During the Loyalist workshop someone asked me how long it took to write the poem I had handed out as my business card – it was Critic – which took less than ten minutes to spew out – I had that ‘crayons’ line in my head for a couple of days and with the prompt ‘critic’ the rest of it flooded out. Add another thirty minutes for edits & it was done. I hated to tell him how easy it was to do, how quick it was to get out of me – but I am practiced. Writing everyday helps, a lot.
Now here’s an older & much longer piece – Five Alarm Smolder. The initial spew was once again ten minutes – I let word associations take the momentum along – variations on expected phrases, repeated images, a dash of the surreal – made it flow pretty quickly. In editing I did a fair bit of reworking that flow – sequences of images is important to me – theme & variation – the ending called for a bit more thinking.
The last step was the title. Often I’ll use an image from the piece, but this time I opted for something that reflected the ‘smolder’ of emotions that underpinned the piece.
How long does it take to write something? Better question would be how long does it take to finish something. Who knows, sometimes I rewrite as I read a piece aloud in front of an audience. Even in pulling ‘Smolder’ up for posting here I did some tinkering with it – a poem is never finished.
Five Alarm Smolder
it seemed the best way to rekindle
the fire in your heart
was to run over to the nearest bar & drink
till there was only a stumble of drunks to deal with
with no way out except to break the windows
you get the picture
yeah I know drawing it in crayons
on the bedroom wall wasn’t a great idea
but you have to admit
I caught the fire using only the blues
like the blues you give anyone
lucky enough to catch you on our balcony
ready to jump
don’t do it
till I get a coffee
I know I have to be careful
the contents may be hot
but wet will always put out the flame
it doesn’t makes much difference
what burns you out of my system
hot coffee or live flame
tossing your undies in the trash
was the only way
to keep your flesh ready and pliant
not that you kept them on long
yeah not so funny
does it look like I’m laughing
all the way to the shadow of a home
where there once was a dart of hope
now just a tangle of empty coat hangers
in a clump I can’t pull apart
that once held everything you ever wore
dust doesn’t hang well
you know I’m a total liar
I never picked up a drink because of you
wasn’t even tempted
sure you took something out of my life
I don’t need to breathe
I can’t get over the number of times
that I wanted to use your undies
to clean the coffee machine
so I would have a fresh cup
to dump in your laugh
I’m sure that behind closed eyes
you are smirking like a tried urinal
knowing you pissed me off one more time
but if you were here now
I’d probably take you back
but wouldn’t trust you
as far as you could throw my underwear
