Fugitive Poem

I try to be holistic in my thinking, but it is impossible not to feel that I have a poet brain and a prose brain. There is a lot of counterpoint between them. When I am writing fiction my own poetry seems alien. I either don’t like it, or don’t know how I wrote it. yet I am, before all else, a poet. For years now I have spent most of my creative time writing and editing fiction. between bouts of books i will revert to my poet brain, or brain stem, since poetry seems much more reptillian than prose, and either write, or edit poems. and occasionally i’ll just get a poem, write it out, and lose it. now when i find these fugitive poems i often don’t remember even writing them. this is one of those. someone wrote it in november, or put it on the computer then, and i found it last night. perhaps poet frankel wrote it. maybe i stole it.

quick poem

these dreams are filthy things
I picked up and glued together
out of bits of clay and dust and strings
with bees wax and brains

once this sleep was mine
it tunneled beyond oxygen
it cooled its feet in magma
everything else was lurid