two hopeful poems
people i love how they for get where they are for a mo ment or how they quickly an ger over sod all or veer between tears & mani acal laugh ter as the nerves prang in the thun der of neu rotransmit ters & hor mones crash within their papery skins i love them for the blame lessness of their hu manity ev en the gam mon who was filmed sip ping a cock tail in a bin filled with water on the hottest day on record had forgot ten he was a gammon for a moment & that is when we are at our best in the moments we forget who we are & you may ask how I feel about people when they go on line & I will answer peo ple don’t go online for what we meet on line is not peo ple but their thoughts the people are sat in a creaky off ice chair or thumbing their screen while sat on a bus or scratching their arse in bed while ru minating on how marx ism handles inflation they are not their thoughts & their thoughts are not theirs they are or phaned of their pasts & fu tures as they graze on the now with no meaningful means of sto maching it AC you can’t allow the flood gates to flow one way without let ting the del uge surge the other way enough of the inter nal gate keeping the mind will make itself up at a later mo ment so for now drink it all in gary sny der once said it was like compost you put the new stuff on top and turn it over to lose con trol over that which flops out of the cortical void and onto a page you have to likewise surren der con trol over all the stuff that gets in
If you find these recent poems that shamelessly steal from the much missed Todd Moore to be a bit much, then I sympathise. I can only say that there is something that happens within whenever I break the line, sometimes in the middle of the word. It seems to overwhelm the editorial mind and allow a few moments of unrestricted flow. Of course, I appreciate that things might not be so effortless for the reader at the other end. When I read Todd Moore’s longer poems there is a similar moment of resistance but then the whole lot seems to flow again.
If you know Todd’s poems then you know that the short lines are the only thing that these poems have in common with them. While Todd’s poems are about violence and vitality these poems seem to be about hope and humanity. Perhaps, that is the thing that I often hold back on in my own work until I break the barrier and let it flood out.
Incidentally, I think that the second poem, AC, contains some really good advice. If nothing is coming out then you have to let more in. Not just in reading or studying your particular art form, I’m talking about the world, people, the moment. All that art by artists that you feel you shouldn’t like. The pleasures that may offend your moral, political or aesthetic sensibilities. The mind always catches up in the end. It follows in the wake of what is happening and rectifies itself. All those precious sensibilities will hold firm if there’s still a good use for them.
One more thing, I’ve re-formatted the poems in a more readable way in the pinned comment under the post. If you prefer them that way then let me know. The reader shouldn’t have to do all of the work.
