like the river to oblivion, Lethe,
aimless and unmindful to
the words i have misplaced
upon my return, careless like an
unmanned hammock by the sea;
perhaps this is not a return
but where i’ve crept all along
like a body that sneezed out
a soul that dreamt of fleeing loudly;
maybe this is where i kiss next
the one with violent hair, gorgeous
babbler of things nonsensically
appropriate, so so so she’ll say
just know why i call you Sisyphus
because you rise and fall like the sun
deserving all six of my kisses, and
yes, in those moments there is
tension, like great muscles flexing
out of apprehension
of something immediate, some
Charybdis or Scylla churning
out an inviting gesture of the eye
a look that could only mean
come and we will meet as lovers
upon the plains of oblivion; and
i hear her in my mind, the
imaginary preaching:
i will count the strands of your
hair which are the days of your
calendar, beautiful boy
This is one of my oldest poems, circa 2011-2012, and also one of my most remarkable ones considering how it was created. I wrote this in probably 5 minutes. That's certainly atypical brevity for a serious creative endeavor, and every poem I've written since this that wasn't a practice haiku has taken longer, often much longer.
I do remember that day clearly though. I had graduated high school early so I was at home at my desk with nothing but free time. I started thumbing through a copy of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD) that I'd just bought and came across the names Lethe, Sisyphus, Charybdis, Scylla. Then I opened my computer to write a poem and entered a creative flow state that I've never quite been able to reach again.
What I mean is that I don't remember much thinking going on at that point, just instinct and vision coming together. It does haunt me a bit that I've never seemed able to reach that level of full flow ever since, though the creative equivalent of beserk mode definitely isn't necessary to create meaningful things, and I'm just grateful to have felt that magic at least once.
Anyways, I was surprised at the piece after I finished it in that 5 minute burst, and it still surprises me today. Then and even now when I read it in retrospect I get the impression that it was beamed over to my mind from somewhere else and that I just received it and jotted the message down on my computer. I would say it's far from perfect, especially compared to truly masterful poems, but it's clean and without glaring flaws in a way that makes me proud, which is not common for me since I have Imposter Syndrome when it comes to anything artistic.
All that said, this was the opposite of a meticulously architected poem. It was automatic writing that happened to turn out well. But that's why it's even more interesting to me that there's a cohesive narrative in this piece, especially compared to some of my later more experimental poems. My take is that it's about a boy falling in love with a girl—truly falling in love for the first time ever—so he's anxious about letting go to this powerful feeling of temptation that he's never known before.
Butterflies in the stomach, simply put. And admittedly the poem was something of a mirror to my personal experience at the time, as I had just started dating my high-school sweetheart KP (now my wife, bless her) and I was feeling some type of way. But again, these feelings came out unconsciously in that flow state because I creatively blacked out during the writing process, though the parallels are why I've always dedicated this piece to KP. Perhaps it's one of my early love letters, so to speak.
Yet in zooming out, there are other things I love about this poem, namely the stylisms I used in it that I've embraced in my poetry ever since. Every line's first word is lowercased (I'm an e. e. cummings and European student in this way, European poets hate how Americans tend to capitalize every line in their poems), enjambment abounds (i.e. incomplete syntax at the end of most lines), and musicality that's not defined by hard rhymes (free verse rhythm, baby).
All in all, this is a special poem to me. Not perfect, sure, but tight and full of sincerity. And that's what I look for in any poem, so I'm glad to have lived up to this vision at least once.
