Someone asked me recently on a high floor in a rainstorm whether I was always so....Optimistic? I asked, suspiciously (I think I'd been laughing a lot). No, he said...Positive.
The question threw me, because I do not perceive my self (two words) that way at all. If anything, the opposite. I am acquainted with darkness. But I keep it private (an-d that! folks, is why she has a buh-log? Yes, I am aware, I am aware - we are talking about contradictions here). The impression I give is sunny, engaging: positive. It interests me, this split. It has always fascinated me that the person within (all of us) can be so apparently dissimilar to the person perceived. So to set his mind at rest (or is it mine?), here are (at least plant/terrace/Brooklyn- related, so I'm not too far off-topic [again!]), poems, to prove that, yes, I too, have doubts - some published, some not. The poems, not the doubts. Although it holds true for both.
Apricot jam via FedEx for guessing which are which. Hm. I've just read them again. Maybe I am sunny and positive. At least I desire to be. A readiness to be pleased? Crushing disappointment when not?
Well, I really wanted the apricot jam but I couldn't even guess what to guess...
ReplyDeleteIn any case, my favorite:
Shakes its head
on the terrace
where early summer is a jungle
whose cartographer
has missed the ship
whose intricate maps
of the place
will be discovered in a strongbox somewhere
preserved from mould
and brought home with her bones
A little dark maybe, but hey, darkness knows itself... ;-)
I think it's interesting that you do think you have such distinct differences between your public face and your personal truth. Just my opinion, but I do think you're an optimist. However you have a practical and intelligent way of viewing events & people that surround you. All that being said - thank you for sharing your poems. I've known you well over a year and these are the first I've been allowed to read!
ReplyDeleteSo Chris-hop-thopher thinks I'm an optimisist (I think I resist the notion because people with perennially perky personalities give me the heebie jeebies. It's like they're not getting it: the fact that, Nothing means anything, dude!...thunder in background. But on the flipside, I do find enourmous enjoyment in life...which has its own flipside). I guess I'm going to have to live with it. Yeah, it's a bizarre way to do it, too ("sharing" poems), isn't it - kind of promiscuous? And I preserve you from the darkest. The little wrist-sawing numbers.
ReplyDeleteSo what do I do with the jam???