Two sides of one mind
May 6, 2025
Uncategorized Ars Poetica, poem, writing process Leave a comment
See my post of March 6 for general comments in this vein. This poem addresses the frustration of unfinished work. I had three pieces that weren’t working at this point.
At the Desk
I pass by Paris, pause
for shifting gears,
and I’m back before
the elephant, cut up
but still stewing.
A month’s aging
hasn’t helped. My words
are too weak to wrestle
this beast onto a plate
so I can serve it.
No, “the elephant” is not a poem about an elephant. It’s just the biggest puzzle unresolved.
March 6, 2025
Uncategorized Ars Poetica, Journey, poetry, writing process 3 Comments
It seems that poets are the only artists who use their art to explore or describe their own process. Visual artists don’t have that option. Novelists may write about writers, but it’s not the same as this Ars Poetica, which is almost a sub-genre, though it’s probably better to see it as a theme or topic.
Here’s a recent effort of mine.
Journey
The route a poem takes is not determined
by the root it comes from. Where
do the words want to go? Their road
has no mile markers; I cannot measure
how far I’ve come. Why do I need to?
Calculation is for highways, keeping
the mind busy on a paved and graded
artery for speed. Since school years
there have been no grades on
this writing process, which slows
to a walk, a halt when the cairn
by the trail falls and the shine
of the separate stones enchants me.
Am I trying to console myself, and my fellow poets too, for the fact that not every attempt can be brought to conclusion? Both trail and stones are images I’m very fond of and perhaps it’s time to put them in a personal “overused” folder!
July 27, 2024
Uncategorized poetry, word play, writing process Leave a comment
Sometimes I think a poem is going somewhere and the words take it somewhere else.
Are We There Yet?
The mind, divisible, thinks itself
at the rail of a boat on a river,
ignores the visible, messages
of eye and ear, the photo on
the wall, the furnace murmur.
Only mind can go there. Body
cannot, sitting in its chair, reading
a travel brochure. You are right
here, even if you’re wrong, having
lost the map, about the where.
Where do you want to go?
I’ll agree to meet you there, but
we’ll be here when it happens.
You can’t get there from here
though you’ll get here
from there every time.
June 4, 2023
Uncategorized history, poem, writing process 2 Comments
Sorting through some folders from old workshops, because the file drawer was getting too stuffed, I came across a few I had left behind. They needed some tweaking, tightening, but seemed to still have potential. Here is one of those poems given new life.
Where Story Begins
Mine was born
between two leaves
on a library shelf.
I don’t remember which
first bewitched me.
I ate up every book
in the case, omnivorous
hunger for text, tone,
word to name my
place in the world.
Place shifted, words
multiplied meanings,
Too tall, like Alice,
to enter again through
that bookcase, I reach
for another book
to restart my story,
recover my where.
freethoughtandmetaphor 