i want to know how to write a poem.
“put pen to paper or yer fingertips to the keyboard. no sweat. poetry is all around you.”
- Raegan Butcher
you make it look easy, to write a poem:
take notice of your surroundings, what
goes on around you & all the things, oh
but that’s bullshit. we both know it is a
lot harder than that to write something
decent - a poem that speaks/talks back
a poem that you think about later on in
the dark or when you’re washing dishes
or some other lonely job in real life living
a poem that doesn’t feel forced or looks
down on you as though it’s beyond your
understanding but there - under & inside
a poem that
means something
even when you don’t.
- adp, 19 March 2013 @ 6:16am
how to write a poem
April 2nd, 2016: bloody poets
I want to be a poet
without the risk / without
the casualties of word wars
The poets know what I mean -
about all the blood, our hands.
- adp, 02 April 2016 @ 11:40pm
older
poem: older
This getting older thing is not so difficult
after all and after awhile, we get used to the
tearing apart and those rip your heart out moments
which inevitably sometimes unexpectedly come about.
- adp, 01 April 2016 @ 12:30pm
conditioned fear to stay put in our place
Too few of us believe in the possibility of our dreams. We brush them off with sleep still in our eyes. I see them, as myself, self-defeated and submitting, while others chase ambitions of ideals created for them, not for themselves. Our collective eye has been covered over with the patch of things that are not of us. We are tucked into packaging, individually wrapped, with no awareness of how close we are to touching one another. It is far too difficult to reach out with yourself so tightly bound.
- adp, 20 November 2006 @ 12:50 pm
source: amber dawn’s non-paper journal.
Hitting the backspace key a lot tonight. Delete, delete, delete. If I wrote when the interesting thoughts come at me throughout the day, I’d have a lot to write about and I wouldn’t be sitting here struggling to force what is essentially nothing out. I am almost blank at this point because of the things I refuse to write about and the late night zoning out that my brain wants to do because it doesn’t seem like I should bother doing this if I’m not going to give ‘er. What’s the point of writing any amount of words if you’ve got nothing to say - or worse, you refuse to write the stuff you’ve got inside you? I’m wasting my time and anyone who is bothering to read this. I’m not even trying to reach my potential. This is why I’m not a real writer.
It doesn’t matter that these are journal entries. That’s not what’s stopping me from being a writer. It’s the fact that I’m holding back. I’m not writing what is on my mind. I’m not telling you what happened today. The facts or the emotional conflicts of daily life. My perspective on the life only I can give because it’s me that’s living it. I’m not even sharing my opinion on the news of the day. I’m typing one word after another as if this is some boring homework assignment - but it’s not - it’s my life.
I’m writing because I want to put myself out there. Yet, I’m holding out on myself. I’ve got myself reigned in for what? For who? Why? What good is it doing me? I’m frustrated as fuck. I’m supposed to be writing like I know what I’m doing by now. It’s not supposed to feel like this, like I haven’t done it before. I have to figure out how to get far enough away from whatever is causing me to shut down on myself so that I can let myself write my words.
When the way we let others treat us became how we treat ourselves. How we have to change that before we run out of time. How we don’t know how.