And I Blew It!

Bob Dylan sang: "Yippee! I'm a poet! I know it! Hope I don't blow it!" I can't say the same: I used to write poems once, made the mistake of sitting in a workshop with two good poets and bunch of pretenders, and realized I was one of the pretenders. Stopped writing poems right there.

But, years later, brooding in Mountain View, I wrote a couple of poems, disciplined, dry. Here's one:

---
Nightmare

We know how sleep lets any odd thing visit.
On days when it refuses to come, must
be there are new monsters barking at the
gates. Laying awake and counting aches in
each joint, trying to count sheep and the shards
of sharp wakefulness, simply breathing
and waiting for the lull and sweet of night--
those unseen forms still pry into our heads.
And jolted waking only reminds of
what's just been lost--there had been sleep and dream,
though tepid and horror-brushed. Toss again
and return to hell, where mirrors abound--
for, surely, man's torment is more of him
reflected in his mind's sanctuary.

---

I also found a story I had given up on. It was written at Whitman as a part of the Adam Dublin Grant. I have lost the other two completed ones, and the one half-worked story. Perhaps in another post I will include excerpts. It looks bad now, but back then people liked it, especially when I read it as a part of a presentation.