Back at it

An attempt to revisit the ghost of my creativity

Many years ago I used to write short stories, read plenty of science fiction and fantasy (I suppose like most young men do,) but along with all of that I used to write poetry as well. My younger self had an affinity for Kerouac and O’Hara. But the classics, Whitman, Poe, Yeats, even Emily Dickinson all enraptured me in the pleasantness of the written word. I am no painter or artist in any visual media, and if the bare bones basic quality of my videos are any indication, I am not a tech savvy individual as well. But with all that being said, I have tried my hand recently at writing poems again. I usually prefer structured rhyming schemes, perhaps a revealed preference for order. However I wanted to try again, and it’s free form to say the least but I’ll let you all read below.

For What Roads Lie Ahead

For what roads lie ahead?
An answer left to one but one’s self
Struggles surely seem ancient
Yet were there just yesterday
So now the first steps have only just begun.

Who am I to be, what am I to do?
Fallen upon one’s knees wondering
Looking up for an answer
For the creator hath given so much life
My lease once again renewed

Fears of staying put, to languish, to repeat
All of which I’ve done before
Something that I told myself “I’ll do it after”
The time has come, now please step up
Now tell us what will you do?

Questions that still linger on for me,
As I look at the road ahead
Did I do too little as I hurried in my wait?
Or just enough to make sure I can fill my plate?
The mechanical hands move on faster….

Or is that merely my perception?
No, just an acknowledgement of the fact
That you won’t be here as long as you’d like
So plan wisely but don’t sit too tight
For the roads of life wait for you ahead.

So there’s poem number one, written during the waiting times between lab work and consulting with the transplant clinic’s nephrologists. I’ve written a second one, something I think Gio from BTR might be able to relate to as well to some degree.

The Same Old Song and Dance

“Every Dante has his Beatrice”
He tells himself again
Staring at that lengthy confession
Of what was years of words unsaid

And once again the chance arrived
This time finally spoken
Of the years of which affections grew
In which conversations wandered

”What would it be like?” was one
Talked about years ago
Between two youths with foolish hearts
Yet only one seemed willing

Further still as time has passed
The words have rang out empty.
A simple “yes” or even a better “no” preferred
Than rereading old volumes of this history

We both have changed, as has the conversation
Yet it seems all better left unsaid
At this point trapped in my own personal hell
Comes the sobering realization

All this was, was yet again
The same old song and dance
No Beatrice to lead me out
As you were the one that led me in

The image clears upon its answer
An acknowledgement of place
So here I go to carry onward,
To a better life I face.

All crude, all over the place, but it felt good to put down non-fiction. To put down the news articles and to put down the books or the phone screen all of it. I have some older, longer poems hidden away somewhere on an old flash drive, I might just go looking for it. As for now, I want to start doing more of this, and if I write any that are good I think I’ll conclude any future stack posts/essays with them.

More essays to come, so why not: