Mike,
Hmm. I just read your "Why I don't Write Poetry" poem -- made me think
of Ginsberg and Joyce, feeling the Roach is what you can write about but
that it isn't appropriate as opposed to Ginsberg and Joyce who felt that
everything was appropriate, and ending with a complaint, comparison or
contrast about/with God which was mildly startling -- a Cockroach God --
made me think of H. P. Lovecraft.
I might write, "Why I don't write as much poetry." I could say I
"burned out," but that wouldn't be accurate. Several things conspired.
I wasn't able to get conveniently get down to the river, but I've manage
three hikes down there and just today drove my Jeep up over a barricade
I'd worked on a bit, removing just enough of it to get over, and today
made it without scraping the plate on the underside of my Jeep.
I've been working out with weights more, more-so since I couldn't easily
access the river. Yesterday while wheeling my cart up toward the Smart
and Final I noticed an old man unable to push his empty cart up over the
bumps leading up to the store. "Do you need some help," I asked, and
hearing him faintly say "yes," reached my hand out and took his cart up
along side mine toward the door. I stopped and let him go on ahead,
wondering how old he was. Was he even as old as I was. It is to some
extent about will and force. One wills the force, then uses it in order
to be able to use it -- if one intends to write poetry it seems to me.
The sedentary don't need to write poetry nor be able to push their carts
up over the bumps.
But if you have the force, don't make up rules about why you can't use
it, unless you believe that using this force is using a divine power and
thus blasphemous. You also are at the same time feeling resentment, and
seem to be following the advice of Job's wife, calling God a Cockroach
and preparing to die.
Lawrence
On 4/1/2015 1:55 PM, Mike Geary wrote:
Why I Don't Write Poetry
My god, Mike, you can't write
a poem about roaches,
that's just not right.
A poem should startle
and delight
much like a match
struck in the night,
a poem should be
suddenness of insight.
A poem should be nice.
It should entice.
It should not be
like what you see
when needing ice,
you turn on the kitchen light
only to see the sight
of a thousand Blatta germanica
scattering in fright --
dashing under-over-down and out-across and in between
slipping into spaces too narrow to be seen
by any other eyes.
Oh how I despise
these roaches all
that with their beady little eyes
make me want to buy
a gun and shoot them all,
shoot them each and every one.
Because they make my skin crawl
and make me want to curl up into a ball
and cry.
They are so hideous,
they make me look so piteous
and that is why they all must die.
What to them, after all,
is "the rift of dawn,"
"the reddening of the rose,"
or the swing of Pleiades"?
They have no soul, or so I'm told
Basta! Zut! Enough!
This stuff is not poetry.
A poem should make you want to embrace,
to reach out, not hide your face
a poem should shout insightful light,
should set your soul a-shining
such that you can see
the mystery and the wonder
of what it means to be.
Take it from me,
roaches don't write poetry.
They have no aesthetic sense,
they know nothing of reason or of rhyme,
all they want of life is to have a little time,
time to finish dining on my chicken potpie,
and time to mate before they die.
At least once to propagate but I know that they
would rather it be more like
ten thousand and eight.
All they ask of me is crumbs and believe me,
they're are plenty.
A bit to eat and a little privacy.
Is that asking so much of me?
Hell yes, it is.
I thank God there are no God Roaches
(or so I pray as my time approaches)
But truly, it bothers me that life is such
as to make of me a pesticidal maniac.
O woe that Buddha can only shake his head at me
and grimace much.
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com>
Version: 2015.0.5863 / Virus Database: 4321/9433 - Release Date: 04/01/15
