But anyone can write a poem, even me! Especially a bad one. Well, it’s been a long, long time since I put verses on paper but back in the day I was a poem writing fool. I had cause to be reminded of this fact when I opened “the box of memories” I brought back with me from the last visit to the USA.
I was somewhat taken aback at how similar some of those emotions I was expressing back then are to ones I still sometimes experience. And the opposite is true as well, I found my self shaking my head at the sad and petulant young man who fancied himself a writer. Geez, and here I am overcoming that shame by sharing some of those words here with you now. Ha! Finally published after all these years!
Okay, I’m not going to edit or rewrite this crap, but some of it will be excerpted so you’ll get the flavor without having to suffer overmuch. Let’s start with a twofer–a sheet of notebook paper dated December 14, 1972 with these two poems:
The Only Way
Perhaps the best way
Is your way
Maybe the best belief
Is not to believe
Maybe the only answer
Is no answer
And maybe the only time
Is this time...
And yet,
Why can't our love
Be the only love?
Alone
Alone in my fantasies
Alone with my dreams
But when I wake with the dawning
One sullen fact remains
That I am alone in my love for you---
The sun doesn't shine, it rains.
Well, I warned you. Let’s try this:
Here’s an excerpt from a poem called New Year’s Eve which I assume I wrote on New Year’s Eve. Not sure which New Year’s Eve, but given my history of ill-fated love, it could be just about ANY New Year’s Eve.
You never even took the time
To see what you were using
And you were shocked when you found out
It was you who did the losing
And you really can't help looking back
Was it all just another game?
You pretend it doesn't matter
But you've never felt quite the same
And when it's finally all over
Will you look at your life and be sad?
Will you remember the people and places
And the love you could have had?
Alright, I’ve tortured you just about enough I suppose. But before you go, let me share a short essay that just so happens to be the oldest thing in the box, written in my sophomore English class on October 22, 1970. It’s called: Love? Hah!
People are really fools but nobody ever seems to notice this, not even me, until recently. A couple of days ago a friend of mine came up to me and said, “John, I’m in love with Joyce.” I held back from laughing out of friendship, but inside I was thinking “you’re just as dumb as the rest of them.”
Not many people realize there’s no love in the world anymore. Why? Well, for one thing, nobody seems to have time for love in a modern society. Yeah, a lot of people say they’re in love, but they are only fooling themselves. Love is only in the mind. People like to think they are in in love, I guess it makes them happy. I’m not knocking love, how can I? There’s no such thing!
I was only in love once and that’s how I found out about the whole phony thing. It doesn’t make any difference though; people will still foolishly go on searching for something they will never find, something that doesn’t exist, something they call love. Hah!
Hard to believe I was so cynical about love at the tender age of fifteen. Hmm, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Thank you for your indulgence.
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
--Joyce Kilmer
After I’m done with my current book project, my next project will be a book on grammar and mechanics. The latter term refers to things like punctuation and capitalization, and I’ll be thinking of you when I write the section on commas and semicolons.
Not to worry, though: you’re in prestigious company. Both JK Rowling and George RR Martin are infamous comma-splicers, and their errors somehow got past teams of editors, probably because those editors were too afraid to say anything to these divas.
By the way, I liked all of your poetry. Maybe not the punctuation, but the heartfelt sentiments felt alive to me. You took poetry more seriously, at that age, than I did at the equivalent age. Back then, I saw poetry as little more than pretentious verbal farting, in which drooling idiots praised obvious garbage simply because it had been arranged into verse. These days, I’d say I have a lot more respect for poetry.
thank you for sharing your memories and poems to us. I carried poetry books with me all the time back then. I was a member of book club, but I never gave impression about my poems. I’ve been a gifted poet. I have the memory box in my mom’s house, but I am not so proud to find my old thoughts. :))
I mean never been a gifted poet. oops..
Kevin, yeah I make typos and occasionally misuse words, but bad punctuation is by far my biggest writing sin. Seems like there is a void your new book can fill, especially the chapter on “Comma Sense” and “Semi-Colonoscopy”.
Thanks for the compliment! Some of my earliest memories are of my father reading poems aloud to us kids. I’ve always had an appreciation for the feelings a well written poem can invoke, just not much talent at expressing myself in that format. I think my short story fiction writing had more promise. Of course, my creative days are behind me now.
Thanks for visiting and commenting So Yong. You are so full of surprises! A woman who appreciates poetry and has a secret memory box too. What else do we have in common? đŸ™‚