Wait a minute…is this just some crappy poetry???

Wait, poetry? Oh this is some bullshit…is something you might be saying right now. I think it’s something I would be saying, actually it might be something I’m currently thinking. Here’s the thing about poetry, in my opinion, it typically sucks. Yeah, there’s some good poetry, really great poetry, but typically, sucks. It’s usually super meaningful to the person who wrote it and entirely cryptic to everyone else. When you read it and you’re like, uh, ok, I guess I kind of get it, or, actually, maybe I don’t, I don’t fucking know, and now I’m just angry. I also appreciate that I might just be dumb.

Here’s the unfortunate thing for us, poetry is probably some of the first “writing” I actually ever did, aside from some stories about a popsicle man super hero or some other silly shit like that when I was five. There is also the infamous book a friend of mine and I wrote in the fourth grade for an assignment. I think it was about Rocket Raccoon and he was a super hero (no kidding we really wrote that and it was before that Guardians of the Galaxy shit had come out) and he had some other animal friends that were also super heroes and they were saving the trash from the curb before it would be taken away to the great abyss (I made all that stuff about saving the trash up right now, I have no clue what our book was about, however I’m starting to think I might have a nice kid’s book on my hands)…but we never actually finished it. He and I were great friends but terrible assignment partners because we were both kind of too smart for our own good and we just procrastinated everything. We would be like, we can work on this cool ass book, which is also an assignment we’re forced to do, or we could play video games. Cool, video games it is. I would see my fourth grade teacher years after and she would still remind me that I owed her the finished book, every single time I would see her, and as she was the mother of another friend of mine so I would actually see her more often that you might think someone would see their fourth grade teacher.

Aside from those gems, poetry was an easy initial avenue to expressing myself I guess. I have a short attention span and so it was nice because you didn’t have to sit down for very long and crank out a bunch of writing. You could get your thoughts out relatively quickly, even if no one could understand what it was you were really writing about. You could also have that cool answer when people would ask you what the poem meant, which was, “What do you think it means?” How annoying. I think poetry kind of always, or at least frequently, leads the reader to more questions and doesn’t provide many answers, at least not immediately, but I suppose sometimes that can be a good thing.

So this entry is a bit different, as this poetry doesn’t really revolve around any firework memories per se, but it does contain a slice of what I was thinking or reflecting on at the time. Some of it absolutely sucks, which I think can actually be amusing, actually most of it absolutely sucks, but I still wrote it and it’s kind of hilarious to look back on at times.

Weird thing is, and I’m guessing maybe it’s only weird to me and I’m not even real sure why it’s weird, I’m starting with one of my most recent attempts at poetry simply because it’s one of the first ones I came across when I started considering capturing these things here. When I say more recent I’m guessing I wrote these about 4 or 5 years ago. I’ve done some poetry since, well at least one poem anyhow, but that one is not for public consumption, at least not yet (see cryptic, so annoying).

Here’s the thing that might make this a bit more interesting, I’m gonna try to provide a little context, which might allow the poem to make more sense and be more interesting. I don’t know, maybe not, I think I’m literally figuring out the context currently as I look back on these things. Also, what is a poem? How is a poem even defined? Should it rhyme, does it need a certain amount of words, letters, lines? Am I the only one who wonders this? Probably. Just real quick though, as defined by the Oxford dictionary:

Well shit, I would say that definition has some intensity. Using that definition I would say the stuff I wrote should probably just go under the classification of rambling.

So without further ado…

THOSE THAT CAME BEFORE

They did not open doors
They kicked them down
Not merely providing guidance
But teaching through action
Themselves learning through the way
What’s right
What’s wrong
Struggling
Fighting
Persevering
They hold our hands
Without ever reaching out
They provoke action
Without ever shouting out
They move us
They move our children
Without ever really knowing
Respect
Love
Adore
This is for the ones who came before

