Would That I Might

I am feeling pretty wiped right now, so I am just going to keep this short, I think.  I told myself that it was better if I allowed myself to just check in on occasion, that it would keep me from just skipping out on writing my blog altogether, so I suppose this is a positive step for me right now, even if it feels a bit like I am cheating or something.

I come here empty There is nothing that waits, that was  waiting. I did not prepare. There is only the space, is only  the empty space itself. It is enough, if I wait, if I pay attention.

I am here a bit early tonight.  I was able to convince myself to get to work straight after dinner, which is kind of the ideal, I think.  It isn't always feasible, but getting work done earlier in the evening is better, especially since I go to the gym pretty early on most mornings.  Anyhow, I am glad that I was able to fight my usually habit of procrastinating and just get it done tonight.  I hope that I can repeat this tomorrow and start building it as a habit.

You will think it is about that I don't mind your interpretation, but it is your own, is nothing to do with me, or not much, anyhow, it is not my intention, is what I mean, It is something else, but that is fine. It is fine with me whatever you want to think. I am prepared for you not understanding. It is nothing new or even notable.

One of the hardest parts of keeping this blog with consistency (and this was true even when I was more diligent in that capacity), is just having an idea of what to write each night.  That's one reason I always gave myself permission to just check in with a sentence or two stating that I was done with my work and was finishing up by announcing it on this blog.  I suppose I am just not comfortable doing that right now.  I am still attempting to show myself that I can get back to my former habits, and in some way writing a blog entry that isn't just perfunctory feels more meaningful.  Ironically, of course, it is more realistic to just admit that I need to be able to accept different levels of result and that some days just reporting in needs to be enough.

I have done none of that Really, I did forget, though I remembered since then, and still, I am not doing it, am waiting. I have no answers  about why or what is wrong. Something is wrong, but what? I do not have a good answer. I have no answer. I do not want to give any kind of answer. I should just do it instead of wondering why I am not, but that is not enough, not this time.

My best friend just got back into town.  He's only going to be around for a little while, at the moment, and I hadn't been certain when he would get back, but last night he called me to say that he was around and had some time if I wanted to meet up.  Fortunately, I didn't have a lot going on at that moment, so he came over and we wound up hanging out and going out for dinner.  It was good catching up with him.  He's been up north for several months, and is heading back before the end of the month, unfortunately, so I am glad to have had a chance to at least get together for a bit.  I'm hopeful that I'll see him at least once more before he heads off again.

Not tonight, it seems I had expected it, but it is nothing I am owed or that is due. It is just a pattern I have noticed and anticipated to continue, but such things mean nothing, are not obligations, anyhow. I will just wait, I suppose, tomorrow seems likely, but again, that is just me making another assumption.

I have been slowly building towards compiling a full length collection of poetry, and I am starting to have a good sense about what I really want to do with it, how I want to approach the process.  So much of it, for me, is about putting the work into conversation so that the collection becomes a book and not just a pile of poems, and for me, much of that is about finding ways to connect the work, to organize it in more than just the basic sense of placing the pieces in order, but providing elements that make it feel cohesive and in conversation with itself.  The thing is, that has to happen as the result of a process, as a part of selecting and revising the work, finding the places where different poems connect, and in developing the book into a setting for each individual piece.  That is not something that happens by contemplation alone.  It comes from digging into the process, and I think I need to start getting more serious about that.  Really, there is some...

You are finishing up I am not, but I hear your group call is ending. I have not been listening, but I can hear it from my office, and I heard the words "good-bye," and now it is silent again, you are quiet and the room is quiet. I, too, will be done soon enough, I expect, which will be nice. It will be good when both of us can be finished with everything else.

I am not certain what happened that I didn't post an entry to my blog last night.  I did write a poem on here, so I can confirm my memory of having done work on here, but I am not certain if I just got distracted after writing that poem and somehow flaked out, or if I did write something and it never posted for some reason.  I feel like I did write something, but is that me recalling writing last night, or is it from my previous efforts?  I cannot really be certain, and, in the end, even if I did write something, it is not here.  I just do not know if it is gone or if it never was.

