I have been writing a lot of poetry of late.

This surprises me.

For awhile I really struggled with words.

I think some of this was doubt that my words were ever worth sharing.

For a longtime I thought I was best at prose and long form writing with structure, but now I am beginning to wonder? Maybe I needed to loosen up all along.

I have this space I pay for, I maintain. Why not? Very few see it anyway. That’s okay with me (although I do appreciate the people consistently checking in, that’s its own cool).

The internet makes it so easy, in a way (and hard in others).

Everybody can be Bukowski (and no one can)

And reading his poetry, he wrote a lot of shit. a lot of misogynistic drunk shit. And thought super highly of himself. (And also didn’t?)

Most of it is trash , but there are things in his collected works that will stop your heart for the truth of it.

It’s like maybe 5% or 10%. I dunno. Never did the math. All the trash is worth sifting through for those little bits.

Poems are born.

I don’t sit around trying and angsting. What to write about?

They just come up.

Mostly right as I am waking up and I have to go and scratch it out before I even grab coffee.

Sometimes something I read or heard haunts me and I am mulling it over for weeks, months, years, and then I wake up one morning and shit just pours out of me. Reading and listening is so important and is the background of what I write. The work, if you will. The studying before the exam. I note it where I can or at least should. Feeding my mind, filtered into my subconscious, and back out again. It’s like sampling in music. Love what you love and follow it scrupulously. It’s a unique program all your own.

I don’t edit the poems I publish here much.

I feel like I probably should, but once they come out they are mostly formed and yes, sometimes I change a word or shift a phrase, but it’s actually pretty hard to change them. maybe with more time?

Maybe I should curate more carefully, but although it might seem like a spit every half formed idea out on this page, I actually don’t. You should see my notebooks….

This isn’t for being appealing. It isn’t for likes or clicks. It just is. An expression. A thing that exists.

I am toying with reading some of the poems and posting on Insta or YouTube. Not sure how I feel about that or how to decide whether I should do it at all. Sometimes the cool thing about poetry is reading someone else’s words in your own voice. Sometimes there are inflections and pauses I don’t know how to indicate in writing so it might be useful to read it. This requires some experimenting.

I think I am finding my voice and learning how to use it. Yeah, it’s been here all along. Silent (Tori Amos hi!), but now I am using it. I like what it has to say.