Transparency

I am going to use you.  All of you.  Or more specifically, the small handful of people who may come across this blog.  I am attempting to be more active in my writing life.  That is, not just writing a poem when the mood strikes, but actively trying to write.  And the internet will hopefully help me to reach this goal.  I am going to be more transparent in both my writing and my process.  I am going to start posting poems, hopefully a lot of them.  Multiple drafts of the same poem.  I am going to write more and share everything I write, the good with the bad.  This will hopefully force me into a more active life of writing.

So, a few small informational updates.

First, I am trying to start a writing group.  If any of my fair readers live somewhat close to Media and are interested, let me know.  We will get together on a regular basis (once a week, once a month, once every 17.5 days, whatever we decide) and discuss what we are working on, what we are reading, what we think about some topic in writing.  Just drink and eat and talk.  About writing.

Second, contest season is coming up.  I am going to try to create an entirely new chapbook to send out.  I recently started reading Jack Kerouac’s collected haikus.  To quote the book sleeve:

“Kerouac experimented with this centuries-old genre, taking it beyond strict syllable counts into what he believed was the form’s essence.”

Meaning that he doesn’t use the strict 5/7/5 syllable count of classic haikus.  Instead, he looks at the haiku as a poem with three short lines that capture a precise moment in time as completely as possible while adhering to the brevity of the form.  I was never one for writing haikus until I encountered this idea.  So, the chap book I am working on will be called something along the lines of “X Haikus for the Abyss” (where X is the total number of haikus in the book and the Abyss is the world).  The format will be a series of interconnected haikus with titles such as “Twelve Haikus for Jack” or “Seven Haikus for Allen” (the two I have been working on, which I will post below).  Some of them will be for people, some for things, some for ideas.

So, after a bit of rambling and a bit of information, here are rough drafts of the two new poems I have been working on.

Seven Haikus for Allen

If I could remove
my face in strips
I would wear yours

Not young, almost
handsome, but
old, strange, sincere.

And slowly my voice
would be yours
to sing sad songs with,

and my howl
of pain
would become yours,

my shattered heart
barely passing
blood, yours.

But I can’t,
so I write
this poem:

a small drop of rain
in this endless desert
of dishonesty.

Twelve Haikus for Jack

Mad Jack,
you are too sad
for words.

Your scrolls
all crumbled
to dust and flown,

your pens
all dried up
lakes of blood.

You look so
young in every
picture I have seen,

no older than me,
your eyes
are ancient trees.

You broke
more hearts
than you’ll ever know,

killed
more men
than any army,

but brought
just as many
back from the dead.

The birds sing
so sad tonight
over your grave,

the leaves all
catch in air
like ice and weep,

and you there
sitting in Heaven
petting Tyke.

Sad Jack,
you are too mad
for words.

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