I do not think you understand It is not anything I blame you for, not really. It is not easy to know those things, to know the experience or what it means, to be prepared with that, to be ready or to realize  what is happening in those moments. I am not excusing this. It is not anything I wanted.  It is a breakdown, is loss of control, is something that overwhelms, that I could not fight. I do not expect you to understand. It is not easy. You do not have these experiences, I know that, I know it is strange  and it was unpleasant. I am upset by it. I did not want to do that, to have that happen. I do not expect you will be able to understand, not really, not in the deep sense, but maybe you can accept that you not understanding is no reason for judgement or the withholding of sympathy.

My father warned me He was certain there were things to never do, ways of being that would  make it clear, would reveal me to be a Jew. I did not understand why it was, not then, not quite yet.

I've been thinking a lot about the exercises I want to present in my workshop and I have a pretty good idea for most of what I am planning to do, but I would like to add one more example to the syllabus.  The general concept is to share different approaches, with focus on different aspects of poetry, and in order to do a more complete job of that, I feel like it would be important to add something that is more about the musicality of poetry.  The issue is that I want it to be something that is approachable and not overly technical, but still more than just rhyming or consonance.  As well, I am aware that I want to make this reasonable as a group exercise.  I trust myself that I will come up with something, as I do often play in that space when I am writing, and I have some techniques and exercises in that direction, it is just figuring out the way to shape it into something with more concrete instructions.

She tells me she is glad I understand it.  It is good to want them home, to want them returned. I understand that. But I think of other things, of all that was done. I want to ask her what will be done for those killed in pursuit  of that release? Consider them, consider, even, just the children.

I was tempted, if I am honest, to just write one poem tonight and call it at that, and I suppose that if I had, I would probably feel fine about it, in general.  Even so, I know that I am feeling the desire to get back to work again.  I took a bit of time to relax and slow down, and it is not so easy to just jump back in at full tilt.  Indeed, it takes a conscious and focused effort even to get myself back to writing this blog as consistently as I once did as a simple matter of course.

Poems I did not write I wonder about them, if they are waiting, if they can return or be given the chance, again, even now, after, when it is no longer the time for them, when they have gone off. I wonder about them. They vanish if I do nothing, most of them, anyway.  Ideas might stick around become something again, but not, I don't think, the same things they would have been, not the poem I never wrote. It makes me  feel guilty, really, but it is impossible to be here for all of them/

I am still preparing ideas for online workshops.  I've been focused on generative workshops, but in many ways the real interest, for me, is in using this format to hone certain basic skills.  I recall Tim Seibles referring to it as "practicing scales."  The point is not always to create great work, but to get in that practice, to sharpen your skills.  In part, this is about being ready to capture an idea when it comes, but it is also about expanding the awareness of what ideas are worth pursuing.  I think it is useful, even important, to have tricks that allow me to find my way into writing, but I think what really has gotten me to the point where I feel that I can always write a poem if I need or want to is not those tricks but the skills that they have imparted.

There is an old woman we know only she isn't quite so old, just not young, really, but not all that old, not in comparison to so many other women who seem younger despite there age, but still, she is old, even now, already. It is on her. I do not know what makes it so.

Well, I seem to have made my way back for a second day, which is nice.  I won't pretend it is anything more than a start, except to say that I find it a bit comical that I am thinking of being here again for a second day is an accomplishment.  I know that it does have a meaning at this moment, but after many years of writing on this blog most every day, it is a bit silly to be back at a point where two days in a row feels meaningful.  Anyhow, I have to hope that I make it back here tomorrow, and with enough sense to write about something other than it being my third blog entry in a row.

 Little Owl In the evening, I went for the mail but did stopped: it was there, small, tiny, even, perched on the mailbox, looking out across the road. I stood there, watched its watching, the darkness growing. I waited and watched, just as it did.

There is no good reason for my absence here.  It is just me not doing it.  I suppose I should just make myself commit to it once more.  It is good for me, I know, to have this, to do this work.  It also keeps me on track in other ways.  I have been writing, even if not on this blog, but not as much as I would like.  I still write every day, but over the years that I've had this blog, I've been regularly writing multiple poems each day, and lately it has often just been one, which feels like I am just coasting.  Maybe I have needed a bit of a refresh, but I am hoping that is shifting again and I will get myself back into a higher gear.

 It is not good I want it to be, but I know: you hurt me. I do not think you can change. I do not expect that you will, and it is no good to pretend that it can be anything else, is it? I do not want to build walls, to separate us in this way, but what  am I to do? I must protect myself.