Someone recently told me that my poetry makes them sad.
It shook me for a moment.
When writing I’m happy with the construct and the trying.
I understand that the same gritty memories that joyfully remind me of living,
In another person with a different view,
Could strike a nerve of loneliness and dying.
In writing, I want to make folks happy- at least to a degree.
The problem is, of course, that the lenses I use to see the world are molded to fit me.
While I can imagine life in other shoes,
The truth is that all I see is shadows on the wall.
The well-turned phrase that makes my inner being rise,
Is the same ghastly thought making another spirit fall.
There is a constant tension in the dualism of objective subjectivity.
Thought I try with all my will to record truth in all I see,
Each time I write I find I’m locked in time, place, and me.
In society we learn the difference between our essence and our characterization,
By traveling through the minefield of office, role, and station.
Ultimately we are people of the pack, of tribe, and of nation.
Despite our own internal self, we live towards expectations.
While I acknowledge that I am not always the things I present myself to be,
When it comes to seeing this through the eyes of other,
The focus slips through difficulty.
While I search for clarity, every action is shrouded in doubt.
Conceptually I want to know the motivations of others,
But in practical process they wear me out.
My mother asked why I wrote so many sad poems. I said I write about it to give sadness a shape and redeem it as art. It moves it out of myself and makes it manageable