Creative Withdrawal

Sometimes I sit down and try to write something a little more real or confessional here.  I'll even write several paragraphs.  Then I just erase it.  I'm not sure why.  You'd think as much as I write I'd be able to explain a few emotions or thoughts.  I generally can't.  Not in a straightforward manner.  It's easier through an abstraction, the obtuseness of an image.

Today I'm suffering a little creative withdrawal.  This is not a new phenomenon for me.  I usually dip when I finish a project or even a major leg of it.  We had a recording session for The Pine Barons, an animation project I'm working on.  I spent so much effort writing the episodes, editing the episodes, rehearsing, organizing table reads and schedules, setting up the space, motivating even when I'm unmotivated, just getting it all together.  And I'm drained.  Just hollowed out.

And we haven't even started animating it.  Haven't even gotten to the hard part of it.

You would think that a creative endeavor finished would bring a sense of accomplishment.  A relaxing of the brain.  But instead it feels like getting off a drug.  My mind cycles down into a lower RPM and I miss the speed.  I want that much energy back in my life.  I need it.

Someone asked me once, "What would you do if didn't write?"  And I didn't know how to answer.  Because there isn't anything else.  There isn't me without these buttresses.  At this point, I don't know if I've always been this or I've replaced every stone until I became this.

I recently taught a writing class and this girl was asking me how I write everyday.  I wanted to ask, "How do you not?"

So this project is done. Partly.  And now I just move the train forward.  Start unloading the next car.  I have ideas stretching back into some vanishing point in my subconscious.  If there's such a thing as Writer's Block, I've never seen it.  I told this writing class: Just write something else.  The brain is a limitless machine.

This is why I don't write my feelings. I feel it gets weird or preachy. Thanks for indulging me.  Back to silly stuff.  Maybe once I get a few things in place, you'll find some poetry on here again.  That's a quiet room I'd like to sit in again.

Roads

My brain is exhausted.  It's why my blog has been neglected.  I've been working on a couple non-blog projects and I seriously can't see straight anymore.

For of those you who live around me, I'm sorry. I'm a nutcase.  All I do is talk about scripts and projects. I have no shut off mode.  I look harried.  I'm obsessed.

For those of you who don't live around me, too bad.  I'm awesome.  You should totally live around me.  I have a freaking cool wife, Valerie. Who is talented at so many things it makes me sick.  And I have a baby that looks like this when she's eating avocado.

So here's a preview of a script I've been working on.  Because really, truthfully, until this thing is done, I can't do anything else.  My brain is trapped.  But I thought some of you might be interested. (Or I'm just putting it out there because I'm a narcissist.)

To set it up.  This is a conversation between two brothers, Zane (older, a little pretentious) who has just come back home and his younger brother, Marc (smartass, big heart) who really wants everyone to move back into their old house. Also, the shirt sleeves on Marc's shirt were ripped off (by himself) at a bar the night before.

Excerpt from Homebound


INT. HOME - ZANE’S BEDROOM - THE NEXT DAY
Zane wakes up to Marc sitting next to him in an armchair eating cereal.

MARC

Where are you going to live?

ZANE

Well, God Morgen. That’s German. I’ll be staying with an undergrad professor. Except now I’ll be trading sex for rent instead of grades.

MARC

That’s cool slash gay.  You should just stay here. 

ZANE

There’s too much old me in these walls. I feel like I’d regress.

MARC

So let’s regress. Into awesome days of yore. Full on brother battles. Icee drinking contests. You helping me with spelling.

ZANE

Do you want me to stay here? 

Marc is trying to hide his feelings about it.

MARC

No! Go bang away. I don’t care or have nostalgia and Benj hates you! Sorry. I meant to say do you want some Cocoa Pebbles then Benj hates you.

ZANE

No thanks. I’m on a superfood fast. And how could he hate me? He drew me this picture at the bar.

Zane holds up childlike drawing of Zane and Benj hugging.

