Oh, The Words....

 Oh, the words, the words, the achingly inadequate beautiful words.

Terry Hertzler from In the Palm of Your Hand

On Chapter Three of the poetry workshop book,   In the Palm of Your Hand by Steve Kowit. In this chapter the reader is asked to write three prose poems. For some reason he is always trying to dig into childhood trauma as the creative center of these poems. Luckily I have a lot of grist in my writing mill. And it is also helpful that I am doing my memoir in poetic verse. (I know what you are thinking...I better learn the art of poetry before I go in that direction lol...thus the book I am working with now!!) I can maybe...use these poems...in that memoir. 

I wrote the first two quickly within ten-20 minutes each. It was tricky trying to get these memories properly emoted and clearly described in three to four sentences. Try it yourself!

Ultimately, what you need to do is give yourself permission to write poetry-and to have fun doing it.

Steve Kowit

This exercise  made me think of the prose poem...though I format most of my poems ( if someone would dare call what I put here poetry) in verse...they are probably more prose than poetry.  I tend to like full punctuated sentences with a beginning, middle and end.  Anyway....so I am going to try another prose  poem here...maybe about yesterday's topic? ...three to four sentences. Whatever comes out here, stays here, k?  Not edited, not revised...just down. Neither good or bad...just is.  I am going to write it quickly as I have someone waiting for me elsewhere.

Drsta Dharma Sukha Virharin

I try to settle myself down on this cushion awkwardly  situated  between the background of  a soothing emptiness and the world that dances like intoxicated fireflies in front of me, a world that drags my eyes up and down and all around. I close these hyper orbs of  limited vision and breathe in deeply,  searching as I do for that promised ease,  for a peace so settling it will allow me to slip beneath this cover of  here and now now, to rest a weary mind that so needs the silence and stillness the moment offers. I breathe out releasing the accumulated knots of  tension brought on by the busyness of repressed and supressed living.  My body and mind relax into the breath as if it were a comforting hamoc on a sunny July afternoon and I find the sukha  I have been looking for in this place  where it has always been.

All is well

Steve Kowit (2017) In the Palm of Your Hand. Second Edition. Maine: Tilbury House Publishers