May The Daily (W)Rite wk 2

wk o2

 Thursday, May o8, 2o14

   Having a three day old panic attack. I can't write. I never could write. Three nights ago I was shaken awake by an earthquake. Not being able to sleep, I decided to look over some poetry that I had planned to publish on Facebook. And I'm drinking coffee and reading and  . . . I realize all of a sudden that this poem sucks! Not sure why (all of a sudden) I had that realization, but I most surely did. It was horrible writing. That's when the panic began. I opened up my flash drive, looked at every poem I had ever written . . . and yes . . . it was true . . . All of it, every poem . . . sucked. I was screwed! How could I have been so stupid as to think I could write poetry that was worth a damn?!
  

Of  course my Facebook friends tried to console me:
"Oh, your poetry isn't THAT bad."
"Maybe you just need to do a little more rewriting."
"There wasn't an earthquake in Oklahoma last night. You must be delusional."
I'm not sure how the last one was suppose to make me feel better . . . but the others didn't help either, so . . .  As David and I had dinner I told him about my sudden epiphany, "I suck as a poet." He just laughed saying that that happens all the time to writers. It's growth. It means you are strengthening your art, your craft . . . you're becoming a real artist. Well, his words were a bit more comforting than my other friends' assessments. Even though I'm still not sure if I can write anymore, or if I ever COULD write.

   So what do I do? Do I continue to write this crap in hopes that I'll find my way to "the good stuff" ? Should I just quit, give up, go sit on a park bench somewhere and feed the birds and shout at the kids when they pass by, "Turn that damn music down, you punks!" Well, I can't do that. They have i-pods now.

3:30 P.M.

   Forcing myself to sit down at the computer and write. Write what? Hmmm. That's the haunting

question. I'm taking a step back and looking at my intentions. I mean, I know I want to be a writer, but I'm not all that sure I have anything to write about! Or at the least, anything that people want to hear. I guess that's the my problem. I'm trying t write for an audience instead of writing for myself. But then, I'm back at the same place with, "what do I want to write about?" I feel like I'm lost in an imagination blackout. I'm not finding anything interesting to write about. Oh, it's there, I know its there . . . I just can't see it. So, I'm reading some other poets. Mostly famous poets to sort of get my observation skills back. No, I don't want to "copy" some famous writer. I just want to me inspired.

   Here's a writer that I truly admire. His skill and his artistic thought process is something I feel like I lack:

Cuttings (later)

This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,

Cut stems struggling to put down feet,
What saint strained so much,
Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?
I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing,
In my veins, in my bones I feel it --
The small waters seeping upward,
The tight grains parting at last.
When sprouts break out,
Slippery as fish,
I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet.       
-Theodore Roethke

  Roethke does so much with this piece, he sees and expresses so much  . . . and that's the problem with me lately. I can't see it, the art, and I have no craft to express it. I can't see and I can't express.
So, the journey begins. Reboot my creative self. Start over, or at least, move in a different way, see the world in a different way and improve my skills. Learn to crawl before I can walk or run or . . . write.

Saturday, May 1o, 2o14

Driving down Boyd, crossing the tracks, the car in front of us stops flipping on it's left turn signal.
And there we are, David and me, in his little car, on the railroad tracks.
"What the fuck are you doing, David?! Get of the fucking tracks!"

"There's no trains coming!"

"Get off the tracks!" 

 Yeah, I was having a panic attack. David didn't appreciate it at all, pretty pissed at me for the rest of the Art Walk we were driving to.

 

  As we were walking along on Main St. looking for a place to eat, we started to cross the tracks and I stopped to take a picture. Well, David really let me have it! "Hey! Get off the tracks! A train might hit you!" We both laughed and I apologized for being such an old lady about it.

   I have had them all the time, through out my little life. Panic, I mean, real run for your life panic. It happens any time that I feel unable to control my life. I don't think about it, it's not a conscious choice, it's primal, I guess. And, be as truthful ass I can, it has fucked my life. I've lost friends, lovers, hell, even jobs over this manic state I get into anytime I feel threatened.

