i.
I have tried to write this poem
at my yellow desk by the sea
I have tried to write this poem
in our red car by the mountains
I have tried to write this poem
in the dusty stairs beneath my parent’s home
in the clean, silent rooms of my lover’s family
on a plane across continents
on trains to past lives
I tried to write this poem last year
and the year before, and this week, and today
But the words
sit like weights
at the edge
of my tired tongue
And the tip of my leaking pen
And the edge of my dirty screen
What is the point of poetry when the words hold power
But not the kind that keep the lights on
And the bills paid
And the kids fed
And the parents retired
And the in-laws relieved
And the politicians in check
And the markets, always the markets, moving forward
What is the point of poetry
When it builds us stairs into the sky
But not the bricks beneath our feet?
And the roofs over our heads?
ii.
Adrienne said poetics are the “expressive, linguistic means by which we human beings survive and interpret our collective and individual lives”
Audre said poetry is how we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought
Anna told me that poets are careful with their words
The lesbians told me that poetry is a tactic for life
(But the lesbians lived in poverty in the 70s said Brynn)
(The 70s were a very hard time to be a lesbian)
(Would the 70s lesbian love the 21st century bisexual?)
(Will I live in poverty too?)
(Why does The Artist Way tell us to manifest being rich?)
(Does poetry have compound interest?)
Poetry is not a luxury
Rilke said poetry requires a descent into solitude and the desperation of necessity
CAConrad wants me to stand in front of my door, naked and unafraid
David wandered as lonely as a cloud
I have listened to men all my life
But Sisyphus pushed me down the hill
And out of earshot
iii.
Poetry allows us to say
“I do not know”
“I cannot see”
“I am incomplete”
And still, continue
And be made whole
iv.
poetry is a tactic
libraries are a tactic
long runs and
fresh air and
long meals
cold swims
long conversations and
fresh food
cold drinks
are a tactic
unions are a tactic
strikes are a tactic
cognitive dissonance
tactics
memory work
pirate archives
protest
silence
screens
stealth bombers are a tactic
if organisation is commitment
what are we committed to?
Are there more poets made when we
Stop a war? Or create one?
v.
Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror, empire and us
Just keep going – the words are maps
No feeling is final
I walked so silently, so silent, so slow
And sweet and sentimental that
My feet became ears and I heard the sound
Of the Texas sunset, pumpjack heartbeat
Moving millions of years of crushed ambition
Through the veins of the world
I tried to write this poem from the bottom of the sea
But the road less taken turned left at Mariana Trench
And because I could not stop for death
She kindly stopped for me
I carry your heart with me
In my five poems, my song of despair
The possibility of violence
The possibility of hope
The way the shadow of the sun
Hits bright, unpainted concrete
And an unfinished brick wall
Worship the strength and resilience of your own body.
Pray to no one and nothing but the warm glow of small joys
There is no altar here, we are not in church
Maybe abstraction is the tool we use
When the truth is too hard to say
So metaphor carves the outlines
And we color in the rest