Podcast #5: February 3rd, 2022

Again, the first piece this week is from my self-published chapbook, Curt; Urbane. If you’d like to read this plus the other poems I wrote, you can order a copy by clicking this link.

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Stigma

Marked down, tattered remains
redemptive path-strewn negatives;
dismiss their intellectual arrogance
none of that is yours to give.
As brain won’t scan, subordinate
distant anger closely reined, relived
tear stained rejection etched on fingertips:
pencil to key, listen to me
branded self-failure,
eternity, bereft.

Fifty-three autumns past, now know
here remains right place to be.
Let poems fall, bring them back up,
to fail, most vital skill of all.
Wear badge of shame, strong pride, reborn
unafraid of tears inside
other’s definitions not required.
Rules restricting portent’s present tense:
no need for anything 
except myself.

I think a lot of non-writers believe that the idea of writers being struck by inspiration whilst in the shower or in the middle of the night is hyperbole. It absolutely isn’t. This poem is the inevitable moment when you had the idea, but by the time you got to write it down…

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Inspiration

Freedom, constrained
words I never had, suddenly regained
from those dark depths of itching fear
that sends skin on edge and teeth to rot
lost in synaptic overlap between fractal and noise
being easier to grasp than hold, let slip away
knowing hard truth between those lies I told myself
that this is truest moment ever made
by words and now

fucking hell

it’s gone.

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