Last night this French guy on T.V.
was going around filming the 9-11
event so someone like myself could
see what it was like to be in a disaster
of that magnitude. I forget his name.
He had a brother in one of the two
towers. Don't know which. He said
he had thought about helping people,
but realized that he didn't know how.
He wasn't a fireman, or a paramedic,
he concluded what he did best was film.
Action....the french cameraman who
ran past dusty bleeders covered in
mounds of disorganized paperwork was
curious why there were no bodies found.
He kept a steady hand on his eye as he
watched others dig through the rubble.
His breathing was increasingly labored
black specks were accumilating on his lense,
black specks of no bodies found.

dw/06

I guess it happens all the time.
Nets are cast, sink, fishermen
wait. Ocupy themselves with
charts or sails. Nothing gives
under the waves. Not a sign
of whether any tuna on the
course of hunting became prey.

Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe
when a full net scrambles the
boat feels the tug. This morning
that isn't the case. I fear the
market crowd will be unsatisfied.
The price of supper rise. I am
not sure why I fish. I prefer to
see creatures leaping from the
surface,than caught in the net.
But I do also like the taste of
them, lightly broiled with lemon.

dw/06

I'm sorry Lavonne, I just now saw your comment.  I will think about what you asked and try to give you an answer later.

Thanks for reading.

D

Hey Lavonne,

You have asked some difficult questions.  I am not sure how a writer develops. I suspect it begins with a love of language. Then experiences and emotions form a core substance that defines the soul's shape. I would describe myself as dark, and awkward, this emerged from being a fearful and lonely child.  Words were always my best defense, they would do as I asked, I could see my way out of any challenge using these symbols.

I do not consider my style or voice as formed. I only began writing poetry about ten years ago. Right now I am in the crude process of rapidly cataloging what comes to mind. If I perish, it is what it is. When I find old poetry notebooks from five or so years back I can see ways of fixing things that I was blind to before. I imagine that in five or so more years, it will be the same with what I have done here.  I'm not sure I have enough time to become a good poet, for you see, I also like writing the short stories I develop for work. I would say I was closer to producing  a teaching manual for ESL ( English as a Second Language) than I am at getting together a respectable collection of poems. Truth is, they are probably both far off, but the struggle makes me feel alive. This week I wrote a story about occupations for my Hispanic students. I got several rounds of applause. They struggle so hard to understand our language and culture that I get greater satisfaction from helping them.

I am sorry. I don't think I have been very helpful, but I think you had a good question. Perhaps if you posted it on the discussion board, other poets could articulate their experiences better.

d

Ever braver essence of wine sip
enters chasm where tongue too
timid to arc itself for the battle
over whose heart belongs where
falls limp to silence of direct cut.
Better it was my love gimped
than the warrior who must cross
over a pontoon bridge of dead
metaphors to secure a mark on
the reed tips poking out of the
shallows. Walk lightly that we
should all call you heroic. All minus
I. I without you is an unbanded
portion of the bridge, a floating
off of debris. I break form that
you might lose balance and fall.
There, in the fast currents, you
will reach out to my bright smile,
a warm sun, painful as it may be.

This is cool stuff.

Years later the pieces come.
The whys of having to take
word lists and use all twenty
some of the new spellings in
a story you made up. Apples
I wish I had now. Complaints
I had then, even though it
happened to be something
I did well. Surely the retellings
were odd mouthfuls of sonically
on topic diction intended to
help a kid get along in the
world. I crammed thoughts,
taking pride when I could
work a pair of words in side
by side. Sloppy as I was,
the exercise became a staple
of my trade.  So, to my teachers,
long lost pointers and shushers,
put your head downers, atta
boying their liner uppers. Love.
Gold stars, class clowns with
chronic sore throats. A summer
and then some of rest. More love.

Foster a year's light into phrase.
You can, and wonder that the
the light mesmerizes, bringing
forth new chants.  Withdraw.
Sensing a causation beyond a
reckoning known. Leave her to
old remedies that can't cure,
fearing a hunger no stomach
could outwinter or burn bright
enough through. She knows
what she knows. It is not a
skill taught but a nerve end lit
from the sleep of ages ago.
Best as new wakeness can
tell, it is displaced, yes, a fossil
covered in pity, relic of shame.

Raisins reason rightly. Each dream
reviewed relentlessly in hopes of
next year's grape. Black runted
and shrunken as they are, raisins
won't say the sun is a son of a bitch.
They know that punishment comes
with rewards. But shrivel me this,
at the high noon of half lost juice,
any regrets? My sweetening tid
bit of lost wine, soon you will be
a clump part shoved in a little red
box, and I shall no more check your
firmness and think grand toasts.

dw/06

There will be elbow room for miles.
No old family photos to abide your
emerging poems. Birds will chirp as
if worms were worth more than a
breath of what you wrote cold. Be
it true or not, you have encoded
skin to shed. Recant what's chased
blind or taken in the gut. Is it the
tale of all tales, or a tale among
same tales? If only pencils were
better critics. This is a castle of
what is thought today. It is of
loose stones piled where a lawn
mower will churn and spit green.
People will drive by and comment
on how finally something was done
about the unkeptness of the yard,
and the real poem will be the dead
clippings used by loud chirping birds.

dw/06

OK, this gives me pause. Makes me want to recant every negative thing I ever said.

Never is the speed of how I love you
faster than a billow of chopped green
onion tails thrown at soup. Always this
is a wait.  Coffins pile in honor of how
many alter egos might emerge trying
to persuade a call for more salt, a few
ripples blown at the surface of a hot
bowl, slurp, the addition of parsley, yes.

Damn you to oil based table cloth stains.
and wobbly table legs, without match
books to prop an intrigued elbow lean.
Did you only come to twirl a toothpick
and tell me how pretty my sister was?
Then broth for you, less than a dead
man can spit. Then tell me again, how
you came. Your way down, you idiot.

Sinister wind of invinsible death.
swirling mist about crypts and
low lying crawlers of hard fisted
life. Be you civil as a rich witch
or lewd as a just freed kite, I
crave your whiplash, gust and
bite. How do you make of full
grass a toppledover spigot of
waternot?  Blow enough to
drop a leaf on the ground.
Make it run until it finds the
proper shoe to be crushed
under. Help all things to their
ruin, friend of death, Wind.

Corregate any cruel myth that flames
consume. Wellbellow heat for show.
If it hurts to ember red in a moonless
void, crackle loud enough that someone
should learn of a hard winter ahead.
We are of moving on, leaving steps.
Stay.  I did not come this far to find
myself. I came because I was lost. It
would be of little good if I polished my
blindness with luck so that others mis
took it for know how. Empty always
were my hands. I went where water
ran clear, lingered at still pools as if
reflections held maps. Birds watched
my back, half expecting I could soar
if I got a mind up and jumped. Stay.
The never of arriving is wearisome
beyond discovery. This world is but
a crowd of doubts, and time is all
you have to bet. Save your days.
There is cake after all, and so many
fine pillows to lavish troubled heads.
dw/06

Was a me hovered as a practical vacuum
salesperson with an inferior dust come
hither now. Started off with a head full
of clever coupons clipped on the dashed
lines. My, My's. And look at theses. Pauses
were tough. Who could one up a hell of a
deal? Just listen, listen. But the guy had
light cream shag, over 3000 square feet.
A Kirby coudn't have mooched clean the
heels of that auto mechanic. By Thursday
I was fifty percent off. Threw in a power
nuzzle and a year's supply of what have
yous. He said he was saving up for wood
floors. Asked if I had any brooms, I didn't.