While discussing poetry with a – it feels odd to call him friend, because he was a teacher. But it feels odd to call him my teacher, considering that we Twitter back and forth constantly throughout the day. While I was discussing the odd concept of writing, and the difficulty with writing when it’s something you want to convey so much but have such difficulty doing it, we got somewhat on the subject of poetry. Which then, of course, prompted me to go back through the folders full of old stuff I’d written which I used to honestly believe could pass for poems.

I think this piece from years ago really captures how I feel right now, though. Maybe I will get back into writing poetry, even if it is utter dredge what I come out with. It’s cathartic.

Leviathan’s Lament

Rising, the troubled waters reach
Screaming, shrieking, grasping for the sky
What divides the sea from the heaven?
Where ends shore and begins ocean?
They seek to usurp the hierarchy of blue
Pulling strength from the vasty deep
To lunge like a whale up to the clouds
A spray of tears on a young man’s face –
His eyes close. More than one reflection
In the water staring back – moving in the waves,
Reaching for him too, reaching down in itself.
The sun sets; the seas unsettle
Wreak all hell forth, in water’s fury
Weeping for his love, lashing at the least,
Roaring, ‘A thousand depths cross I
To smile thine eyne upon mine, o love!’
Not the unstable havoc of a child
But the custom madness of a poet
What terror lies there underneath the glassy sheen
Both a mirror and a window;
What hope rests within the flimsy craft,
Both a gateway and a coffin?
My love, you know not despair nor joy
Until you kiss these lips which have waited for you
My love, you know not fear nor elation
Until you see yourself fall into the ocean.