poetry training

While walking around at Looptopia, I told my friend Brian that I no longer write poetry, as evidenced by the absence of the proliferation of any lines of verse from my brain for at least a year. It's funny how things come back to you when you don't seek them out. I hope that truth applies to other areas of life.

Written on the train across from a man with a guitar and a black parole anklet

Underneath our sundry and subconscious
efforts at suppression--
the clean, pressed clothes over lithe body--
the soft, relaxed mouth and brow--
the familiar laugh offered freely in conversation--
underneath these resigned--but focused, even friendly--efforts,
there is the omnipresent kernel of loneliness,
the seed that showers, overwhelms the body
and the soul with its spores
at moments when we...when I, least expect.

As I look out the window, cross the street, say goodbye
to the neighbor children, I suddenly see
my cool confidence for what it is--a non-chalant--
breezy--excusing--but ever desperate attempt to paper over
what lurks beneath--a suspicion, an ache, a metaphysical
knowledge that this has all been done before,
that something is missing--a striking clue,
a lovingly constructed piece, a simple and sweet experience
that would allow a rich, soothing wholeness, like red
wine drenching the throat, and heart, and brain.

Even though I sit on the train alone,
I see young women like myself
whose arms are caressed, and ears kissed
with devoted professions by the kind man
beside them. And even then (always even, but, yet),
behind the eyes, there is a lack, an undefinable, still apparent
gap between the moment and what I imagine completeness to be.

How shall I strip away such oblivion, both for myself
and others...if I were to uncover this sad solitude,
expose it always for what it is, would it go
away, or only proliferate with silent, square-jawed vengeance?
And yet--and yet--if I smooth earth over its jagged seed, forget
its presence altogether, I am afraid that,
on an unforeseen and ordinary day, some brown tendril of vine
will thread its way up my ankle until I am overtaken,
rendered powerless to it, forced to surrender myself
to its constant, obvious, and painful presence.

Or shall I place it in a jar by the door, with proper homage
paid to Lennon's Ms. Rigby, and give it air
and light on occasion, turn it over in my hand,
examine its miniscule crests and crevices
until I feel that I know it thoroughly--
until I feel that I can put away
the furrowing, stinging pit--nauseous--when I choose.