Statesman > XL Blogs > Archives > 2005 > April > 11 > Entry
Most embarrassing post ever
It’s National Poetry Month and I know you’re caught up in all the drunken revelry, but don’t forget the reason for the season.
I have to admit the poetry book I covet among all others right now is “Teen Angst: A Celebration of Really Bad Poetry.”
Oddly, the editor of this volume, one Sara Bynoe, age 23, did not include me in the collection.
This was a mistake. And I believe that my work makes the case for this.
These poems are from fall 1984 through the beginning of 1985, which was the first half of my freshman year in high school. It seems to have been a particularly fertile period in my poetic life, and, much like Sylvia Plath with “Ariel,” I was writing masterpieces at a feverish pitch, sometimes several a day.
Here are two poems that illustrate the development of themes in my work. You can see how I am beginning to explore unrequited devotion, self-pity and a barely acknowledged vindictive streak in the first work, but those ideas truly come to fruition in the latter poem.
From “One Day”
One day you’ll think back
To when loneliness would stealthily attack
And your heart would cry
When you faced the lie
Of who you are
And what you’ll be
And you’ll wish for someone like me
From an untitled epic
(It should be noted that I went back and capped the S’s in each “she.”)
I was sad and alone that night
And She was in your arms
I had empty dreams that night
And She had your charms
I thought a knife would find my heart
But realized it could now be no more shattered
For now your love would never be mine
And your love is all that matters
Does She know faith and unconditional love?
Does She know desperation, I wonder
Has She ever spent a lonely night
Or had her heart torn asunder
But how long till she finds another?
Until with you her heart is bored
Until your love is pushed away
And all your dreams ignored
I wish you all the best, my love
She’ll fill your day with love and laughter
Her beauty will taunt you through the night
And haunt you the morning after
I never had your love to lose
You never knew and never cared
You’ll never know a plain girl loves you
My hardened heart would never dare
Later, a more experimental streak emerged in my work. Note the abandonment of rhyme:
The cold came
As mine slowly
But never quite
disappears
The whip of wind
Can’t compare
to cutting words
And when I see
the Barren World
I see my soul
Another from the same day, when I seem to have been at the zenith of my creativity.
Somewhere
Where I know
What is right
And what is wrong
If there are such things
Somewhere
to be real
And to be loved for it
Somewhere
where we can live
without total pseudowar
I wonder
if that place
is in you, too.
But I think these two lines are my favorite of all. Because 14-year-olds have such a keen grasp on social justice.
For the sun shines for us all, rich or poor,
It’s not prejudice, you see
Sara Bynoe, call me.
Old business: What have you done today to make “product” happen? Fellow product proponent Joe Stafford gives credit where it’s due: Eric Schwartz of the Chicago Gag Reflex troupe originated the term that’s going to happen any minute now.
Also, do you remember my terrifying brow wax? OK, I take back all the negative stuff I said. Only now, two months later, am I starting to see stray brow hairs grow back. They were too scared before. I guess it proves once again that painful experiences can ultimately be good things. Wait, I feel a poem coming on …
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