MARC

Hold on. Have you tried Cocoa Pebbles? It’s a superfood.

ZANE

Do you know what a superfood is?

MARC

I’m not some jerk who segregates food into super and regular. Don’t listen to him, my chocolate babies. You’re great.

ZANE

Well, I’m sure he wants to talk.

MARC

He wants to punch you in your faceholes. He thinks you abandoned Mom when she got sick. 

ZANE

I avoid being punched in the face. That’s where my ideas exit.

MARC

(noticing the time)

The will reading! Shirt sleeves don’t sew themselves back on. 

Marc gets up and runs through the door.

ZANE

(yells after him)

You can borrow a shirt!

MARC (O.C.)

I’m too proud!

Versus #1: A Crazy Homeless Dude

I have never been in a fight. I have never been punched in the face. People have wanted to punch me in the face. People have even promised to fight me, shoved me, or stared me down. But as of yet, no one has followed through.

But if I started fighting, I have some predictions.

THE MAIN EVENT

IN THE RATTY TRUNKS:

CRAZY HOMELESS GUY (not to be confused with regular Harmless Homeless Guy)
KNOWN POWERS:

Nose Punches of Mega Stench

Confusing Gibberish

General Disregard for Rules of Fighting

Blood Disease

SIGNATURE MOVE:

Biting and Grappling while the assailed is trying to keep the saliva out of his eyes

WEAKNESSES:

Money

Leftover Steak in a To Go Box

A Kitty Parade (a weakness for everybody)

IN THE LINEN TRUNKS:

JAMES "SOFT TOUCH" BEST

KNOWN POWERS:

High Tolerance for Gross Out

Daddy Issues

Disarming Jokes and Grins

Viking Bones

SIGNATURE MOVE:

The "Why Would You Want to Hit Little Old Me?" Smile

WEAKNESSES:

A Good Soft Cheese

Prefers To Keep His Nose Unbroken

Pictures of Baby Animals

ROUND 1

Crazy Homeless Guy after punching himself in the head and screaming for the demons to leave, suddenly leaps onto James, quietly reading on the subway. After shrieking and wrestling off the first wave, James stands in the middle of the subway car, scared that he won't be able to wash off the stink. Realizing he won't be able to avoid an altercation, James hunkers down for a brawl.

ROUND 2

Crazy Homeless Guy launches an all out smell-o-ttack at James. James uses his brain box to lie about imaginary bottles of schnapps and leftover bag fries that he promises are in the next car. Crazy Homeless Guy gets confused, starts scratching himself and looking around for the promised goods. James tries to draw an instructional diagram in his notebook about what "This Car" and "Not This Car" means. Crazy Homeless Guy barks.

ROUND 3

James braces for the subway car to slow down at the next stop. Crazy Homeless Guy starts shuffling towards James. He puts out his hands for money. James reaches into one of his pockets. His left hand is trapped! Crazy Homeless strikes, leaping off his non-diabetic foot. James wheels back, the door opens, he minds the gap, and he is free. Running down the platform, his flip flops making manly sounds slapping against the cement, howls of the homeless behind him.

WINNER: ME (if I don't have hepatitis)

Decisions and Other Bad Words

Once again, I did not finish my 30 day project. This was by design.

I have way too much on my plate.

This is what I fear to be: Jack of all Trades, Master of None.

I actually have this phrase consistently stuck in my head. I find myself trying to do too much. Take on too many types of artistic endeavors.

Sometimes I get too involved with improv. And I think, "Yeah, this is what I want to do. Improv." But then I read a book of poetry and realize how much I miss it.

Then I'll act in something and think about that. Then I'll think about being a teacher only or I'll think about only writing plays or whatever. Sometimes I'm a goldfish.

I was going to list goals for the rest of this year. Things that I'm trying to accomplish but they sound so pretentious. So big.

I'll keep them to myself for now. Maybe I'll post them when I finish them.

