WHARVED

Major Update (Not Upheaval)

Hello all,

First of all, I’d like to thank you for reading my work. You’re the sounding board that helps me to legitimize my efforts, and I cannot underestimate your influence in that department.

Every once in a while I need to re-assess my progress and see what can be done to refresh my inspiration as a writer. If you look at my archives, you will see an on-again/off-again pattern, where I’ll have successful months followed by droughts. I never plan things out that way, they just naturally unfold in that fashion. There are numerous factors that play into this phenomenon, but they change every time I go through the cycle. I suppose I can just call it artistic chaos and leave it at that.

This kind of sporadic output definitely takes its toll on my psyche, and many a time I’ll find myself wondering if I’ll ever be able to reach the level of creativity and spontaneity that once came so naturally (without the nagging doubts and irrational fears). Recently I’ve been reflecting on my past efforts, and I’ve pinpointed a specific project that gave my creative self license to play and have fun.

Starting in May 2011 and ending a calendar year later, I wrote a series of numbered poems consisting of 146 sequential pieces that reached varying degrees of success. I started that particular project when my life was in a fragile state, recovering from (what I know now to be) my first manic episode. I’d recently withdrawn from the Spring 2011 semester of college, and my future was up in the air. I had a summer to reflect on life and do my best to gear back up for school in the fall (which was by no means a guarantee). I needed something that would channel my thoughts and energy into something that I could be proud of, something that would give my life’s work a sense of meaning, thereby giving my everyday life more of a purpose.

That numbered poetry project propelled me back into my final year of college, and swept me through my poetry seminar and final reading with aplomb. The sheer volume of work I could pull out of my hat at any moment gave me an air of confidence and legitimacy with my craft, something I sure could use right now. So why not return to my previous successes?

The major success of that numbered poetry project was the platform it afforded me. I could exist amongst the forms, sampling from any and all of the senses whenever they suited me. Nothing was off the table, but there was no table set in the first place. Pure spontaneous creation was the only goal, and I was able to write, forgetting those filters that life had imposed on me for survival purposes. I’m hoping that by reliving this series of sensations, I can once again find the wellspring of unlimited inspiration–where poetry lives and breathes.

I encourage you, fellow journeymen and women–journeypersons–to rip a page from this book and take a break from rigid societal hierarchy and imposed filtration that we deal with at every waking moment of our lives. Free yourselves, if only for a few brief moments at a time, writing what comes naturally without question. If you do that enough, you’ll see a pattern emerge, and you may begin to glimpse at your true creative being–you know, the one who used to draw on the walls.

Cheers,

-A

Traditionalist

A subtle twinge of confidence
is all it would take to begin
a revolution around here,
but there can’t be any upstaging
of the local patriarch, the man
who throws gestures at lesser men
as though there were no way
to upheave his macho influence.
But oh, could he be any more wrong.
He’s simply never seen power in flux;
he figured he’d live his whole life
without answering to the next generation,
all the while refusing to adapt
to the new universal standards
unfolding left and right.
Call him a traditionalist, forcing
his fossil fuel agenda into the oceans
and claiming it was merely an oversight.

Tall Men

The taut tree juts
upward in space,
wanting to be a tall man,
the way it’s seen
tall men walk around
with their arms outstretched,
laughing at the circumstances
that led them to that place,
applauding their position
on the planet as apex predator
for the next few thousand years–
as though being there
had anything to do with skill.

Meanwhile, in the Depths of Space [I]

A congregation of sphinxes (Intergalactic Sphinx Brotherhood Local 167) has made it apparent that nobody will live to finish this particular quiz they’ve concocted–the most difficult sequence of riddles ever devised. An arrangement such as this can only have been composed as a way to appease the in-crowd (you know, the ones who can never have a riddle too tough, therefore devoting their livelihoods to crafting questions that have answers unknown to all but them).

A subset of these puzzling desert denizens can’t help but take pity on the doomed mortals that will inevitably come across this death trap. There have been rumblings for some time amongst a few concerned members, and these conscientious few have agreed to let Rolphus (the notoriously outspoken one of the bunch) have a go at playing the role of public defender and devil’s advocate wrapped in one.

“Brothers, you know that nobody will escape with their lives if they come across this latest amalgamation–doesn’t that irk you at all? We sphinxes aren’t just killing machines. We should at least give our potential victims a chance. Now, that doesn’t mean that every riddle has to be easy. Plenty of people are still going to die, but the rate of death can be something like 99.2%, rather than the appalling 100.0% that’s currently in place. Just give that some thought, brothers, so the history books will record a more just reflection of who we are and the art that we have thanklessly produced for millennia.”

This plea is met with a few seconds of stuffy silence before the meeting proceeds just as it had before. The quiz is not amended, and every human to come across it dies unceremoniously. Less than a year afterwards, tourism on the Sphinx planet Egregion ceases entirely.

Pinto

The Sun filters
through canopy leaves
to impose
a tinted pinto pattern
on a utility vehicle,

two-hundred some-odd
horses neighing
under the hood,
expecting imminent
metal pedaling
and waiting in July heat

for their concrete
cowboy to unhitch them
from the curbpost
after picking up
the second load
of dry-cleaning
in as many days.

The Dawn

Tunnel through a portal
leading past dungeons,
underneath a dragon
both juvenile and mature
enough to know the difference
between a swordsman and
a cake-making grandmother
when both tap on its shoulder
looking for attention solely because
a mythical reptile shouldn’t be
taking up three lanes on the interstate,
much less signaling to passing motorists
that stopping means succumbing to
orchestrated predation that predates
the dawn of our monkey brains.

Cringe

Bent, twiggy-licking finger smidgeons
hover tomorrow, but not
when the ice cream truck
stalls on the corner.
Never when the ice cream truck
frets and coughs on the corner.

But you know the time has blossomed
when those rats reach out
for their most prized trash heap findings;
you know that time reached full flower.

Rugs roll themselves into Lake Superior,
Lake Superior glares and frowns upon them.
Under the toe of a mighty Joe Stallion,
we stroll through our riverwalk
with a mischievous grin.

Cringe
and throttle that barrel-necked
orphan cherry.
Cringe
and throttle that barrel-necked
orphan cherry.

———-

First version (“You Better Believe It”) originally drafted and posted to WHARVED on 3/18/2013