It Has Been Some Time

Notes for a Suicide

I take comfort like
cash in my wallet
knowing I can't fly.
Ground is my bed scarlet.

Freedom surrounds before hard
truth breaks the body to leave
it ungrowing and drying
from a tall tree a fallen leaf.

===

Match

Two parts of me split
before clashing together.

I see an extraordinary
bolt of light then,
I think
it is poetry.

No, not just another plane
of imagination.

No, not just another spark
of match in the dark.

It has to be a match
made in heaven.

====

It has been some time. I stopped writing. Too much of other stuff on my plate. A part of my life seemed to have departed. I thought I might as well stop writing and start reading handbooks on poetry writing and other published poets' works, since I was not making much progress in my opinion - which is what really matters. "Notes on Suicide" came about after reading Felix Chong's poem of the same title. While "Match" came about, well, from a match reading Mary Oliver's handbook. The kind of match that burns in the dark of the mind. One of the many things that Mary Oliver talks about is that one can improve by thinking of, discussing about, reading, and of course, writing poetry - imitation included. I came to understand, to a certain extent, how it is a difficult goal to be able to "write memorably", not just for a few "likes" in some poetry forum. In my own words, the chasm between an amateur and a published poet is huge. I grow doubts about my level of ambition.