Sometimes you just need some time.

Day 6 - Other Worlds

Many Worlds. Many Worlds. I'm obsessed with physics. I tell Valerie that I'm a freelance scientist. She tells me there's no such thing.

I'm going to write another blog post today about projects. My mind is in so many camps right now. I'm going to take a night off tomorrow night and just play some mindless videogames or watch a movie.

Fiction

I keep a book of fiction hid,
illustrated in almosts and coulds.
Sometimes I will open, read a lost story.
Here is my mother, still in Virginia,
never returned, her hair as long as her will.
She makes none of us. She lives a different happy.
This is my brother with his twin alive.
His twin has a name. It is not Craig
and now there is no Craig. We never know him.
Here is my Aunt Connie. She never teaches me the C word.
Here is the rabbit I lawnmowed. Whole.
Here we are rich. Here we never lived.
Here we are just altered a few different choices.
Here I am without a star to steer by.
Here I am never born and nothing changes that much.
My grandma is a socialite in one world, her husband stoic and handsome.
There’s our trees back with no tornado.
There’s our house carved through.
Here is Craig teaching me something.
Here is Craig without an easy smile.
There is a story of my grandpa keeping his bike shop,
he never finds religion, his rides get longer and longer.
One day he is found twisted around his bike.
He never married anyone to miss him.
There goes my uncle, a lawyer in this dream.
In this version, my sister has no mirrors.
In this one, my wife marries another man.
We are too happy with each other at parties.
I am jealous and she never knows.
In another, she has everything and I am not part.
In three of these, I suffer from ideas of eyes within eyes.
In sixteen realities, my mother has no doctors.
In seventy two, Allen and Craig never become my brothers
and I never read those.
In fact, there are four thousand eight hundred and ten stories
which I never open and never will.
And there is one tale, a bit like this,
which I keep a bookmark in. I never read ahead.
I never want to know the ending.

Day 4 - Miles to Go

Sure, it's another sleep poem. Sometimes I get stuck on thoughts. It's a phase. Until I get some rest. Ok, to bed. This is something. Or other.

Some Dreams May Come

If I was lacking a bed
I would learn to sleep standing,
to sleep sitting, to eat with sleep,
to shower and snore, to move
my world into the unconscious.
How much time saved
to steer my dreams into the mundane.
A slept life would shield me
from seeing judgment, seeing inequality.
All passers could be wearing heads of friends,
all traffic could be ocean static.
My days would stay an easy manner,
my clothes would settle into simpleness,
pullovers, Velcro and slippers, jumpsuits.
I could sleep past all unpleasant.
Know no war.
No age to feel in my structure.
And one day the dream would shake
would blur, the sky would gong
with a loud heart, and I would know.
As loved ones appeared and echoes left,
I would turn to say goodbye and trip
into nothing, into forever, into a bright oblivion,
into the dream I waited for all my waking life.

Day 3 - Sleepy Time Tea

This project always drives me crazy. And if Valerie's too close to me while it's going on it's liable to drive her crazy. I have such limited hours in the day. I try to write something everyday but many times it turns into a race against sleep.

I find that many of these become sleep poems. I can't help it. So I'm reading Tony Hoaglund's Donkey Gospel, Theodore Roethke's On Poetry and Craft, and John Berryman's 77 Dream Songs. All of these are definitely influencing this.

Also, Galway Kinnell. He's in here. There's something Sharon Olds said about him not being afraid to show us all the rawness of the body. The disgustingness, the fluids we don't speak of. I can't go that far. Or maybe I can and I can't post it here.

Here's this. Also, I've been reading and pondering the Many Worlds theory. Quantum Suicide. Things like that. So that's in there, too.


