piss-pots & poets

Just finished reading The Ends of Our Tethers by Alasdair Gray—enormous thanks to Joanne [aka my newly-minted Kimberry] for introducing me to another voice that cuts to the quick as only Scots seem able to do. It's a great read for anyone who enjoys short stories, especially if you have an eye/ear for the at least mildly experimental variety, but the book recommendation is really neither here nor there. After all, that's what Goodreads is for, is it not?

So back to the matter at hand:
One of the stories in question, "Aiblins," hit close to home in an unexpected way. The narrator, a creative-writing-professor-turned-professional-poet, retells his encounters with a brilliant [or disturbed [or brilliantly disturbed]] kid who may or may not have had raw talent in spades, and who may or may not have knowingly or otherwise lifted some of his best lines from the masters whose work colors our collective unconscious. Blah blah blah-bitty blah blah. All of which made me feel sheepishly, dizzyingly, deliciously self-conscious.

I may be many things, but a poet is most definitely not one of them. However, a guilty pleasure of mine has long been writing pretty atrocious poetry when the mood strikes. I mean really cloyingly awful. [side note: far, far too many adverbs in this post. wonder what that's all about...]

At any rate, for better or worse, I've decided to share! But be warned: None of it is any good. But it's not meant to be, so that's all part of the fun [at least, that's how it goes in my head].

Be further warned: I favor haiku as a format because... well... because I'm a math geek from way back, and I like numbers, odd numbers, prime numbers, patterns, repetition, and palindromes—and haiku satisfies all of those quirky needs.

So here we are...

your taste on my tongue // after an absence of years // i blink & it's gone

bear bites, puncture wounds // snarls & bared teeth; fur flies // o'er ragged toy scraps

inhale—sharp & tight // chest pains sink into his gut // sniffle—blink—exhale

my stilted haikus // allow me to speak when you // still can't hear the words

...and there we go. [a] I told you it was rubbish, so phone someone who cares. [b] Yes, I used the contraction "o'er" to fudge the syllable count. If it was good enough for the Bard, it's good enough for us. [c] There's more where these came from, but sharing would require me scouring my room, and I'm far too lazy for that right now. And besides, I refer you back to [a].

Ba-zing!