theat -- if that makes sense. the seeing through another's eyes os what we write is pretty neat.

Will any be recognized? I doubt it -- this group has a periodical and what I come up with is not anything like what they choose.
But that's not the point.

The point is that someone who doesn't read poetry, who reads a lot and knows a lot but seldom reads anything other than industry/tech/geek type stuff, who doesn't even listen to much music so far as I can tell unless he's stuck in my car with ipod or pandora on -- someone else read some of my stuff and five struck him as good enough ... seeing what he chose and him telling me some of why is a first, a rare -- I think the first -- interaction between me as a "writer" and anyone, to get an idea of what anyone else thinks about anything I write. I guess I'd like to have more of that interaction/input/feedback on writing.

I didn't know I missed or wanted it but now I know ... for whatever it's worth.

nothing said

I don't know that I have anything to say ... that's not really new. Since starting this I doubt my reasons -- I don't know many people and I don't have much to say, and I don't think anyone reads it -- and I know that's not supposed to be the point, but still it would be nice to think someone read it some of the time -- not this sort of junk but sometimes when it's other stuff ... and I found myself mostly putting things here ....

so anyway, i started another called poetry (k)not and today put the first thing there that might or might not be a poem, but i don't know why i did that, or that anyone will ever find it, maybe for the better ....

so there
I guess we'll see, maybe.
And maybe not.
Maybe later