Before I Wake

When I feel asleep at the wheel,
as you know there are theoried many worlds,
and between mile 94 and 93 two came to exist.
See when I sleep I drop left
onto my arm, into a dead man’s position.
This is a baby learned thing maybe
probably to guard a long gone pacifier.
It’s creased in my bones,
I fall into it like a tent collapsed.
How different would I be as a back sleeper?
I’d be readier,
I could sit up in the night,
not untangle like a spider.
My arms could spring from rest
free, prepped for any bedding woman.
I would study political science.
I would eat balanced meals.
Instead of all blood pooling
in my stomach and penis
causing all dreams to be of hungry sex
or at least interpretable of that,
blood would distribute through my back
giving me daytime posture and purpose
steered by my sleep strong neck.

But I don’t spend nights that way,
I sleep selfish, arms for me,
a pillow too thin to be shareable
nightly and this night especially
I am smashed into darkness.
In one world at least
I never wake up from my baby sleep.

In my world, somewhere between
Coldwater and Hell, Michigan
I sleep a whole mile.
Waking curled into the window,
I see the steering wheel,
steady, making corrections
for me, for some reason
I can’t even guess at now.

Day 2 - Space Cadet

So I'm delirious. I worked until 530 in the morning. And I've been trying to listen to General Conference today but I just can't get my mind to stay straight. So I wrote this weird poem. And I just ended it because I need to go to a party and I need to get some sleep before I start hallucinating.

Here's something. Fun and weird. I just believe that you shouldn't quell impulses. If this is what you're writing or working on, you should just ride it through. Sometimes you're surprised. Other times it's just as weird as you thought.


Love and Rockets

I’ll say it again.
If you love me, build me a rocketship.
I bet by morning burn,
we could slap together a space jalopy.
Every car on our block could be part,
while these drivers steer through streets of dream
we could cut their rides to piecemeal,
puzzle a spacecraft from hubs and doors.

I don’t believe in rocket science.
I only believe in will.

Let’s stuff the cabin for takeoff
with pillows, with couch cushions.
Finally apropos, we’ll run our space heater
off our army of car batteries.
Scuba tanks and fishbowls,
snowsuits, mittens, boots.
Nasa schmasa. Funding schmunding.

We need to get back to zero
gravity, feel the shedding
of the world’s steady weight.

And when we’re up, out, left or wherever
when we’re buzzing the moon,
dipping our fin through its ocean of dust
watching the earth like a beach ball
on one of God’s zillion fingers
you will say, “I get it now.”
And I will get it, too.

30 Poems for 30 Days - ATTEMPT 3!

Here's the thing. I've started this twice before. I've gotten to roughly 18-20 days in and then had life get in the way. This will not happen again. I will conquer this. I'm a busy person. Everyone's a busy person. I work 12-15 hour days. Well, sleep can suck it. Because I'm going to do this. And I'm starting on the first day of the month. That will make it easier to know where I am. Attempt 3. Start.

This started as a joke. I started this joke with Valerie and Annie and Ben a few years ago. The idea of generic obituaries. And then I started writing them on people's facebook pages. And then my friend Steven Hopkins pointed out that what I was writing was sort of beautiful. And then I realized. My humor and my poetry interweave so much. So I wrote this.

Generic Obituary for Anyone

When he was alive, it was apparent.
He knew the names of many things.
He reacted. He had emotions.
All his experience became memory.
There was enough air for him to breathe.
When he spoke he was acknowledged.
Sometimes he would sit and just be a person sitting.
Other times he was stirred by purpose.
There were people he called friend
and those he called stranger.
He called a place a home.
Sometimes he was alone, and sometimes the world
felt thick around him.
Wondering why some things worked the way they do,
he discovered a universe within him.
He left his fingerprints.
Some of you met him.
For many, he would exist like a pebble
on a beach you never heard of.
When he slept he had dreams
he never described to anyone.
These were wholly his own.
He has taken them with him.
He will be missed by a percentage of the world.

How I Lost the Ability to Talk

Somewhere I found a work habit. It seemed all I needed was a schedule. And Valerie. And once I had both those things, I was able to sit down and write. Everyday. I now sit down and write whenever I can. Any free moment.

