Have been looking around my poetry files, stuff I wrote about 20 years ago, when I was about 30 or so. I do this occasionally.
Found this one, that seems kind of appropriate lately. Maybe it was always appropriate.
Convenience
Why do people work for mills?
To make it easier for us to throw away clothes.
Why do people work in coal mines?
To make it easier for us to show off our energy.
Why are people homeless?
to make it easier for us to live in seclusion.
Why do we throw our shit into the sea?
To make it easier for us to forget where we came from.
Why do we throw our shit into the sky?
To make it easier for us to hide from the stars.
Why do we like to throw everything away?
To make it easier to forget about ourselves.
Why do people die in wars?
To make it easier for us to feel good about ourselves.
Why are people in pain ignored?
To make it easier for us to feel bad about ourselves.
Why do poets die young?
To make it easier for us to feel romantic about ourselves.
Why do we beat each other up?
To make it easier to get on with it.
Why do we break each other's hearts?
To make it easier to feel human.
Why do we like to try to die?
To make it easier.
I was about 30 when I wrote that. I dated it March 21, 1991, in fact. I like to date my poetry. It's a good thing to do.
Who was that girl, I think? 31 years old and definitely a woman and then some. So angry, so precise. But so young. I think of 30 year old women, and I don't think of people who write angry poems like that. More like bright girls in their early 20's.
I have more of this stuff in my house, these poems, these rants that I've written. I've carted them around when I moved, at times. Files of scribblings, of pain, of truth at times.
I'm happy that the volume is small, that I don't have boxes and boxes of inchoate ramblings to leave for my survivors, should I fall out before I figure out what to do with them. Only several manilla files. I think three. One is labeled "rants." oh, maybe that's the fourth.
It's kind of scary, fishing through this stuff. I never know what I might run into. Sometimes it's kinda rough.
Then occasionally I run across stuff like this:
Goofball
Every day, you gotta do it,
One way, the other get down to it.
Speak the dregs, hit the tweaks,
Don't get weird if someone freaks.
Find the change, make the fix,
Do the stuff that works the mix.
Raise the day, lead the edge,
Piece together all the shreds.
Work the threads, make the picture,
Find precision in the mixture.
Make the sort, note the image,
Go forth gladly to the scrimmage.
Find your own, find your laughs,
Find those things outside of maths.
Look to mountains, look to heights,
Look unto your own delights.
Be amazing, be most fine,
Be of that you might design.
I have a printout here, from back when I used to print out and save email, with that poem that I wrote on it. I have it dated November 17, 1999.
Well, how about that?