Author: @DwPolk

Sports Card Investing. Photography. Poetry.

Advice

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the waiting is the poem, listen more, speak less, pray when you need to, sometimes every morning when it is still & dark, stretch, read, meditate, swim in cold water, eat chocolate when you need to, remember -they are not thinking about you, breathe deeply near tall trees, let go & let god, love, love is all you need, repeat the words of dead singers, but give them credit (john lennon), cry when you need to, especially when you realize time goes by too fast, savor the moments, forgive yourself for using words like savor, be alone, but not lonely, create something, tell the truth, but not all the time.

Writing To Another Poet

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you once told me to- find my true north, thank you of course, & realistically we will never meet again, after all, it has already been over a decade, but chance encounters are most of life, then just memory, then nothing, or nothing that we know for sure, but i still appreciate you, sometimes read you, even watched a video once of you reading, describing jellyfish everywhere, unseen danger swimming all around, true, the sea, ocean, life, can be fear, but rarely here, on this page, screen, canvas, thanks again for your courage, i try to be like you.

Canadian Doubles

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we all have true stories, like when i tried out for varsity tennis in jeans & docksiders, loved the sport, not the apparel, then there is kevin bacon, degrees of separation, i have exes, true, & yes, they too dated others, so who are my ex-girlfriend’s exes? another true story about tennis, the first guy was #13 in the world, 1991, the second played for amherst, me? i was varsity for three years, (but my real claim to fame was beating craig brown when i was in middle school, he was the washington golf & country club champ, threw his racket 100 feet out of the fenced in court after i pushed him for 40 minutes), but i digress, end the suspense, guy uno, derrick rostagno, you wouldn’t remember him, the other? well maybe, he was kind of a big deal, emphasis on was, preterite, not now alive, & not a good person to the woman i was once with, david foster wallace, he loved tennis too, now that i think of it, we could be in a dumas novel playing canadian doubles, i’d probably lose.

When I Applied To NYC Bookstores (1995)

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don’t wear your l.l. bean parka to the interview, you look like a b & t, (bridge & tunnel person), not from the nyc, but that was me & my american studies degree, gatsby, hemingway, salinger, bell jar, norton’s anthology, smart kid, i actually cut off the l.l. bean label, kinda punk, kinda just whatever, brandless living in the village, enter the strand, barely glanced at me, colby kid, or dartmouth, or michigan, or name your generic mainstream college, i wasn’t sarah lawrence or bard, or maybe oberlin, khakis & bucks, yuppie, you are not hired, place was a maze anyway, books stacked everywhere, chaos, dusty chaos, enter st. mark’s, east village, pretentious, pretentious, pretentious, horn-rimmed glasses, scrutinize through me, that look, you know nothing kid, this is new york city, mecca, the edge, no instant rejection, ok fine, take this piece of paper, write down five books that we must have in the store, be ready to tell me why, uh ok, short stories of flannery o’connor, in our time, go tell it on the mountain, captain’s verses, remember, i was smart, wanted to cover all bases, gender, identity, writing style, number 5? the quran, why? no idea really, lots of muslims in the world? are any of your authors still alive? um, um, well, no, thanks for applying kid, enter barnes & noble astor place, huge building, flagship store, this is november, christmas coming, standard one-page application, fill it out, we will call you, place was busy, packed, they called, i answered, my first paid job in new york.