I've always had my fingers in too many honey pots. Always trying to tackle more than I can. Poetry, plays, songs, film, essays, children's lit. I find myself always wanting the thing I'm not writing currently. When I'm writing poetry, I'm thinking of comedy. When I'm writing laughs, I'm dreaming of metaphor.

It's not an unhappy thing. It's just the way I'm wired. Comedy and poetry are a lot closer than you think. I'll explain sometime.

But now that I spend so much time writing, and filming, I have nothing else on my mind. I fixate on the ephemeral, on the unwritten, the undone. My mind is a constant problem solving machine for my current writing projects.

This is my head on any given day:
"How do I write the story of Kevin's accident without being oversentimental?"
"How are math and death the same?"
"If I want this character to sound more noir, how do I keep this modern joke?"
"Why do I hate topical humor so much?"

And somewhere along the way, I've lost the ability to speak. About normal things. About things that are not my projects.

People ask me how I'm doing and I tell them WHAT I'm doing. People ask me banal questions like, "How was your weekend?" (Like someone just did three minutes ago.) And I answer, "Good. I met with this friend to direct a project and had this other screening thing to go to." (Like I just did two and a half minutes ago.) Not: "It was a good weekend. Kind of busy." Like normal people.

It's become bad. Valerie and I have talked about it. I'm so far inside my head that I really have to consciously make myself step out. I practiced at a party this saturday. Not talking about anything I'm doing. Chatting up random people about anything besides my projects.

Now I'm going to go edit this new web series I'm working on. And I'm planning to finish my 30 days project. Or start anew. Because I've started it twice and never finished. (Here's the funny thing. Even as I started writing this paragraph I realized that I'm essentially doing the same thing. But I wrote it anyway. Because this is what I am.)

Maybe I'll just go home and watch a movie. Tell someone what I liked about it. Like normal sauce.

Army Husbands Ep. 3

So this one was a weird one. I had an episode written and then we decided to scrap it. About four days before we started shooting. We came up with a new episode. Disagreed on that. Kept it. Worked it. And ended up with this. There's some fun stuff. Ken Beck who plays Landon Langdon was awesome to work with. He's an actor and comedian here in New York. Hope you dig.

Day 17 - Missed a Day

I'm falling asleep into my notebook. Things to say tomorrow. Something small for now.

Aurora

I told you of
the Northern Lights

How the sky bent
to catch all
the stars' splash.

Day 16 - Monday is Fun Day

Soooo, I had a great night's rest (this is a picture of our bedroom) and I had about half an hour to sit and write some poems today. The first is inspired by Valerie telling me to write a poem about going to sleep last night. And these are both close studies of Denise Levertov poems. In fact, the structure is the same and they have similar themes. I don't know how anyone gets better at any art without imitation. I feel that I grow leaps in imitation. Here's the first.

The Secrets That We Keep

Long after you slip to sleep
going on before
I speak my thoughts to you

and you, prone and drifting,
give answer
from the auguries of dream.

I ask tonight, If we love better,
and you oracle back:
The moon is only the sun’s,

the waves the moon’s, the sky
the waves’.
For all, to all, jealousy is king.

Be jealous for me and I’ll never
let the earth
claim you, from bones to words.

And then you roll, tuck the pillow
into your arms
and sink too deep for speak.

Now I will scratch a little more,
climb next to you,
buy the same long ticket.

Day 15 - Final Tanka

Not a weekend of rest. Just a weekend of go. I achieved this quiet moment tonight to read more Kimiko Hahn and write some more tanka. It's a form I'm still working on and she never uses all the numbers she writes and she never uses them in order. So i'll have to consider. But here's a few more. And tomorrow starts Denise Levertov. Depending on if I write a Zuihitsu, another Japanese form.


