I stopped writing poetry.

I stopped writing poetry
a little over a year ago--
not because I no longer had any desire to write poetry
but rather because I no longer had anything to say
or at least could not articulate what I thought.

And so I stopped writing poetry,
and I let myself be consumed
by work and things of a less beautiful nature,
though sometimes I did find beauty in them,
and I moved on to material matters,
matters that I thought would matter,
but actually ended up not mattering at all.

A year ago, I stopped writing poetry,
and a year from now, I will be going away,
and I just now had my epiphany
after it was too late to really do much about it.
I realized
that I loved writing poetry,
and that I probably still would if I tried writing it again,
and that the beauty I have found elsewhere
is fleeting and fickle, and I cannot grasp onto it
and hold it close like I can with poetry.
With poetry, I can alliterate, reciprocate, enjamb
and let it flow, flow, flow,
and sometimes it comes out nicely.
Sometimes it doesn't.
But that's the thing with words.
Sometimes what you say the first time
is exactly what you meant to say.
And when it isn't, you can go back and move words around
and add and subtract and divide until you get
the pattern you were looking for
and the message that was hiding
and so you keep writing poetry,
keep writing,
because once you write poetry,
you write it for life.

I need to start writing poetry again. About a year ago, before I stopped, I wrote this.

A dewdrop, or a crystal ball,
In verdant colors of a time
Passed by while piloting a jet
That broke the vigil of the wall
Between two one-time friends—
Such things reflected in a spectrum
Wider than the chasm now
Between two one-time friends.

You’d think on blades of grass I’d find
Something serene, but each one cuts
And fells its prey with but a slash
Or burn or both upon the wood
That built two one-time friends—
A breeze of ashes passing by
With melodies of simpler years
That built two one-time friends.

I’ll clip a stalk that’s overgrown
And stands out in a lawn that was
Meticulously made and trimmed
But now forgotten since I came
Without my one-time friend—
Ruins old, archaic that
Stand ghost-like over lonely glades
Without my one-time friend.

So sing, the robin that does wish
To say the days are naught but bliss
And in a carefree style, live,
She begs; forget what came to pass
Between two one-time friends—
But how can I, when in between
The seasons, I lay down alone
Upon the carpet, wet and green,
Where long ago,I watched you sprout
Into a creature brought about
By changes in the weather—
Simple changes in the weather!
Just a changing of the weather…
And I let
A one-time friend
Go.


And now, I don't even capitalize my lines
because I find their importance so minimal
or maybe because I've forgotten how to write.
And maybe I'm not scared of anything,
but maybe I'm terrified, absolutely terrified
of that.