L-shaming.

Am I too modern to enjoy most poetry? The written stuff, not the haphazardness

of things dreamt that  fill the gap of intimacy. When it's from a women poet

I imagine her car spun out, half over a cliff, needing to be helo(ed)

to safety. When from my sister, I see the bruise on her arm, as she babbles

of how it was only once that Danny had been physical. Or, thru the ellipse

of failed nail salon visits or lace front wigs pulled down over one eye: psychiatrists

have said that taking multiple selfies  is a mental disorder. That's it. I see poems

from young writers as a mental disorder. I mean, if you haven't lived long enough

to hurt hard enough; if you haven't kissed the forehead of a dead daughter, yet.

Or count your failures while spelling your name out with the marshmallows of

Lucky Charms.

I want to just grab at their faces, snatch their eyeballs out and roll them

across the sea, far away from this danger that getting older has become.

Before Black strangers show up at your door to pray for you. Before all the lost

souls of your life come rumbling back. Before the man hawking replacement windows

tell you that you need to be warmer on cold days. Well, no s**t. Or for

the sun to shine brightest from the clearest, cleanest heaven. And for all the killer

insects to stay put and be watched as they claw and curl up

in the disappearing sun.

Reviews

[Beccy]

Charlie is fast in the arms of Morpheus and I am engaging in a favourite pastime of scrolling the backs pages of Writer's cafe.

A pleasure to read this again Dana, though my eye is now some half a year more older. :)

Beccy.

[h d e rushin]

thanks beccy.....just getting back in town from an extended new years vacation from the cold in the Midwest.......9 degrees today.....can you believe it? lol dana

[emmajoy]

Seems words age over time, become more than intended way way ago. Maybe it's the way we keep them, often hidden with our sadnesses or utmost joys.. still trying to find out.

This near complex, imaginative writing has sat me still, trying to decide if fresh, new.grown writing has the charm and innocence of the just yesterday seen, or, if experience, time.. has brought senses to a slow, slow unsure, insecure how i feel stage. All different.

All reading you and wondering, analysing, sitting back.. eyes closed.. trying to ..

' Or for the sun to shine brightest from the clearest, cleanest heaven. And for all the killer .. insects to stay put and be watched as they claw and curl up .. ' .... could there be more choice, more wondering.

[h d e rushin]

I love you so much.......dana

[Blotted Ink Productions]

Always love your poems and how blunt they are. They always make me laugh, think and smile at the same time.

[h d e rushin]

thank you dear friend of mine for those kind words......dana

[Olivia]

I found it interesting how you talked about young writers... Thank you
You are true poet
I imagine you older traveling and telling your poems as a sort of folk lore to the children

[h d e rushin]

thank you Olivia and good morning to you my friend.....dana

[Beccy]

A child will write primarily about the immediacy of it's surroundings, the instancy of a thought; the more experienced eye will look deeper, capturing and encapsulating that which it has experienced.

Both have merit, though I need confess, that after reading this, I maintain a certain degree of ambivalence as to which is the more compelling.

Brilliant writing, as ever it is from your pen. Beccy

[h d e rushin]

thank you Beccy and good morning to you my friend.....dana

[W.k.kortas]

I think you could have entitled this "life, the poem", and it would have not been the least bit presumptuous.

[h d e rushin]

thank you my friend for those kind words.......dana

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this really made me think...i think many young poets write way beyond their years...but a good point made here....the poetry from those much older is from the experience---not made up....or thoughts of what it might be like...it is the raw stuff of dreams deferred (as langston so aptly put it)

or of years of abuse from family or in relationships...that which is left of us, completely scarred..old wounds opened back up with the pen...
and those insects are just watching and waiting---and then?

[h d e rushin]

your insight, like your poems Jacob, are like twinkling keys...Miles Davis said that about
Billy Evans before they recorded "Kind of Blue" in 59...Well said my friend