A Poem Will Be Written

Okay, read over past postings…what crap…either I write good stuff or shut this thing down…I teach, I write…teach is listed first because it takes so much of my time…writing does also but it doesn’t put food in my mouth…my prose friends have schedules they follow to ensure they have time to write…Trollope did too and once that fact was published in his autobiography after he died he rather fell out of favor…seems “real” authors didn’t write on a schedule…ah, times change…me, no schedule to follow…I’m not a disciplined writer…I wait until I have something to write and usually let it stew for a few days or weeks before actually beginning…reckon I’m lazy or not a good writer or just not motivated or perhaps I’m not really a writer…I may be just one of those folks who want to be a writer but put forth little to no effort…

A week and a half ago I was hit with something to write…nothing new for me but a different angle…not certain there is anything new to write, just a different angle…life hasn’t changed…people are people…customs change, attitudes change, lots of things change, but we continue being people just like all those before us…we tell the same stories over and over with a new twist that places the stories in the present day…seems like we would have learned something after hearing the same stories for centuries…ah, we’re just people…actually got a line, maybe a line and a half written last Friday about the “new” ideal…only took a week and a half to get one line or maybe a bit more written…and it’s crap, but a beginning…fact is, I’m not certain I really write…I just sort of tap on the keys of this computer and stuff gets written…then it sits for a week or more before I look at it again and attempt to polish it…sometimes that fails and it sits for another week or two or maybe a month or more…it makes that decision…I just try to listen…

This new thing has to do with my father’s family and their friends…first generation born in this country…hearing first-hand accounts of the “old country,” which, in fact, was home for the ones who came to this country…strange to think how differently life was for their children…maybe not all that different except for one thing, opportunity…the children were bilingual…Italian spoken at home and in their groups, English everywhere else…how the children sort of had a foot in each world…and other things as they grew…embracing baseball…surviving the Depression…serving in WWII and fighting in their parents country, their parents home …becoming Americans…

This shan’t be an easy piece…but, if I listen well it might not be too difficult…if it wants to be written that is, and I’m guessing it is since it presented itself…I’m not certain I write poetry, poetry writes itself…maybe prose is that way too…don’t know…I can force a poem…decide I am going to write a poem about this or that and punch it out on the keyboard like a machine…sometimes they aren’t too bad…but I don’t find that satisfying…sort of like the Vic20 program I wrote while sitting on a mountain top for a year…didn’t like poetry back then but writing the program was an exercise and kept my mind occupied for a couple days…guess some folk are good at popping out good poetry and maybe I could be too if I practiced doing that, but I’m not certain I want to…life should have some mystery…Trollope was accused of being mechanical and not working from inspiration…Trollope may have been super inspired daily, maybe he had an inside track, so to say…don’t know…lots of poets turn out tons of material…maybe I’m not really a poet…maybe I’m don’t listen well…maybe I’m too thick to be inspired daily…don’t know…I’m rather happy as I am…I’m a patient man…maybe that’s laziness…maybe not…maybe it doesn’t matter…since I’m content and happy it probably doesn’t matter…life is sweet if you don’t wrap yourself up with things that truly aren’t that important…the sun will rise, birds will sing, a gentle rain will fall, a smile will fill your soul if you permit it to, and a poem will be written…