So I Tossed a Pebble...

So I tossed a pebble...

just to see the depth. Though I'd never know. I can only see the growing ringlets left behind. On the surface.

If you throw a pebble into a pool. It disappears.

Until someone is brave enough to dive down deep and look for treasure.

I'm unaware of the first moment I felt it necessary to spend so much of my life devoted to writing. The most truly ignored art, that is blatantly taken advantage of. Yes Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling have made their fair share from the process. But do you know who the current poet laureate is? I don't. I should. But I sadly do not. And I bet you don't either. (Most of us don't and never will, or care)

I feel there is so much about the gift of writing that is buried below the sea of 'accepted' and 'popularized' art forms like film and music. I did my research. I know at one point in our human lifespan that poetry was thought of as a pretty cool thing to work at. To throw one's life into. To give up the expected trades, and labor, of our history, for a meager and risky life creating reflections of the world in words. (In some manner, all art is a reflection of society and our course through time. Sort of like taking a healthy and pretty crap. A good result of our metaphysical and sociological digestive habits. An expression. Output. Shit, to some.)

To give up the necessary labor of fixing the pipes that enable you to drink and clean, a good and constant job, for something like the art of poetry, or creative writing, takes a great deal of pride in ones work, and faith in ones ability to prove to the rest of humanity that your words are somehow going to inspire their work and their lives. Somehow the words you are paid to put down on paper are for the better good of man...

So when I see Joe-schmo walk up to the podium at my Open Mic Poetry event I have high expectations. I'm thinking "Man if you're here to read poetry this shit better be fucking good! This writing better knock my fucking rocks off. These words better make me feel something. Anything. They better open my eyelids to the truth of our existence, a bit wider then they all ready are." I'm thinking... "This poetry better mean something!!"

More times then not. The poetry is shit. It's a bunch of rhyming crap. About their sad moments. About their dead grandmas. About their annoying wives. About what it's like to see pretty flowers. About another cloud. About God again. About the President! Whoa, that's unique. Let's discuss. Or the best is when they pull the racial card. The oppression. Yeah Angelou did it better. Get over it. We're so passed that moment. JFK was shot like fifty years ago. Yes that'll sound great at the next slam competition. Look you rhymed meager with leader. Excellent. Nice with twice. Loser with user. Die with Lie. That's my favorite!!!


But then some little old woman will hobble up. Wrinkled papers in hand. Shaking a little. Not sure if she's nervous, or its her evening Meds kicking in. She smells old too. Like dusty newspapers left on a high shelf in the garage too long. But she still reminds you of home. She grabs the mic, fumbling. Making loud noises that echo through the room. Asks, shouts, if we can obviously hear her. And reads something that's real. Like she knows something about poetry that we do not. That she knows something about life, that we do not. Talks briefly about the warmth of his skin. The translucence of it. How the cancer spread like flame across paper. Like there's something about the soul, something about the relation between it, and us. How experience and wisdom somehow come into play. And I realize there's so much for me to learn. So many years that still need to unwind, for me, for the bad poets, for the poets unaware, for the people just trying. To create something out of nothing. To show the rest of the world that their lives are meaningless beautifully-brief revolutionary infinitely-possible sparks that require just the faintest sign of oxygen, to ignite.

To bring beauty like a flower takes a God-like hand. And to craft that beauty in words takes a poet. And for all my indiscretions and lack of faith in the current states-of-art. I know art is an ever-evolving life form of its own. And though poetry has become a lost art, forgotten, embraced by the humble few who keep it alive, against a modern tide of technologically-enhanced art expressions, we shall always remain pure and unhindered, never tainted by time. Always simple. Always brief. To be read in a breath or two. To be digested for a life time.

So we are swept up by the masses, for as the world grows old, we people spread and multiply like flies, and the numbers seem to grow towards infinite. And the reality is, there are more poets now then there ever were before. Which just means its much harder for the really good ones to stand out. Especially considering there's not much reward towards striving to poetic achievement. What will I gain? No fame. No payday. An impossible publishing nightmarish experience.... Or maybe I publish a poem in the ultimate fashion, hidden on a single page, buried in some pile of New Yorker magazines, on the DISCARD cart at the local library's periodical collection. No thanks. I work at a library. I just chucked that pile in the 'recycling' bin.

It's just much harder now. Much much harder.

I fell in love with poetry when my cousin died. When he was swallowed by the sea. I was twelve. He was thirteen. And thinking then, I couldn't understand why God took children. And poetry taught me everything I needed to understand. Poetry opened my eyes.

Robert Frost taught me that. e.e. Cummings taught me that. Emily Dickinson taught me that. William Wordsworth taught me that. Sylvia Plath taught me that.

They taught me that life is real. Real hard. Real sweet. Real precious. And really poetic. That all of life is a constant struggle. A constant tug-of-war between all the fucking opposites. Love and hate. Life and death. Black and White. Smiles and Tears. Night and Day. And they created little worlds in magnificent simplicity. They took our most basic form of communication. Language. Took their favorite words. Pieced them together delicately. And wrote a poem.

I wish to cast a reflection of my world into the written word. For only one reason. Because I can.

I just work towards a point of hoping that I have put enough energy, thought and work into the craft that those who have created this path for me will be proud of my effort. That they will look down upon my words and feel that I tried. That I really tried.

Maybe my opinion is a bit misguided. Maybe a few of you will feel I'm completely off target.

Who knows. But maybe I don't give a fuck about what you think.

And that's the true sign that someday you might get to call me a poet.