She’s a beautiful mess
This love starved womanly child
With frightful contradictions
Bound up in her mind

Busily skipping through wounding days
Too many minutes press hard
Frustrating her efforts at the anxious
Peace she pursues

Yellow orange green gold red
And nearly brown
Coexisted on the third full day
Of Hoosier Autumn
With tall, thinning pines
Swaying in the background
Our sweetly deciduous forest
Shimmers cleanly, clearly
And warmly
Much warmer than the winds themselves

Easier isn’t always better. That’s been one of my personal mottoes for the last decade or so. And yes, I’ve had several through the years. I’m a creature of habit and I enjoy recycling the same phrases for various purposes. It occurred to me at a certain point that I should adopt a new motto each term of college. My Old School had a trimester calendar and I spent nearly seven years there in total (not all as a student) so I had lots of mottoes.

I’m thinking of this particular motto because of how hard it is for me to write poetry sometimes. I can admit it freely; I’m an exceptionally lucky person. I have a beautiful, amazing wife. I have a beautiful, amazing son. I have a beautiful, amazing family of origin. (I really do like phrase recycling.) My job is fun and challenging. I have enough time to write, read, exercise and screw off. It’s a good life. My frustration is with myself because although I have time to do all these things, I don’t. At least, not enough.

Writing poetry is, for me, a powerful experience that moves and shapes in ways nothing else does. I don’t sing, dance, (I know, surprise, surprise.) play music, draw, none of it. Okay, I do sing George Michael in the car- loudly. Sorry, Lovely. Otherwise, writing is my outlet for personal expression and I love it. Doing it well, though, takes more time and energy that I can sometimes generate. Part of the problem is that I’m too happy. We all know that great artists are supposed to be starving, right? Well, I don’t think it’s starving necessarily that generates great work, but the suffering that goes along with starvation that’s the key. PLEASE don’t get me wrong; I don’t wanna suffer anymore than I already have. What I’d like is to find ways to connect more deeply with those who do suffer. I want to translate their pain into my writing. I want to provide a voice for the silent. I want to tell the story of those society refuses to hear. (Thanks for those words, Sarah.) I’m working on it.

The big old house
Is gone now
Just like the neighborhood
It helped anchor

The first place I knew
How to call home
Now just dust, cinder
Smoke charred ash
And the memories made in it

But shouldn’t that be enough
Since walls don’t hear
Floors can’t talk
And you and I always
Always will

I probably don’t know anyone who’s drowned in the Mississippi River tonight. I wrote a poem once about an escape across the Ohio but there was a reason for that crossing. It mattered. Today was routine. The drive from work, to the restaurant, on the way to church, the Twins game or over to the U for an evening class.

In the late afternoon, the river was a nice view since the sun shines a little differently on it than the rest of the water in town. And then it began to pour. Concrete, steel, cars, people, trucks, lives and worlds falling in to and on top of each other. Pouring, dropping, dying into the river.

I care too much about them. I’ll ask too many questions and find too few answers. I already know that I’ll never quite understand. Why these people? Who did they harm?

Was one of the victims Jaime’s nurse when she got sick last summer? Will Bob’s summer camp counselor be found in the morning clinging to a rock? Did Nolita’s friend Melissa take 494 today instead of 35W?

$3 is a good price for excess.

Of course excess is relative. If the difference is nothing to a drink, that’s one thing.

Moving from a drink to a buzz

From a buzz to being drunk

From being drunk to rocked

From being rocked to being stupid

From being stupid to being dangerous