A Literary Breakthrough

photo ©2006 eric hart

I was standing in the bathroom this morning getting ready for work, reminiscing about how prolific my writing was when I was younger, and lamenting the loss of my muse. I've been a bit stressed lately wondering how in the hell I'm going to live up to my goal to write two poems per month. I know two is not very many, but I've never been the kind of person who can force myself to write. I can't just pick a subject and go. Every time in the past that I sat myself down saying, "I'm going to write a poem!" it just fell flat. What came of my efforts was universally trite and awful. I can try to encourage something to develop by reading more and by editing some of my old work, but typically it's the poetry that finds me, not the other way around.

When I was much younger, my muse was not only active, she was a downright pest who made me have to carry pads of paper wherever I went in case she suddenly grabbed hold of me. This morning, no sooner had I finished lamenting her loss all these years when she popped back into my life and bit me so hard I had to drop everything I was doing and run to the computer before the words disappeared from my mind. I finished the first draft of the poem, the first original one I’ve written in over four years, in about twelve minutes. I swear it was like sex. Afterwards, I was grinning and breathless and so full of joy I just can’t properly describe it. I wrote a poem! I was so happy I was quite literally jumping up and down hugging my hands to my chest. It's no masterpiece, but it's something, and that's a lot more than what I've turned out these past many years...

I know you probably would like to see it, but it's still too new and too personal, and I'd be uncomf0rtable sharing it here. As a consolation, I will post something I wrote ten years ago--one of the three or so solidly decent poems I've ever penned (or keyboarded, rather). Even so, this is a milestone occasion: I have never before publicly posted any of my writing. Ever. I am usually highly selective about who reads my poetry, so this is a big scary step for me. I hope it's at least a little entertaining for you.

Spring

On the playground, jackets flung
from small bodies lay on the ground
like the remains of
dissolved children.
Lured away by the sun’s Hamelin,
the heated slopes on the other side of the world,
they scrabbled through rock and soil
disturbing the blind traffic of worms.
I could still hear their
singing, muffled by layers of earth
as they burrowed like hungry tubers
seeking a warmer place.
Left behind--their snakeskin
and feathers in shrapnel heaps,
casualties of the season’s advance.

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