Yr Break

I'm feeling really inspired lately on account of a few things:

1) Went to a really cool poets' open mic night on Friday (?), I believe.
2) I went to Borders (gasp) and left with Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, and Collected Poems 1947-1997 of Allen Ginsberg.

Since these two excursions I've written two songs, finally schedule the end of my tenure at the Omega Studio School and, as of tonight, have written 1.5 poems. I'm finding it really liberating to write in a medium I'm not accustomed to. It forces me to bend my thoughts. Its like artistic exercise - I can feel the benefits kicking in during this period of increased productivity.

I've come to the conclusion that I have no idea how to go about reading a collection of poems - especially a body of work encompassing 50 years...I decided to get out a pencil and just read page by page. I'm marking up the pages and hopefully I'll go back to them to reassess previous musings.

I'm actually quite proud of the poem I just wrote. I feel like a huge amateur (because I am), but from my limited knowledge I would guess it is in free verse form. Its relatively short, but I always valued the concise (haiku, anyone?). I titled it 'Yr Break' in a nod to the beat poetry that inspired it.

'Yr Break'

How different you must have been
In your un-festered youth –
Still reading and writing your way
To a short, if well-deserved, break.
I like to imagine you this way:
Pristine and holy before you were halved
By wholesome fibers and self-expectations.

The park you spent most of those days in
Was a stranger in old clothes.
He spoke to you in quatrains
And lolled ideals hung like curtains [concealing].
Next to this man you smiled lightly,
Seduced by the nature in which he seduced.
‘Let him fuck her’, I think, and strike another Camel.