The Lava Field, Freedom

Here is one exploration of anger. I don't know. It's just a poem. Back in the fourth grade I was hot like this. My parents had forced me into a situation that made me look ridiculous and then they laughed. They were trying to bust me out of a behavior they were tired of. That worked. But I was so angry and so unable to express it that things changed inside. It took a long time for me to understand what had happened. In the meantime, when I was teenaged, I made life really tough for them and a little later for me. For many years now, I have known that what they had done to me was teach me to hate. I didn't even know what hate was before that and didn't know what it was that changed when it did. But hate is what it was. I have never been fond of object lesson manipulations ever for any reason ever since I have understood that price. It is certainly not what my parents wanted. There is always a wildcard. I am sure they would not have done it had they known the price I would pay, and then pay back.

But hey. This is just a poem, not really about that, probably.

The Lava Field

I was angry once,
So hot that my hope melted
And flowed down my sides.

I am deformed, bent like that.

I have held still for so long
That dreams have begun
To form on my ruined hope,
On you in my life.

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I'm going to reflect on writing poetry from time to time. I have to. I am trying to figure out what the effing hell I am doing here. It hasn't stopped, this push to get the poems out. I thought I was going to break training today, but nope, at the end of it I had my two poems. I have promised myself as a spiritual discipline, or so I say, that I will emulate Hafiz (who wrote longer ones generally, at least one a day) and since they are short, I will write two. But why? All of a sudden last August this happened to me...I said this is the form and it's variations. I should be able to knock these things out in a few minutes, let's go! There have been poems that take longer. I also edit at post time when I decide that the words or the rhythms tweak me. Doesn't usually take too much longer. I'm a flipping poetry cartoonist. God made me do it:) So now I've caught his heel and I'm not letting go until he hollers. The only answer so far is I'm running out of time. But I don't think I really believe that, not in any special singled out way.

Freedom

Writing poems is
Taking on the other skin,
The other odd life
Where I am you or you or
A bug-eyed field of long corn
Or stranger than that.

It is being free to roam
All the roads I find.