   Other than me almost destroying the only friendship I have . . . the Art Walk was extremely relaxing and fun. Took quite a few pictures, and David walked around for a few good hours before his body started to tire out. But he's getting better. The physical therapy seems to be helping a lot. He needs to exercise after the therapy is over or his body will probably go back to it's original daily pain. Hell, I need to exercise too. "Use it or lose it."
   Oh, the animation above depicts one of the many street musicians you can find on Main Street during the Art Walk. Particularly interesting about this animation is the reflection of the traffic passing by the big bay window behind the guitarist.

 

Monday, May 12, 2o14

   Yesterday. Mother's Day. Most of my Facebook friends paid tribute to their moms yesterday. Some showed old photos back when mom was a kid, or mom as a very young mother with her children hanging off of her like leaves on a tree. Some pictures showed mom today. Much older, fragile but smiling, though. My friends love their moms. They all testify to the good nature, the caring nature of their individual mothers. A few years back I wrote a poem about my mother. . .  sort of:

 

My Mother’s Day

Sundays were always lazy days

around our house. Dad would lie

on the couch drinking beer, watching

the Figure Eight races on TV, nodding

off every now and then. A single snort

from his open mouth would wake

him with a start. He’d take another

sip of beer, wipe his eyes and fall

right back into whatever dream he was dreaming

without even noticing that car 56 had just been

rammed into oblivion by a Plymouth Fury.

Mom busied herself in the kitchen. Doing what?

I don't know.  Motherly things.

She scurries about all daylong from the kitchen sink

to the  refrigerator. Always looking for something

but never finding whatever it was she kept looking for.


Me and Brother Dennis would sit on

the back-porch listening to Mother

banging around in the kitchen

and mumbling to herself.

 

We never talked my brother and me.

We just sat digging at the dirt with

the heels of our tennis shoes quietly

dreading school on Monday. We hated school

almost as much as we hated each other.

And my sister? She moved out ‘long ago

to our Aunt Ella and Uncle Ace's ranch  

in the high desert. I never knew exactly

what she was doing up there so far away

from her family, her real family. I never

understood my sister or her moods.

Come to think of it, I never understood

any of the women in my life. That’s

probably the reason why I live alone.

Anyways,

it’s Sunday, Mother’s Day. As I write

this poem, I wonder what my mother’s doing . . .

probably walking to the refrigerator, to the kitchen sink,

stopping to fold and refold the dish towels, the cloth napkins

her mother had willed to her two years ago. She searches still,

I suppose, for that something she could never find.

—rrw o5-13-12 (rewrites o5-11-14)

Wednesday, May 14, 2o14
Watching the news this morning, I got a bit of a start when they said, "If you are lethargic, it might be a symptom of early dementia." Well, that's me for the last year. Don't feel like doing anything other than laying on the couch and watching TV. What the hell, man, I don't want dementia! I'm forcing myself to do things write, damn it! I know. If I have the big D, me writing everyday probably won't do anything. But I've got to try. I will not:

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

-By  Dylan Thomas  

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Damn, here it is nine days before my birthday and I haven't even started on my annual birthday poem! I've been writing one every year since I turned 55 (or so), and don't want to stop now. So, the business of the next nine days is . . . write that damn POEM!

3:13 P.M.

David didn't pick me up when he went to his physical therapy. I feel jilted! Hope he's not mad at me. I was looking forward to going down to the PT gym and watching all the old people and the young jocks on crutches and in wheelchairs struggling to get inside. I can't help but try to figure out what happened to them. Was it a car accident, a football or soccer injury? Was there a fight? The old people, well, you can figure out pretty fast their reasons for being there . . . they're old. I also miss reading my book. I know, I could just as easily read it here at home, but there was just something about going to that comfortable chair I claimed as my own in the waiting room, sitting in it and reading until, that is, my eyes began to close . . . reading makes me tired these days. A lot of things make me tired. I wake up ready to go back to bed.

Still haven't come up with my birthday poem . . . yet. A few ideas pop into my head, but I dismissed most of them. I am a bit worried that I won't find an idea. I need an idea . . . NOW!