much assembly required

Ether,

Here on Substantiopetrapopulus there is an expression of affection that takes the form of a collection of Others' introspection (thence funneled into the serendipitous perfection of a multi-track compression) in which the enamored one in question, after a session of deep and mesmerized reflection, has compiled a selection of apropos lyrics and a painstakingly just-so progression of musical ministrations.

AKA, The Mixed Tape. One lover to another, or a friend to a friend. A compilation of songs meant to convey a variegated yet cohesive audio-quilt of simpatico sentiment.

Typically, the mixed tape runs between 10 and 30 songs (depending on the degree of the giver's obnoxiousness and/ or the extent to which the giver suspects the receiver needs a thoroughgoing, propagandized force-feed).

Segue:

The assemblage of a poetry manuscript to be submitted to a particular contest, I have found, is like the making of a mixed tape. Except on steroids and for the behoof of an indeterminate audience.

For poets who don't get out much, I recommend a cluster of nearby knick-knacks. I also recommend getting out more, but that is neither here nor there. Well . . . it IS there but it's not here. Here being this: a poem born of reclusion.

Desk Globe

The desk globe makes its case

For world travel—spun

By a thumb, brought

To a shrieking halt by a

Forefinger.

A random locale with special

Meaning, like grandmother

Through the fanning Scriptures—

Her horoscope

On linen.

The whole earth—our subtle

Recline, our gentle

Catapult through the entirety of time—full of places

To meet our makers, to eat

Manically, to walk, lance blisters,

And walk on.

Like grandmother across

Her boundless losses—

Orthopedic shoes to Calgary,

There to lay down her accreted

Planet of mostly water.

finger-filters and the unconceived next

Is frustration a necessary offspring of writer's block? Or, differently posed, what do you call a cessation of creative output that is not accompanied by the maddening anxiety spurred by the prospect of never being able to write again?

If it is what it is, regardless of the quantity or quality of concomitant emotions, then I have writer's block. If it merely describes a lack of production, then yes I am afflicted by the Great Bane.

But there's this: I feel no dread. I fear no depletion of soul. The once maddening anxiety is now only a simpering nag--little pin-prick-pokes sufficient at best to pester-out this Nothingworld admission:

For what seems to be the life of me, I cannot tell a story of my own invention; but, even if it means the death of me, I am quite content resting on my withered and dry-bone laurel--that penniless symbol of my tiny contribution to the world of letters.

Let there be a moral here. A larger-than-me application to my few and dear readers. Let it have something to do with satisfaction and patience. Let it stand in lieu of the myth of lost time. Because there is always time for our next great thing. Because great things can happen in an instant--a wisp in the blue sky to be snatched for a second, admired, spoken of, then let to filter through fingers back into the blue, back into the wider world to dissipate and never gather again.

And let that be OK; let it be enough to keep us eager, not anxious, for the next stunning sentence of our stories.

It will come. Or not. Something may or may not surely come. I am ready for it all. Or nothing. Either way. I'll be OK.

back to a beauty

Water Wheel

The water wheel runs counter of time,

A Ferris of spillage

Reversing the mud-packed trudge

Of dialectic history.

Here the march is toward finitude.

Back to a beauty

Born of sediment and bone—grist

Of dinosaur, of godless

Wonders. Hearken the gurgle, the buckets’

Indefatigable churn.

The water wheel runs counter of time.

empathy in A minor

Yet another bit of blank verse for those keeping score.

We Wait With Her

In her hunch at the piano, we see

The weight of her existence. Fingers drape

The keys lightly, no pressure, no song.

We cannot see her face, and yet we know

The tear-veneered eyes, terse lips, and pale

Cheeks. From the slope of her shoulders, we guess

The invisible days gone by are stacked

To the brink of her atmosphere and pray

Soon they will topple, hurtle sun-ward,

Catch-fire and vanish in coronal flares.

We cannot plumb her thoughts, and yet we know

She’s ready—poised to start gently with a mere

Pulse of fingertips, then crescendo—slow,

Unveiling layers of ferocity

With every measure, deliberate rise

Upon rise. For now, no pressure, no song.

In the depths of her breaths, we learn

The pull of her descent into sorrow;

We wait with her, our own tears gathering.

our annual dread

Here's another poem submitted here for the sake of timeliness and not for the fact of its doneness. You see, I would rather come off as aware than I would as prepared.

Alabama Heat

It comes early and leaves late.

Each year we forget, stunned

By the oppression of the sun.

As Noah’s flood—from the sky,

from the ground, all at once—

The inundation of fire.

And yet somehow we forget the rivering sweat, the wavering asphalt, the lolling

Tongues of dogs.

It’s the burden we bear

To our swimming pools,

The yoke of our wet towels

Coming home; we slap mosquitoes, cussing

A storm, shaming grave-drowned mothers.

Fireflies elude the children,

High into the maple,

Down into the ditch.

Down where the black-bags

Of dry-bone leaves loiter, forsaken

By the city-trucks. Summer, summer, summer . . .

Fanning ourselves with yard-sale fliers,

We hum our praises

As we tend to do in the face

Of our oppressions, of our God himself—

His spirit descending like the gloaming-bats

To intercept the mosquitoes

And, our annual dread,

To alight in glory on our heads.

shake the shadow

Ether, I am old. Not ancient, not on my death bed, but old. Too old, more specifically, to continually fashion myself after the manner and modes of my mentors and betters. As I lay in bed last night editing a recent poem in my head (my most frequent and, unfortunately, most ineffectual sort of editing), it occurred to me that it was not J. H. Scott's voice warning about this cliche or his mental pen scratching out that hokey rhyme--it was the voice and pen of my mentors and betters. My little Obi Wan Kenobis speaking to me from your very own Nothingworld, dear Ether. And this was no isolated incident. I realized how pervasive are the voices of these Others in my editing process and, more discomfiting to me, how ultimately persuasive those voices are. I tossed, I turned, I got up to pee. Eventually, my own voice squeaked through, "You're getting too old for this."

Because at some point we have to let ourselves be ourselves. Authenticity. Actors on our own authority. Authorship. Not only good writing but so much of good living derives from the quality of our distinctions--even if it means we are doomed (no such thing but it I love the sound of that word) to being "inferior" or "marginal" in relation to the Others.

Can I evade the influence of my predecessors? No. On some level, no matter how I might protest, I will never even be able to shake the shadow of Shakespeare. How much less so my immediate influences? My thesis director to whom I owe the largest share of my development as a poet, my favorite contemporary poet, Andrew Hudgins, whose deft lines are at once flowing and formal, those of my peers I admire and envy? No, all of these and the many to come can not be avoided and should not be ignored. We are what we eat and we eat all the time--gobble what seems most delectable and too often glut on what we could really have done without--we require the nourishment of our surroundings for our sustenance as creative, authentic individuals.

That poem I was working on--well, it kinda sucked. To finish it, I decided, would be a waste of time. It just didn't jive with . . . wait . . . with what? On second thought, no . . . it's a mighty fine poem. Oh yes, it jove and it jives. With my mentors and betters? Not really. With me? Yeah, with me. I took a chance, stepped out of my mold, and proceeded in good faith. And it still kinda sucks. But I like it. And besides, I'm far too old to change it now.

Next poem.