Poetry is a poor lover.
It's never there for you
when you need it the most.
That intense moment
when you long to
etch your soul in ink,
poetry flees from you.

It always comes back,
though.
Late at night
in the twilight of
sleep and waking
(the witching hour),
it returns, nagging,
crying out for you

until you sigh,
until you flick on a
bedside lamp,
fumbling for a notebook
and an old pen
and whisper,

"Hello,
I've missed you."

Plato, Socrates, Aristotle.
Forms, idealism, transcendence.
I don't know what to make of it.
I just keep getting lost in my mind,
thinking of other things,
ignoring Anaxagoras.

Fellow students search for insight,
attempting to find inner depths,
pretending to be profound.

I wander out of my head-maze momentarily,
long enough to write a few things down,
a couple scribbles in my notebook,
until my brain draws me back in,
and I'm ignoring Anaximander.

Thinking of anything but Plato's Phaedo
while miming rapture, staring blankly
into the depths of the instructor's ginger beard,
ignoring the words that come out of his mouth.
Ignoring Anaximenes.

someone at the door
knock knock knock
try to keep my eyes straight ahead
do not let them roll away
when I spot the leather book in hand.

no thank you,
no thank you.

but, but, but
just in case
here's a card
have a pamphlet
date time number

no really,
no thank you.

are you sure
sure sure sure?

yes, thank you,
I'm sure.

ma'am do you believe in god
have you accepted jesus in your heart?

no, I do not.
no, I reject him
with all my heart.
please go.

oh.
I see.
okay ma'am
thank you for your time.
I'll pray for you.

(do not look at me
like that,
with your god's judgment
in your eyes.
this is my house,
my door,
my porch.
you are the intruder.
this is not my fault.)

This library is
hushed and quiet.

But that
is nothing special.
Nearly all libraries
are hushed and quiet;
they all seem to be
redundant in this way.
All are quiet.

Unless they are
children's libraries
because, for whatever
reason, children seldom
know how to whisper.
Or read, for that matter.

But this isn't a
children's library
It is too quiet
And if this were
a children's library,
I wouldn't be here.

But here I sit,
at this faux-wood table
and put headphones
into my ears
and play some Sinatra
to block out the roar
of the hush and quiet.

I pretend to be studious
Because this is a student's library
And studiousness seems
to be a common costume
here.

Heads bent over books
And eyes bent under tables
to see the fingers
bent around phones.
Heads bent together
Mouths bending words.

Hushed and quiet.

I put my pen to paper,
Trying,
over and over,
to express events
and their effects.
And I try to believe
that these words
trickling down my wrist
have some sort of value
or purpose.

Maybe it's just vanity
to think that my thoughts
are worth something,
that they mean
anything
to the world outside
my mind.
But I try,
over and over,
to make this
hollow space
in my chest,
and this growing pain
in my head,
coherent.

Relate experience
through stanzas
and enjambment,
or a poorly
thought-out
metaphor.

I write it
and leave it.

My soul onto a page
in purple pen
in a library
surrounded by people
who have no idea
of my name.

This pieceofshit
I call a poem
that I write
and leave
and never want
anyone to read.
Because what is the
point?

These are just words
about a person
who you don't know.

What's the
point?

I don't pretend to know.

And yet the pen meets paper.
Again
and
again.

I see what you're saying.
Kind words on a screen.
I smile for a moment,
wanting to believe.
But then Doubt launches its attack,
with weapons of uncertainty and self-loathing.
How could you mean what you say?
It's probably not true.
It's probably a ruse
meant to placate me,
so I'll go away.
I don't want to think this way.
I want to believe,
but hope could destroy me.
So I wait for you to leave,
to forget about me.
You say you mean it.
Complimentary.
I try to believe it.
Uncontrollably,
the fears kick in.
Really? Really? Really?
Don't ask.
Don't.
Don't.
Stay cool, keep calm.
Stop being such a **** up.

I can't.

A pen is not a tool,
it is an instrument,
and it does not do for an instrument
to be cheap
or poorly made.
If I have a choice, it will be expensive
Ink, not gel.
God forbid a ballpoint Bic.
No.
It will be the kind of pen that makes you want to write,
even when you have no idea what it will be about;
Write,
not for the flow of thoughts to pen to paper,
but for pen to hand to brain,
the sensation of the tip smooth across white ****** paper
swimming up your arm.
Handwriting that is usual jerky
and of questionable legibility
morphing into a graceful scrawl

I would have the kind of pen that rips the words out of me,
if I had my choice.
The pen a bow, the paper a cello.
The notes pouring, spilling, becoming,
composer unsure of where they come from
but suspecting some deep, secret crevice inside them
only touchable by the finest instrument
that they can imagine.

A pen like the head of an infant
in your palm,
so soft and inexplicably right
that you want to hold forever,
because it feels like it belongs in your hand;
cradled plastic as pleasant as downy hair

And with such a pen I will write
and write,
at the start hardly aware
what these words will weave.
A portrait of an artist,
genius or insane?
And the ideas will unravel
until it becomes more than sensation,
the meaning bigger than paper and pen.
Finally, at last.