Hoo boy, it was a hot day today, the air was as still as a lion, stalking. Even the shadows were in retreat, form the glaring, oppressive heat. There was no relief. So, I didn’t go out much.
I stayed in, smoked a couple of joints, spent a lot of time watching bad TV and browsing facebook, but I did have one big accomplishment. I finished a poem I’ve been working on for a while and, while it might not quite have the dramatic flair I thought it would, it comes very close to what I actually wanted to say, so good enough. They don’t always do that.
After I finished, I started going back through the poems I’ve written over the last month or so, putting together a playlist for next month’s Alchemy reading (Monday, Sept. 5th, Napa Bar in Malastrana, for any Prague residents reading this), and I found three I’ll definitely use, a couple I quite like and will use if there’s enough time, four or five I want to save and may put in my next book but not really top of the line, or maybe would require too much explanation, and about a dozen which, O.K, they may live for ever on facebook but it’s probably just as well for the collective reputation of 21st century literature if they are subsumed in the ocean of data and never noticed again.
This is what facebook has done for my writing, or this is what facebook has done to my writing, and I prefer the article in the first part of this sentence.
Because the best way to write 3 good poems is to write a couple of dozen poems and then choose the best ones. And, due to facebook, I am writing a lot more poems. One rhyming tweet a day to promote this blog. Frequent comments in rhyme, which sometimes are clever, but are almost always ignored, which is O.K., I’m aware of the fact but since it doesn’t cost anything, those rhymes generally come without effort, or deep thought of any kind, and and it only takes a second to type it in, I just go for it. Then there’s the Poems About Paintings page, which has slowed down to the point I almost thought I was done. How many poems can you write about trees, and flowers, and houses? But, I am not done, a couple popped up recently, and it may be an infinite source of inspiration after all.
So, I’m writing a lot more poetry, I’m sure lots of other people are writing lots more poetry and, admittedly, they’re not all gems. Poems are a little bit like UFO sightings. 95% of them are crap but, oh, those others…
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