Tangled

I rediscovered this poem today as I scanned my files from this summer.  I wrote it as an exercise in a poetry class and after thinking about why I loved Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye, I couldn't help but linger on this language and the moment that produced it.  I know it isn't typical blogging me, but it's the me I am tonight:

Tumble

D

O

W

N

TaNgLed StReEtS

And cease your efforts to untangle them.

Allow the grass to graze upon asphalt,

Peruse the pigeon’s overcoat,

Marvel at the pulse of purple-bellied mosquitoes,

Implore your mind to digest new perspectives.

Press the prints of your thumb and pinky together—

And like an escaping convict—

Slip your wrist through the cuff of social expectation.

Gallop barefoot,

Entreat your gaze,

Embrace your diversions,

Invite your mind to wander,

To ponder recklessly like iron intended for demolition,

Intended for dispatching stores of luscious mental debris.

Strike the rules,

Rip off the gag,

Tip the carafe to

                                         let

the energy

                                                                          s  p  i  l  l .

Poison ordinary streams with original ideas.

Erode your damns,

Deconstruct your walls,
Empty your sandbags;

Bag the water instead.

Keep it to raise the dead,

To hydrate the words

Shriveled beneath the dust

Ogling at the possibilities

                                                         just beyond the silk—

Where the boats have water,

And the sky has wind

And ideas are free to

S     A     I      L . . .