Café Contemplations

Here’s to the new year, and hopefully to moving on. (Ha. Right.)

Holly Lisle Is Always Right

You know, I can’t think of one time when Holly Lisle has been wrong. She’s always preached that if you’re having a fight with your Muse, leave them alone and eventually they’ll come back to you with a good idea that you can then make great.

I’ve been pushing ideas out of my head all semester, demanding something better than the ideas I had in Mali (which weren’t half bad). Finally, this afternoon, she came to me with something I can work with.

I’m gonna play around with it a little more before getting into anything serious, but I’ve got a good feeling about this.

Onward.

Rachel and Ross…story of my life.

think

when you really think about it
—and you’re already up by ten
if you can really think about anything at all—
any kindness left in the human heart is a miracle
and proof of someany one gOd’s (realness

is distinct from existence)
having control over society
supersedes (underscores?) the presence of (love
or as believers say

Love) is God and gOd is lOve
and if we all know Love is real,
who can deny gOd is real?

Refreshing

Today, after about a week of tossing around a few ideas, I started writing again.

And damn, does it feel good.

A Villanelle

the ticking of the clock leaves me behind.
though i pretend that i no longer care,
the syntax of her love still kills my mind.

alone, i wish she’d once again be kind.
since time has failed to dull my long despair,
the ticking of the clock leaves me behind.

parentheses of kisses soon did find
a way to hold my life between each pair.
The syntax of her love still kills my mind.

another hour into my past has chimed,
and though i try to loosen pain’s cold stare,
the ticking of the clock leaves me behind.

our too-short love a lengthy thread did wind:
one sentence in a novel isn’t fair;
the syntax of her love still kills my mind.

the days and weeks have not my sorrow timed
or dulled my inner death to help me bear.
the ticking of the clock leaves me behind.
the syntax of her love still kills my mind.

Three Turns and Forever

I stepped back into some very familiar territory the other day and wrote a poem in my spare time: “Three Turns and Forever.” It’s been quite a long time since I last wrote a poem, and I’m pretty happy with the result. Like most of my poems over the last few years (and almost all of the good ones), it’s very inspired by E. E. Cummings (my favorite poet). I’m not going to post the whole thing (because it’s pretty personal), but the first stanza is below:

story told,
beyond time rhyme reason hope.
story told, but not a
story finished. 

It’s a very unexpected continuation to series of poems written by myself and one of my friends, Amelia, several years ago. And while I’m sure the poems themselves have been long lost over time, I haven’t forgotten them. (In fact, that’s one of the themes of my poem. Some things are not forgotten; they’re simply not remembered for a long time.)

Anyway, I DO think I’m going to post a different poem, just for old time’s sake. (Melanie, I hope you’re reading, because this is for you!) I wrote it back in April of 2009…almost three months after Amelia and I broke up. (Actually, most of the best poems I’ve written were from that relationship and the turbulence thereafter. There was a hell of a lot of raw emotion back in those days.) I’d forgotten it still existed, actually, and I’m glad I found it. I wrote it for my senior AP English class, and it was the only good thing to come out of that whole damn class. It was also the only good poem I ever wrote for any assignment, in fact. It’s in the villanelle style, which is one of the only structured styles I actually enjoy. It takes a lot of effort to make a villanelle work.

It felt good to be back in the realm of poetry, but I’m really happy I jumped back in for a bit. Now it’s time to jump back into building my career, I guess. To the Dat(a) Cave!