So now that I’ve typed it out and I’ve read it through again I don’t know that it actually needs much explanation (just contradicted almost everything I said above, or I’m just jumping head first into the annoying stance of a poet, I’m definitely self centered enough). As I said, I’m not 100% sure when I wrote this, but I lost my Mom in 2009 and my oldest brother in 1994. There have been other losses along the way as well. In sitting down to write this I was initially mostly thinking of my Mom and my brother, though I think it definitely became more encompassing, but essentially I was overwhelmed with the fact that despite the loss and them not being here they live on undoubtedly (I know, not rocket science). They live on through the paths they carved that we can now more easily travel down, while they were not perfect and they were learning along the way themselves, and often wading through the difficult waters that life had put in front of them, they espoused lessons that they weren’t even aware they were passing on. And even more, those lessons will pass on from that generation to this and to the next, they have had a masterful hand in establishing the environment we now reside in on a daily basis, whether it is clearly evident or not, and a piece of that essence will embrace my children. Considerably more than a piece I should say.

There are deep, deep trenches of memories related to everyone I’ve lost and this is not the diary entry to tap into some of that, and there may never be such an entry, and there may be 100’s of entries of which maybe this is one, but I can tell you that looking into my Mom’s eyes during some of her final days I knew, I knew I had to carry this on. It clicked like, with beauty in its simplicity, a light coming on. I knew at that point that this fella, who had always unselfishly knew himself to be too selfish to consider the thought of having children, was going to have kids. I needed to take what she had spent a lifetime giving me, my brothers and my sisters and pass it on. It was that simple. Whether we like it or not, we are the result of what has been instilled in us by the one’s who love us. So I guess that’s the stuff that I was wrestling with on this one. An appreciation for what those that came before us have done, what they fought against, and what they gave us, in many instances without even knowing, but maybe all the time knowing. I’m not sure. My brother and my Mom never had the chance to meet my children and yet they will have a hand in raising them and my kids will know them.

So there is another poem that I came across that was sort of residing with this one. I don’t think that was entirely on purpose but after reading them I felt that they almost went hand in hand. I’m not even sure that this one was complete, but it was clearly written on the seventh anniversary of my Mom’s passing. In that time my world had changed, not only in my loss of her but I had gotten married, moved…four times, and had three kids. It captures much of what I explained above. When I came across the poem it was untitled and I thought it would be really cool to title it, to sort of complete it now. Then, for the life of me I couldn’t come up with the “right” title, so I left it untitled, which now feels like the “right” title.

Seven years ago today, a departure I hoped would never come
Seven years ago today, a reunion of strength I would've liked to have seen
My hand in your hand one last time
Your heart in my heart forever more
I looked into your eyes and knew at least one thing, this must carry on
Seven years ago today, how so much can change
Five years ago, two years ago, one year ago, how so much can change
I look into their eyes and know at least one thing, this will carry on
I'll keep you in my heart for a while, they'll keep you in their hearts for a while

Like I said, I’m not sure this thing was even complete, but I suppose the standard definition of complete doesn’t apply to things like this, similar to how the standard definition of complete also doesn’t really apply to our lives on the day we leave this world.

I also have to acknowledge that in some of my poetry I acknowledge other works of art that are influencing me or moving me at the time and this poem contains such a reference. I didn’t really know much, read anything, about Warren Zevon within my world of music probably prior to a few years ago, but when I discovered him I was fascinated. He should probably have his own entry, but if you aren’t aware of him, he is an amazing musician with a catalog of songs you definitely know, even if you don’t know him. To cut to the point Warren Zevon discovered he had cancer and, as opposed to undergoing treatment he knew would kick his ass, he instead recorded an album, knowing full well that he was going to die…very soon. It was his literal, fully aware, swan song, his own goodbye to life. This is a guy that, knowing he would be dead soon, went on David Letterman as the only guest for the entire hour and talked and joked about his coming doom. He faced it head on and closed things out his way. I tell you all of this because it makes his song Keep Me in Your Heart even more powerful than it already is and I was exploring Warren Zevon big time at the time of writing this poem, as referenced in the final tongue-in-cheek last line.

So I guess while taking this time to reflect and having these couple of poems to remind me of the effort, love and influence of those that came before is maybe also a reminder of why, maybe, poetry doesn’t suck, even when it does suck.

I’ll let some of those that came before and Warren Zevon’s Keep Me in Your Heart play us out.