A Poem for When I am Not Writing Poems

In fiction, I must ask:

What’s my character’s problem?

And not: Why aren’t I outside looking at the moon,

singing to her and pining for all things light and dark

to touch me in ways I can only dream of being touched?

In fiction I must write silence into my dialogue without saying

“Insert awkward silence here.”

Who knew?

Who knew that a life of nothing much would

lead me here, to a keyboard in the middle of the night,

to a man dancing parallel lines to my groovy hips?

And now I’m driving toward a one and only future,

one I can’t imagine but somehow have known,

at least I’ve known to write it down, to document.

I document for those who dare not speak, but what do I have to say for them?

I have no problem, hence

my character has no problem, unless you count

a general problem with the way the world works

as a central problem to solve. Why have we come this far

and not solved rape?

Why have we come this far to debate on

who can and cannot be married?

Why have we come this far?

It’s not very far at all, is it?

But we are far – far from the one, the one true point

I don’t even believe

we’ve really ever come from: that garden, that snake. Nope. Don’t buy it.

Everything will change, but how

have we evolved so far from divinity? So far from light and truth

and justice and peace for all? Who will you pledge your allegiance to

when the moon doth not shine? Who will you side with

when there is no light to see any sides? Because that light is gone

as far as I can tell,

and I’m not even a poet.

Anymore.

**

What it’s like to give up writing poems:

I’ve given up my camera,

I am unable to take pictures of your thoughts,

snap snap

I just took your heart

snap

an eyeball’s core with that image of

your brother’s bleeding wrists you had wanted to forget

snap

not even bandages cover up what my camera can capture.

I miss it. The darkness like my own private dark room,

the way my heart reached out to it

in negative phototropism.

The way my whole being would turn to it

in order to get the poem.

Poems come from dark and silent places,

and also light and fluffy ones.

But mostly dark.

Poets Know:

it’s not an attitude, it’s an attunement.

It’s not always about line breaks and enjamb

ments. Nor is it always about witnessing. Rhyming,

definitely not even close to being about rhyming.

But what? That question

says it all.