Writer's Block, Pt. 2

If I think, and therefore am, then what of writer's block?
Is it dangerous, like leaving Slim Shady with a glock?
If I'm only blocked partway, and get out in short bursts,
Then I need to be careful which influence hits me first.
If I read something corny, or for shock, with nothing behind it,
Then I lose my lit-fiend's edge; it could take weeks to find it,
and leave my daily life blurred and clumsy, snake-bitten.
Why else do you think this missive was written?

The Poet's Perpetual Curse

I live the poet's perpetual curse.
Words are imperfect, in life or in verse.
How do I keep that casual feel
Without coming off as an uncaring heel?
But I have to keep trying.  One thing worse than that
Is over-sincerity, which leaves everyone flat.

Sonnot x+11: Rusting

There's a hot tub full of three years of what the wind blows
Or the rain leaves behind.  No one quite knows
What that damp old thing is coated in.
What grows still in unkempt idleness once bubbled with sin.

So too idle rests a dust-bearded beer sign,
Pilfered from a college bar for its neon light
Under which parties once roamed, mindless and wild.
Now it sits in the attic, out of use, out of style

On top of the pool table, riddled with scratches.
Memories of playing there come in jerks and snatches,
Half-passed out with drunkenness, trying trick shots on dares.
I can hardly recall all the girls I had there.

Here lie the bachelor's artifacts, rusting,
Given up, one can hope, for someone worth trusting.

To Find Themselves

Life is easy for the easily pleased,
Who never seem to find themselves squeezed
Between a rock and a hard place, a place most of us know.
For those without that get-up-and-go,
Find something that gets you going.  You won't get far
Sitting in the passenger seat of your own car.
The grade doesn't seem quite as steep on life's bends
If there's something worth waiting for 'tween here and day's end.

Why I Write, Part x+104: Glue

A day late, a dollar short,
What can you do?
But my dollars are late,
and my days are short, too.
Things were just fine
When the winter winds blew,
But summer burnt the time off,
and away my friends flew.
My routines, the confine me;
I'm confused by the new.
Just one thing holds me together:
My writing's my glue.

After Six Years Wasted/Perspective on High School

After six years wasted

and five years of schooling

I'll be coming up

On my ten-year reunion.

I might ask my best friend

To tell me who goes.

Though half my heart might be there,

I probably won't.

I'll wait another ten years,

'til I'm twice as old

As I was then, for the proper

Perspective on high school.

Sonnot x+10: Worth the Same to Me

One minute of writing time,

One hour of reading,

and one inning of baseball

Are all worth the same to me.

One hour off work,

With other demands on my time,

Is worth five minutes of DVDs

For inspiration every night.

My system of value,

Idealogical and flawed,

Gets me into trouble,

But in my head, it's the law.

(No dollars were used

In this barter with the muse).

Performed

I have performed:

An unthinkable act

On the biggest stage,

A great feat of strength,

An operation upon my own mind,

Admirably under pressure,

In the spotlight,

On command.

I saw you and said nothing.

This Is Just a Tribute

This poem is a tribute to the

Very short runs.

Good things come in small packages.

One season his hardly enough to

Meet the characters,

More than enough to fire the imagination,

Just enough to write your own endings,

Logical and divergent.

Perhaps one season is the perfect length,

Though countless fans would dispute that.

Perfection is divisive,

In the guise of uniting enthusiasts.

Irony Through Others' Eyes

Someone seeing me at six and saying

“Good morning,”

Or the radio playing “It's a Beautiful Day”

In a spitting, horizontal rain

Don't rate as irony.

They make perfect sense to me.

I have been forced to grow wise

To irony through others' eyes.

Behind My Words

You are the wind behind my words.

My appreciation for you girds

My swelling pride, my swollen praise,

My wordplay and my turn of phrase.

Your face outstrips sculpture by half,

Know how to dance and when to laugh.

You're enticing when you stay or go.

Enticing's, moving's what you know.

You're superficial, incomplete.

You can't inspire Donne's conceits.

Ditch Diggers, Poets

Ditch diggers, poets everywhere will be united when

They finally find the difference 'tween a shovel and a pen.

They're essential tools for searching – in the ground and in the mind.

They're essential for protecting anything that you may find.

They're essential for a baseball game – lineups and pitching mounds.

They're essential to raise buildings, from the roof to underground.

A treasure hunt with either can be good and messy fun.

The one essential difference is the blisters when you're done.

Remember When

Youth has an unrestrained strangeness to it.
We grow and we can't remember when we knew it.
More foreign than photos of when we were small,
Are mementos of childhoods we never knew at all,
But when pictures from love's past meet love addled minds,
We look fondly on childhoods we didn't see the first time.

Impressions

Not everyone stretches themselves to make impressions,
But we see them.  They accept the impressions we give them,
But perhaps we don't read people, but have waking sadist dreams.
Perhaps a stranger's not as confident or lonely as he seems.
Perhaps we're wishing.  Perhaps we're projecting.
Perhaps we can't meet everyone; we're preemptively rejecting.

Invisible, Pt. 2

Invisibility is not learned.
It's something that's earned
By those who outlive
The regard the world gives
Them, allows them to have.
I wonder if the invisible are sad.

The Human Condition

There is no study guide in the human condition
For the presumptuous horror of self-recognition.
Is it possible I sound, look like, come off like that?
I view him sidelong, with horror, but don't stare, 'cause in fact
We don't share friends or thoughts.  We aren't the same man.
He's only wearing my pants.

Bounty

Our meeting seemed like fate, since I didn't intend it,

But fate is just another word for intent.

I'm the hallway you walk through, your step two to profit.

I will be your bounty, surrender, get you what you want.

My strength is self-control, my weakness perverse admiration

For the determined way you ask of me, among other things.

I've never been afraid to do the thing I shouldn't do.

It won't hurt like I've been warned, nor be easy as you allude.

The hardest thing to do is sacrifice for another's desire,

But I will let you bring me out into the light.