Poetry metacognition

I've been asked a lot where 

I get ideas for my poems and 

I don't know how to answer without

sounding fatuous or enigmatic 

or precious and tiresome 

To say I don't know is truth and lie

Can you know and not know

Or maybe you don't recognize

till you do and then you knew

you knew them all along? 

So I just start writing and see where it goes

Usually I end up more scribe than author

for there is an impetus I can't name 

that drives my thoughts and my pen

like spirit writing advertised at seances

What I've learned is that poems 

don't come from the atmosphere 

they don't grow on a tree like

ripe peaches waiting to be picked

if anything, poems pick you 

Mine come from muscle memory

and kneejerk responses and too long

silenced grief and frustration and 

feelings forced into tiny envelopes 

that can't hold them and split 

like a rug you stumble over because

too much litter has been swept under it

They source from my mind tree's trunk 

and course through my like sap in heartwood

They're don't come from or through, they are me.  

Some verse bursts like a lanced boil

others leak out in weeping you can't hide

some bubble up like a well tapped

others sit and stew, marinating this 

the time comes for them to speak out 

One thing I know for sure is you 

have to write when it's time. Don't push down

go big and deep and loud. Say stuff that 

might sound silly. Don't just say it, 

spray it like a huge graffiti mural

Don't let the hakken-kraks hush you 

don't second-guess or back down

it's poetry and there are no wrong ones

save those you don't give voice

that would be the real tragedy 

To rhyme is sublime and to not is fine

gonna try to break the rhyming

and the syllable counting habit 

so I can get my thoughts to coalesce

like turmeric and coriander bloomed in oil

more robust and diffuse and less restricted

rhyming can be a girdle worn

to compress or shrink ideas into 

tight boxes, but like Mexican  jumping beans

it may not flow in stricture of parsing 

in sound byte and measured stanzas

Rhyme isn't critical to  poetry

I mean look Williams' famous ditty

"this is just to say" about the plums

it was a note left on a fridge 

like an accidental scrap 

I didn't use to verse found it too tedious

but once begun my mind can't stop 

(Even now I'm seeking rhyme for tedious)

it's like you forget your mother tongue

by learning another language 

and having said that, rhyme is good discipline

it makes me struggle to find partners words 

and counting syllables gives a nice rhythm

poetry worth writing should come with 

some wrestling and head scratching and a few curses

It does however mean that I must forgo

words I'd really like to use because 

they don't fit, like a can that holds the door

open because it is proud of the shelf

But (there are lots of buts) that

too, stretches me to find that 

chef's kiss word to nail the dish

like the spice you didn't know was missing till you did

I test drive countless words to 

hit the flavor I'm seeking 

it might take Edison's 3,000 tries 

but when you get it right, you know

and the whole thing  lifts and takes off

and your heart sings

We came down from Birmingham one cold December day

in the shrine of the pine

in murky backdune gloam

last call for this train

as it steams us home

we're going deep tonight 

on lonesome railroad ride

 inhale and settle down or

We might miss the other side

listen to her rumble as 

she croons to hobo's squall 

earth mother locomotive 

sharing herself with us all 

Serdeczna Matko dear

so beloved it hurts to sing

I don't know much about you

perhaps we've met in passing?

load-bearing ferry-woman 

carries her children safely home

Gaia, our goddess mama 

will never leave us alone 

many images of mother

mashed like praties for me 

I'll have to go rogue 

to get any clarity 

choo-choo train and deity 

my Immaculata lady 

can anyone find my mama 

or a mama to love me?

 

I saw three ships come sailing

Father, son and Mother Mary 

she came down from Birmingham

one December day snowy 

Mixing references like drinks

upon this night-night train

is the only way to sort 

my mashed potato brain 

too cold to take off my coat

clacking away at my rhyme

cold that gets in your soul

and doesn't warm with wine

feet like ice blocks carved 

from lake Michigan whole 

when they used ice tongs

which grampa found and stole 

(from the abandoned Swett place in the dunes

long-forgotten. If they wanted 'em they should have taken them and they didn't so no harm done)

on highway made of steel

endless faceless porter men

no points, none keeping score  

Will we ever see their kind again?

the railway's done and gone 

but a few ghosts I sill see 

of old men and their daughters 

rolling out of Kankakee. 

I'm the dad and  daughter

my old man and the sea

Granddad and the porters on

the train they call Memory  

For my da and granda and my husband and his da and his granda and my boys and girls. And me. 

