Nurse Sean (dot) com

In case anybody hasn’t heard of the band “The Killers” or only know one
or two of their songs, I strongly recommend discovering their album
called “Hot Fuss.” They are absolutely amazing! If you know
them, and hate them, well, to each their own.

I’ve been delving into poetry lately. I remembered a phrase from
my music teacher. “If you want to be a good trumpet player, you need to
start listening to famous trumpet players.”

Sure, it sounds like good advice, and it is, but seriously, how many
people out their study poetry before becoming a self-proclaimed genius
of poetry? I think most people assume they’re good, start
writing, discover they have mild talents, get carried away because
people compliment them, and then they start diving into the
professional stuff seriously. At least, this is what I see from
my recent escapades into poetry places like pathetic.org.

My point, anyway, is that I’m discovering my voice a little bit.
For the longest time, I thought that in order to be a great poet you
needed to study a dictionary and thesaurus. You needed to be able
to impress people with all the wierd and crazy words you’re able to
work into your stuff. I always found I didn’t like this style so
much. It just seemed like random, far-fetched, impossible words
put toger in order to make the poet look smart. Granted, it’s
amazing to discover new words, and to read beautiful sentences made out
of them, and especially the ingenious new way of saying something in a
refreshing way. But, you need to be very skilled in order to do
this without crossing the line.

I hope my rant makes sense, and my point is that I have found some
beautiful poetry that matches more my own style. I have
discovered a style in which very plain speech is used–almost as you
would hear in daily conversation. It is used in such a way that
is deceptively simple, but hides an inner truth.

For example–what I see in pathetic.org and other sights are some poems like this:

Your calculus of corpuscle is
the verisimilitude of
dyspereunia and jingoism.

Whereas the professional published poems I see look more like this:

Your hardened bloody globule of body fluid
only appears to be true like
painful sex and excess nationalism.

Now, both of these poems mean the exact same thing pretty much.
But can you tell the difference between the poem in which I just used
the biggest words I could think of, and the one using accessable
language? I find the second one much more interesting–the images
are there, and sharp, and vibrant–and and they are less egotistically
boring. However, the poem still doesn’t seem to make sense.
And I’m finding that most of the poets I like use even simpler
language. They give you a feel like there are character’s and a
plot to your poem.

Take a look at this:

You have blood clotting on your leg.
It is mixed with body fluids.
This all seems to be too real.
Was the sex painful?
Were you thinking of the government while it happened?

Maybe I’m alone here, but I find the simplicity of the words in this
third example of pretty much the exact same poem much more
powerful. It’s more three dimensional too–It leads to more questions like: who’s talking?, who is
he talking too? what? where? why? when? There’s depth, not
just fancy words. Some would argue that the third
example is too much like a novel. And if they wanted to read a
novel–they would. And I think they are right, the third poem is
starting to tread close to the line between poetry and prose. So you have to be careful.

Ok, so this is probably basic for most of you amazing poets out
there. But seriously, it’s an amazing discovery for me. I
can write my thoughts out as I hear them in my mind–without
“decorating” them just to impress.

If you’re writing poems only to impress, you’re doing them for the wrong reason.

Anyway, with all the poetry reading I have been doing, this is what I’ve been thinking about.

End of Rant

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I have nothing better to do, so I figured I would post. It’s been
an intensly boring week. I really haven’t done much. I
haven’t seen R. since Monday, but it feels like a freakin’
eternity! Thank goodness I’m with him from tonight until Monday.

It seems that every time I go home (I spend weekends with him) it’s
harder to say goodbye. I think we need to talk this weekend and
solidify a timeline for moving in together. I’m very
excited. What a huge step.

I’m hoping he wants to move to a new a new appartment. He keeps
talking about just staying where he is, but I’m really no fan of his
place. It’s a basement suite, on a busy road. It’s loud,
and dark, and small, and smells like mildew since the flooding.
There’s so many beautiful communities to move to, it’s just a matter of
convincing him that we should do so.

As much as I’m completely in love with him, I still have that “pulled
in two directions” feel that men tend to get. Should I settle, or
should I go back to the adrenaline filled life of bachelorhood. I
know I want to, and need to, and WILL settle into a wonderful life with
R. However, I believe all men always have that little voice in
the back of their head that says “spread your seed.”

I like to think I’m civilized, so I can resist the little voices.

Work has been silly this week. I haven’t really worked at
all. I’ve sat in my desk and read poetry, and written a bit as
well. While it not be all that impressive, I adore my
stuff. It is my art, and I’m proud of myself for creating it.

Music was always my specialty, not words. But I crave words as
strongly as I crave music. Both reading, analyzing, and
writing. Perhaps one day, I will take the plunge and write a
novel. Or should that just go on the “things I always wanted to
do, but never did” list?

So, life is…well…same old…same old.

I am, in general, happy.

You Were the First Women I Saw Die
I remember adjusting your
old fake
dirty teeth,
after cleaning them (of course).
Just like I promised that women.
your daughter?
She was very demanding, but
you should have seen the way she wept,
and told you you’d be home soon.

I’ve never heard a wail like that
and the way she begged,
“There must be something you can do”

Then sand through sifter…
You were gone.
beauty
peace
evolved throughout your room,
folding on itself like smoke,
so beautiful when pierced by light.

later,
I sat outside, weeping.
For you or your daughter?
The buzzing orange light above,
the only interruption
in the white snow’s perfect muffled silence.

You were my first, did you know that?
To see you die became my passage
all of us must take.

Two Rivers

I watch from far above,
Through windows warped with summer’s rain.
It hits with steamy fast staccato–
Harpsichords,
or flippant bugs on road trip windshields.
Little lives that end in tragic form,
their stuff like art obstructs the view.
Yes, this is what I see…

I see two swollen restless rivers,
as the past and then the future.
Vicious waves churn rocky soil,
swallow logs from unknown sources,
both so filled with human fears/excitement.

And parallel they forward march,
like time and war, Avoiding peace.
I pray their well-meant chaos never meet.

And placed between by gentler hands,
is greenish grass, like black to white.
The river’s rush is left behind for
candy cotton home-made dreams.
A place to lay my tired head,
to sink below, and dream.
Mothers, husbands, children;
so much happy–I suppose.

And I am left to choose,
Which river or
the island.