FEAR

There are two things I really want out of April. One is to be hired by this gem of a company. The other is to make poetry blogging work. But it's already 7 days into April and I've been doing everything but. In the case of the company, even though it tallies perfectly into everything I'm good at and want to do, I lack the track record they're looking for. With the blog, I seem to keep weaving my way back and forth along the line that separates pompous spouting of opinion vs. having something genuine to say. In this atmosphere of indecision I wrote the following:

I am the little beast
That rises every morning
And sits by Tara's bed
And ticks off her defeats
And says: "You shan't go farther
Look what you haven't done."

I am the little mole
That crawls in Tara's heart
And digs up trenches there
And bombards her hopes
"No, he'll never look your way
No, your work won't prosper."

I am the little worm
That eats of Tara's soul
In green and cankerous words
"Your dreams weren't made to fly"
I am the first respondent
To each of Tara's plans--I'm fear.


This was written for Robert Brewer's poetry challenge, to write a poem a day for the month of April. So far, I've loved the prompts, as they always manage to take me by surprise. (The prompt for the Fear poem was to put yourself inside another person or object.) I've also loved seeing the work of other writers, and have found some really awesome poetry blogs this way. There's a lot more good poetry out there than I ever imagined.

One thing that worries me though is I seem to be writing rather watered down and simplistic stuff lately. I've been focused so long on trying to tap natural rhythms in a Robert Frost sort of way that I wonder if I'm going too far. I want to take a look at some really good hard stuff (Coleridge?) or maybe tackle some philosophy or something as anecdote to this happy daily spouting of poems.