A silly little rondo of song

trinkle tinkle ring says 

the wind in the chime 

singing through the trees

in the chapel of the pine

to the belfry tower

hear bells grumble rumble

chanting out their prayers

in baritone choir mumble 

to the white steeple tall 

one ringer all alone 

on church in the vale

pulls his funeral tone 

to glockenspiel in park

mazurka herky jerk

xylophone frilly trill 

for dancers of clockwork

to the lady with harp

on a promenade pier 

gently caressing strings

for little kids to hear 

to children's kitchen band 

on kazoo and oatmeal drum

and kleenex box fiddles 

do loudly pluck and strum

to the bird in the tree 

in our yard in her nest 

tweets last post and chorus 

as we all head in to rest 

back round the music plays

full circle to the chime 

it all begins and ends again

in our chapel of the pine

(picture is a gate-crasher at our nightly orchestral hijinks. But welcome none-the-less). 

Thank you for reading

Thank you to all who read

my funny blog of rhyme

I don't know who you are

nor if with them you chime 

perhaps you stumbled here

by inadvertent mistake  

then found you some comfort

and thought a rest to take

the reason for the reading

is not for me to tell 

just know you're most welcome 

to stop and bide a spell 

Pardon our dust, scattered

ideas like crumbs everywhere

Fragments of markings strewn 

hang on, I'll clear a chair

so what shall we talk about

tho if you've questions, I fear

I'm better clacking keyboard 

then verbalizing thoughts clear

I don't explain my poems

and I will never defend 

read or leave as written 

on that I will not bend

They are surely imperfect 

I do not disagree 

but I stand by them because

they've always stood by me

So if you're here to browse

if you seek no fault to find

then sit down and grab a pen

and jot down what's on your mind. 

 

The printing press in the workshop in the basement

certain phrases have their say

in my poems frequently 

more than mere lexicon 

they're my spirit vocabulary 

black as printer's ink 

a simile I often use

meaning more than it says

exposing more than I'd choose

ink's only black in print and

black ink isn't black you see

it's a rainbow-hued spectrum 

revealed by chromatography

I only discuss the science

to distract from the memory 

of basement press and printer

making little name cards for me

letterpress cabinet drawer 

with names like copperplate bold

tiny metal characters neatly stored

such wondrous order to behold. 

Upon the composing stick 

he'd arrange moveable type

tempting trays forbidden me

about that I did often gripe 

typesetting print to read

was technology back then

the typewriter's clacking keys 

replacing human hand and pen 

now we push buttonless buttons

a mystery I can't comprehend

touch screens are now touchless

instead of mailing we say "send." 

now we don't write we "text"

instead of talking we "interface"

we talk to boxes not friends

connected in cyberspace

computers are nice compared 

to messy loud  printing press

or typewriter's many headaches

digit-less digital is less stress

we've got to look forward and

Grampa would be first to agree

looking only backward you miss 

all the cool new things to see 

But (there's always one) we still 

found something gestalt in the press

though always covered in ink

it' was a "type" of mood therapy I guess 

I often mind walk in the workshop  

down in Crestwood Memory Lane 

to sort, if allowed, his letterbox

I will never see the like again

Pictures from Wikipedia user https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Trimalchio and Willi Heidelbach. 

Sitting shiva by our lake

crickle camp fire crackles

from trickly drip mist bog

sip fine pine sap wine 

atop birchwood swamp log

wet wood smoky choky at

impromptu bonfire night 

midsummer daze-y haze

from rainbow flame light

translucent and transcending

tongues untied by the wine

ancient wisdom descending 

helped by fire, weed and vine

t'was ever thus, this ritual

immemorial riddles break

eternity's secrets told round 

primordial old growth lake

woods-wise elders saging

on life mysteries engaging

in papal enclave debating

acolytes attending on the aging

I was young by the lake

in paradise I called mine

I walked among giants once

upon a faraway long ago time

with an elder wise as a god 

nattering on freely we did 

never shushing  nor shaming 

keep mum was all he forbid 

demanding I ask my questions

treating them all with  gravitas

no matter how trite or common

only foolish was the unasked. 

unschooled yet wise past words

this trodder of untrodden way 

hoping my markings please him

because of him they have their say

he was more than Irish charm 

he'd charisma, gin and IT

with a splash of lemon pine

blarney with no bullshit

transparent where he could

opaque on his own pain

translucent when needs must

blurring bad with twilight rain

I've tried hard not to stray 

to printer's black ink rhyme

all it gets us is hurt by

my endless jitterbug with time. 

he passed so quietly it hurts

no footprints left by our sea

it's my job to share Opi's opus

to the jungling entrusted to me

I shall be the elder now

sitting shiva by our lake 

holding court with my littles

in a perfectly Granda wake

I love you Grampa-Opi Kinney. Moja droga ja cię kocham. 

Rest in peace.