Brooklyn Tanka

24
Upstate looks like Michigan but not Michigan. It must be the trees. Or me.

25
On the Hudson, the cliffs miniature all the cities. Shrunk cars wait for a toy train full of people impossibly small making gestures barely noticeable and speaking in voices no louder than dust rubbing together.

26
I am full to the eyes tonight. And a slow tug pushes me from my chair to my bed where Valerie is lying in X formation.

27
Let’s travel to the upstate of our minds. I hear a whirring fan, the night slush of traffic. A dream I never ended has a new twist to show me.

28
The words are enough nightshade to end this. I have your confidence. I will return. Leave in your mind a door cracked open.

Day 13 - Cheat Codes and Tanka Projects

So I'm doing it again. I'm saving a spot. Making a post without a poem. I have one, I just need to put it down. But the clock is ticking. Eight minutes left. Not my fault! I worked until 8. Went straight to Prospect Park where The Swell Season were playing. (The Swell Season are the two musicians from the movie Once.) Listened to them. Came home. Ate salsa and chips. Fell asleep on the couch. Woke up before midnight. Hurried to the computer.

I'm still working on tanka. And maybe tomorrow morning I'll have more developed, more numerous tanka to put up. Oh, that's part of my rules. I have to write poems like the person I'm reading. So as soon as I finish The Narrow Road to the Interior by Kimiko Hahn, I'll move on to another poet. Denise Levertov in fact. Ok, poem a coming.

1:05 AM

Brooklyn Tanka cont.


14
The hurt of our words is another kind of music. I forget and then I remember quickly.

15
I will cut the trees and listen to all absorbed conversations. I will sit open every ring of Merwin’s tree and listen to poems never scratched.

16
This can’t be. Another night, you crashed in your day clothes on our bed while I type away. All writing is selfish.

17
The moon hummed like a broken streetlamp. The world is a highway end to end.

18
There is no poem.

19
If I say ‘night’ and ‘our’ and say ‘flesh’, some will find conclusions. What if I tell you our night flesh is separated by the need to stay less sweaty?

20
This is our season. Long and warming to us.

21
When I wake up, I will help someone move. My hands have a start in them.

22
The streets need replowing, to be chopped and the wires rooted. The cables and pipes ground and fertilized with the slivers of a million manholes. We will grow a greater infrastructure.

23
Our landlord said the pipes are too weak for Draino. We nodded as if we’d never done anything. Our ceiling and above plumbing are replaced. We now walk on another questionable ceiling.

Day 12 - More Tanka

I went to a seminar tonight with the guy from Improv Everywhere, Charlie Todd. It was very informative about how to spread your internet self. How to get more famouser. I took notes. By tomorrow I'll be so huge, none of you will recognize me.

BROOKLYN TANKA, Part II


7
You are my everyday Coney Island. We are always on the Wonder Wheel.

8
You are on the edge of the rain and I am full inside of it.

9
Hummingbirds never come here. Though my sugar water is getting drunk.

10
It is hard to not speak the whole day. Then to be home so late all our words mean bed.

11
You wrote for lunch you had a bucket of chicken. I wrote I’d be devouring a BLT. And both of us were instead sensible. A first.

12
Under my skin are veins so surface close, I can’t get why I’ve never nicked one. Bad enough to see my blood run for air.

13
You have a vocabulary for all this world and I just listen to be described.

Day 11 - Insert Poem Here

Total breaking of rules. I just got home. I'm posting. With no poem. And I will add one post haste.

---

Back. Wrote a tanka series. A bit styled after Kimiko Hahn's tanka cycles. Does it feel like a little cheating? Maybe. Does it do a little disservice to Kimiko? Assuredly. Here it is.


Summer, Brooklyn 2010


1
When I’m hungry, I’ll stuff and lull. When I drink, I find rivers to feed. When I still, I find my skin is holding me back.

