So far, of my poetry posts this month ‘Overcome’ has gotten the most FB ‘likes.’ It has been quite unpredictable what posts will get response but I guess this one hit a chord with lots of people. It still needs a bit more work but I’m too lazy right now to do it 🙂
The photo is one I took my first year at Rosemary Aubert’s Loyalist workshop – I thought the broken slab was such a fitting symbol of how a workshop can push you past your lazy self. If you’ve never taken the Loyalist workshop I’d highly recommend it. Great price and a great leader/teacher in Rosemary. I’ve already registered for this year’s Fiction Writer’s How To.
Overcome
my greatest enemy is my lazy self
it once made me easy to discourage
let me claim that barricades held me back
when in fact
I was happy to be held back
happy to have something to blame
doing nothing was easier than striving
of having to maintain
any level of productivity of quality
it took more persistence
to overcome my lazy self
than it did to develop the skills I have
turned out my fear of success
was a fear of putting in the effort
regardless of how it turned out
a corner was turned when I saw
opportunity as the pay off
not some transitory recognition
My personal favorite, so far, has to be ‘Nature – A Rant’ mainly for the sultry, surreal, slutty image that starts it: ‘dark as a wet question mark/ and hung like a hunch that paid off’ – I wrote this one at the new Starbucks at Queen W/Ossington while having a morning snack before showing up at 1001 for one of the many brain rental studies I do.
Starbucks have been expanding like crazy – there are at least 4 now within a 10 min of 1001 Queen W. They also seem to be popping up near high-schools – Gerrard & Jones; Plains & Coxwell – hook ’em while they’re young. Even in Target.
Nature – A Rant
he was as dark as a wet question mark
and hung like a hunch that paid off
we let nature takes it course
some still say it’s unnatural
as if the car is natural
after all
Jesus pretty much walked everywhere
sure the scriptures say
he drove the money lenders from the temple
but by no stretch of convenient translation
or imaginative interpretation
can anyone claim he drove them
in a Lexus or a
’62 Dodge pick-up
and speaking of unnatural
that hair color sure ain’t found in nature
nor is that toilet paper
you’re so fond of
so the next time
my being unnatural
gives you sleepless nights
be comforted knowing
that I don’t drive a car
and oh yes
before I play that hunch
I don’t give a shit
jumpin’ jive
