About a week or so ago I got an email from the contact form on this website. It was from a guy named Jeremy and I don't know if he googled me or what but I guess somewhere around 1996 I submitted a poem to his zine. He used it in an issue, and the email was an offer to send me a copy (which I received today). The zine is Karass, and it's got a lot of good stuff, so you should check it out. And the return address is Brooklyn, so I guess we're neighbors.

While I have no memory of the submission, I know the date because the last time I wrote poetry was for a collection of poems and photos that was my senior thesis at North Carolina School of the Arts. Not college thesis, senior as in second year of their program, as in I was 19 years old.

Needless to say I was kind of dreading reading the poem when I opened my mail today. It had been literally years since I'd laid eyes on it, and while at the time I thought I was a pretty good poet, we all know that adolescents write some pretty awful stuff. What I found pleasantly surprised me. Sure, the second verse (? stanza? what do you call the sections of free verse poetry?) is really clumsy (an innocent wandering among the flowers? what - is that some Cure lyric reference??). But, overall it has held up, which is more than I can say for the subject matter. I can't even remember what guy had wronged me to inspire it.

Since it is National Poetry Month, and everyone else is doing it, I am going to suck it up and post it here for you. Please be kind - I do not profess do be anything more than an amateur with a poet for a father. And again, I was 19 when I wrote this, and very melodramatic.

The Foundations of Commitment

Dreams and angels
fly far freer
than I ever will
(or want to).

An innocent,
wandering alone
among the flowers,
can stare skyward
between the branches
and feel as full
as a wayward dream.

But I am not her.
(Am I not whole?)

We are joined
in a three-legged race
for life;
Too scared
of our own souls
to ever let go. |