2
No shadow surprises me. Only the shades Valerie shows me.

3
I chafe to hear any ‘doing my time’ talk. Just leave. The rivers and I will forget you.

4
The breeze is my favorite song. The fan is my favorite voice.

5
Prospect Park still gives me wonder. Like a paradise cut from a larger paradise.

6
Hide me under the hot streets. Wake me when they are knit together , when I can walk like Cadillac suspension.

Day 10 - Tired Week, Doing Too Much

Went to the Black Keys, Morning Benders show. It was amazing. I've not transcribed the poem I wrote today at lunch. I'm so delirious. Goodnight.

For You, A Secret

This is how I write in public…
First, I let my body become a surface
this is practice this
to dry the skin into a hard soil
make voices, even important, ping
off your clammed up ears
the footsteps of others must be believed
to dance in an upstairs apartment
as your eyes drop from frame
and achieve frames, the red rimmed edges
of the skin, of the barely opaque face
this is when you feel your bones
lift and place yourself like a crane operator

Second, you must find the quiet you have left
if you were me, you’d stored it up
in a childhood bed, in the snowbank cave,
in a word your teacher wrote once on a paper
and if the world impedes, slivers in
go smaller into reserves
into the skim pool of a birdbath In West Virginia
into a sectional of a frozen honeycomb
into the ear of a rabbit you mowed
listen inside that unlimited quiet

that’s where I'll be

Day 9 - Falling Asleep on the Keys

I wrote this earlier in the style of a Mattea Harvey poem. I'm too tired for anything much more. Goodnight.

HERALD SQUARE

It is 90something hot in Herald Square,
I am looking for grape soda

a man is holding a sign that reads
“The End of the World?”

a woman with a corduroy dog
says out loud to anyone, “I’m scared”

I say, “Well, don’t fear comets. They can never kill
by impact, it’s the propelling force

that will crush and then burn you,
or maybe you catch fire first.”

The janitor points out my wet pocket.
I have forgotten another bag of koi.

She whispers, “I am afraid the moon is dead.
And what care can dead things have for us?”

I am offered to buy my own photograph,
it shows only where I could have been.

A man yells, “I feel flatter and hotter.”
The wind boomerangs our words.

I tell the woman, “You’re not crazy.”
A something we should all hear once.

The seer bum switches signs,
holds up a plus sign between him and nothng.

Day 8 - And Now For Something Completely Darker

This is a follow up to a series of poems I started writing. In fact, I don't know what happened to the rest, but I wrote another #2. It's in the darker variety of things. I wrote these poems from a fake me to another fake me. I tried writing from a place of anger for a while. Not real anger per se, but an idea of angry narrators. I don't believe in this emotionless being writing. This channeler of pure observation. Alright, I'm not going to get into poetry theory. Here's a happy Sunday poem!


Letter to James #2: Coal

To an Older Me,

Remember:
Christmas ’92. Post-divorce.
Your family is reimagining themselves.
There is less, of course.
And more. And it looks right.
The wrapping paper clings to ankles.
The Z sound of electric toys.
Nama is asleep, glasses precarious.
You don’t have a dog yet, don’t conjure him here.
And stop picturing easy smiles.
This is a skinless holiday.
A toothsucking day of ceremony.

You are wedged deep in the overstuffing.
These days, you are always writing,
the escape begun.
Uncle John asks why the hell you writing Santa?
Christmas is done, buddy.
And you don’t joke about getting better presents,
because you’ve started holding back,
deciding to never add any weight to the ice
of sorrow we’re all skating on.
That’s the way I (you) write then.
We say things like ice of sorrow.

But it’s not Santa I’m writing.
It’s you and I don’t believe in you either.
That you’ve become what I need.
Remember: in the midst of it,
while all worked to restructure,
you had a killing feeling all Christmas.
A Something you’d never felt
but it was like sand in your bones,
like glass for teeth.
A feeling too big for me,
too complicated, too unaccomplishable
for then. So I boxed it up
and sent it ahead 15 years.
My only Christmas wish. If you exist.

Love,
You