I’m convinced they only arrive
when they want to, the poems
don’t like furrowed brows
concentrating on making art
as if it is all effort
like raindrops falling to ground
no choice, this water, these lines
wait for the clouds
Tag: Writing
Meditation Doesn’t Care
Meditation doesn’t care
about the book you wrote
what you posted online
or the car you drive
Meditation doesn’t care
about your rolex or
your job, so important
money made
Meditation doesn’t care
about all your friends
who go to parties
drink martinis
Meditation doesn’t care
about your writing
these words
bits of truth
Writing in Bed
exhaling visible emotion
ink onto page
alive each night if
only for these moments
toes touch sheets happy
the hours before are done
no more plodding through city
streets in laced up leather
free naked now
words moving across the page
composition notebook
indenting with cursive letters
pressing down, scribbled lines
fragments of thought
searching for truth night after night
sometimes finding things
like an old Hot Wheels car in
the sandbox, pull it out
examine chipped paint
try to recall when it was lost
describe what it looks like
loose front tire, red Camaro
“this is it,” I think
to reclaim, touch memory
unearth myself, the buried parts
Stream of Consciousness
Coming up blank, nothing here, finished Hillbilly Elegy, decent book, important message, but I find myself more drawn to the lyrical, the spiritual, the poetical, the not so logical words that dart around the page like a mouse in 3am’s bread drawer, that is me though, evader of the legal profession, where my sister and dad took constitutional refuge between the lines on the field, far from where I sit up in stars looking down on fireflies blinking in the long grass, with toads jumping into the pool when my grandma and grandpa are away-summer nights daydreaming about this, rearranging truth into fragments, run-ons like some kind of Kerouac adventure, Ginsberg howling out, making sense of the nonsensical, half-truths are what we grasp at, the beyond where life exists or we imagine it so.
Epiphany
when words appear and appear
idea takes form without
prodding, one letter after the next
pelting drops of rain
unabated it continues this
storm, lightning flashes
perfect cliché, but like a sneeze
it happens, a small clearing
breathing in new oxygen
effortless arrival, like it
was there all along
Poems
sometimes
i don’t understand
what they say
complicated
esoteric
meaning
overly
abstract
placed words
signifying
something
for
someone
not
me
Scheduling Spiritual Growth
People schedule SoulCycle, mani-pedis, evening cocktail encounters with friends. I schedule spiritual growth. Very American of me, I know, but I live in a world of kid carpools, grocery shopping, laundry, and taking the dog out to poop. My daily calendar is always filled to the brim with bills that need to be paid and emails that must be returned. If I don’t make time to listen to myself, everything else takes over.
For years I knew there was a spirit in me, a writer in me, a poet in me, never fully free, always bound by external obligations. I have figured out a formula for expressing my inner being. I begin each morning reading a spiritual text that helps guide me on my journey. I meditate at least 45 minutes a day, scheduled breathing, in, out, trying to be as present as possible. Most Wednesday nights I meditate for an hour with a small group of friends, we then read and discuss the writings of Thich Nhat Hahn for another hour. I spend daily minutes (often hours) writing, reflecting on who I am with words, my words, on a page or computer screen. Every two months I plan intensive meditation weekends (Friday-Sunday) where I meditate multiple hours a day either at home or away. Each day I also do some form of yoga.
What exactly is spiritual growth? For me spiritual growth invites my internal quiet to speak loudly with truth. When I grow spiritually I learn things like love is everywhere, more is learned by listening than talking, there is good in everyone, anger is always reactive. Wisdom I’ve heard before, known before, but I need reminding, over and over again. Am I sitting enlightened under the bodhi tree? No, but I’m keeping a channel open, my spirit touching a timeless stream.
Nick Flynn
Writing words made (makes) him whole. Cleared out the zombies with meditation, confronting the addiction (addictions) again and again. On a boat bobbing with empty gangster dreams, streams of thought, thinking about tortured bodies, here and there. Homeless writer has a home in pages, roaming with parents now dead, alive in photographs, in words, in questions posed unanswerable. The bullshit, the ticking, the suicide, the fire. Somewhere over the rainbow, his rainbow, bright colors out of darkness.
Time For Writing
parent, poet, husband
pithy
i feel like the doctor
who wrote between
patients
little scraps of paper
poem scribbles
his silent ink voice
unbandaged
trickling out
Nothing
I just sit in bed writing
sunlight keeping the ink
visible
a close study of nothing
only the idea of trying to
have
an idea
