Over this past year, my life has been infused with poetry. It started with last spring’s concert with the Bowie Senior Chorale which I programmed entirely with poems set to music. Researching and assembling that concert was a great joy that reawakened my love of poetry. I would read a poem to the chorale at the beginning of rehearsals. Then, I also spent some time with a poet who introduced me to so many amazing poets and poems, and who I have had some fantastic conversations with.

This first poem was a predecessor to the fairytale I recently posted:

My hand-blown heart didn’t break easily,

double-paned gorilla glass,

that’s what I gave her.

Blind to the grindstone

tethered to her past.

I pressed myself to her

Ground to sand,

until, nothing left,

she released me:

My star-scattered heart

wrapping the earth

in Love.

—–

The second poem came out of conversations with my friend about the Minimalist movement. The art and music worlds both had strong minimalist movements, and I was curious if there was an analog in poetry. She sent me some Gertrude Stein poems, but it didn’t resonate with me and my experiences with minimalism. In minimalism, repetition draws the mind into a different kind of space, and subtle nuances often become enormously powerful details. This was my attempt at a minimalist inspired poem:

tod und verklärung

(death and transfiguration)

Fear.

fear fear

fear fear fear

fear fear fear fear

fear of fear of fear of fear of

fear of fear of fear of

fear of fear of

fear of

fear love

fear love fear love

fear love fear love fear love

fear love fear love fear love fear love

VEER

love here love here love here

love here love here love here

love here love here

love here

love heir

love heir love heir

love heir love heir love heir

love heir love heir love heir love heir

love where

love where

loves where

loves where loves where

love is where love is where

Love is.

where

Fear goes to die.