"I write because writing is the hardest work I’ve ever done. It is slow and painstaking and frustrating. I do not begin with an idea or a theme, and I don’t make outlines. I don’t have a plan for the ending or, usually, for the next page or the next line. Even short pieces might take shape over years. Everything that I have ever seen, done, or felt, had, shared, or lost, is in play, and*
the word of the day is, on most days, confusion

I no longer regret writing, or the life I have made along the way. I’ve learned too much and come too far, and I am in pursuit of an art form. It took a long time, and a lot of work, to get to this point, and I will never find an end to it. I have a problem that can keep me busy for the rest of my life. I have something to look forward to."

Donald Antrim^


~~~

though the waters are eerily placid,
the beard roughened wind
beneath a grey, solemn overcast,
predicts, foretells, enhances, over casts (ha!)
the mood of the moment

but it is not causal for
native, irregularly regular
is the word of the day,
on most days,
confusion

life is my tale of two cities,
for now, for me,
it is best and worst of times,
a cyclical, bent and dinged cylinder,
contains a shape shifting persona
seeking the solidity of a
single polarity

higher highs and lower lows,
the new normal, a new word,
still a slung slang concoction,
not yet unapproved by Merriam Webster

I drink up the external contradictions of
the stiff breeze buffeting the
serenity of the water's horizon
a perspective that always calms,
mirror mocking, so matching
the stiffened interior of
this buffeted flesh form

"I no longer regret writing,
or the life I have made along the way
I’ve learned too much and
come too far, and I am in pursuit
of an art form"

rewriting my own internal art form, daily,
incorporating the free, external, unasked for edits,
craft blending the backwards and the forward,
living the confusion that birthed
this poem,
this person,
this art form
~~~
July 18, 2015
Shelter Island, N.Y.