Well Fed Head Slam
It's about eight days until the next Well Fed Head Slam. I waver between doing new poems that aren't completely written yet and going back to the old familiar.
Here's a little something I'm working on. I think it's coming along but it still needs work.
Well, I hope you like that poem. How much do you like it on a scale of 1-10? I've got more stuff I'm working on. I'll let you know how it all goes after the slam.
Here's a little something I'm working on. I think it's coming along but it still needs work.
So, the marathon is tomorrow, he said.
Well, don't kill yourself, he said.
Don't
kill
yourself.
redacted
He is the opposite of a motivator.
He is a short, Napoleon-like man
with a boundless fount of negativity.
Don't kill yourself.
Something awful just might happen.
Be careful out there.
redacted
I trained for months upon months,
miles on top of miles on top of miles
up hills and down mountains.
I ran in the rain and in the freezing cold.
When he was sleeping in his four-poster bed
I ran from darkness to light.
I ran so far I got lost
and I kept going
and I lost 50 pounds
and I got found
and I lost some old baggage
and I found my way home
and I kept going and going and going.
And he had the nerve to say something stupid
and discouraging.
He said, don't kill yourself.
As if I cared for bad advice.
I can't kill myself
if I don't let Death catch up to me.
But Death doesn't scare me any more.
Death doesn't have anything to do with this.
Pain? I'm ready for the pain.
I will dance madly with pain in the rain until we're both
soaked and dizzy and amazed that we remain on our feet.
Pain reminds me that I am alive, I can feel,
I can dream, I can overcome and I transcend.
I can run forever like a tantric master lost in the moment,
found in the moment, lost in a moment
founded on the foundation of momentum that
you think is crazy but happily
I shout that insanity makes life interesting.
Insanity inspires the artists to run along the knife's edge
to dance along the ridge of the mountain.
This desire to run wells up inside me gushing from a fountain
of blood and sweat
so do not tell me not to kill myself.
Because
I believe death is not the end of the story.
I believe dying is not the worst outcome.
I believe we see resurrections everyday.
So sometime between the time that gun goes off and
I step across the finish line,
I will be empty of everything
except the fire
fueling my desire
to keep on going
keep on running
keep on keeping on
until I finish strong.
Well, I hope you like that poem. How much do you like it on a scale of 1-10? I've got more stuff I'm working on. I'll let you know how it all goes after the slam.
posted by bl at 8:20 pm
6 Comments:
I wish I could HEAR you read/recite/sing/slam your poetry!! The energy and rhythm must be amazing...
Thanks. I hope that the energy and rhythm are amazing. I really want to do better in this slam than I did in the last one.
By the way, readers, I'm serious about asking how much you like the poem on a scale of 1-10. That's the way slam judges do it, even using decimal points. There are 5 judges and the highest and lowest scores are eliminted. A perfect score would be a 30 but that's almost impossible.
With the small amount of readers I have, it would be interested to see what sort of score I could get if 5 people decided to act as judges and post scores here in the comment section.
This is my favorite part:
I believe death is not the end of the story.
I believe dying is not the worst outcome.
I believe we experience resurrections everyday.
Amen. And keep on running or dancing or dancing or running ...
Karen
I like this part, too:
Because
I believe death is not the end of the story.
I believe dying is not the worst outcome.
I believe we experience resurrections everyday.
There are a couple parts that I don't like as much-- His words remind me why
I often would rather kill myself,
than continue hanging around him.
and
OK mom, I mean,
OK pops, I mean,
shut the hell up.
As always I'm just trying to block you out
and focus.
Those don't seem to fit with the rest of the poem, to me... that, or they don't seem to fit with marathon training, to me. The things I really like about the rest of the poem are the ways in which the repetitions work with running long distances--repetition with a difference, like
I ran from darkness to light.
I ran so far I got lost
and I kept going
and I lost 50 pounds
and I got found
and I lost some old baggage
and I found my way home
and I kept going and going and going.
most of the time the narrator is not just facing potential stopping points, like getting lost or finding old baggage, but moving past them, not just rejecting them. I think, by the end of the poem, the "he" of "he said" is surpassed, as the "don't kill yourself" is changed to moving past even death.
Saying, "I often would rather kill myself/ than continue hanging around him" doesn't seem to fit with the rest of what the narrator does--which is run past "him." And, I guess there is an amount of actively blocking things out to focus when you're training... for me, though, it really often seemed less like I was actively blocking them out, than moving past them--I'd listen to the negative things people would say in their disbelief that I could run a marathon, but then, my training would distract me from them--those comments just couldn't become as important as running, when I was in the act of running. You don't ignore a gate closed across your path--that would mean running into it. You notice it, and then you run around it. The people who say, "Don't kill yourself" are the ones who would rather kill themselves than do something, who block things out. How much more of the world have you taken in since you started running? Another really cool image in the poem is the runner as an artist--that's not blocking out the world to run, that's running in the world.
I do like And he had the nerve to say something stupid
and discouraging.
He said, don't kill yourself.
As if I cared for bad advice.
Where it's the "he", not the "I" who stops the flow, with his negativity.
Those are my thoughts, just what I like as a reader and a runner. What do you think?
If I heard it, I bet I'd like it better, but I give it a 9 out of 10 this way.
It'd been cool to see what you'd write about sailing...
Thanks Rebecca.
It's great to have friends with graduate degrees in poetry and lots of miles under their belts as well.
I like your point about how the "I" in the poem shouldn't be the source of the negativity in the poem. The slam is a week from tonight so I'll most likely do some more editing between now and then.
I liked the entire poem and specially this part:
"I trained for months upon months,
miles on top of miles
up hills and down mountains.
I ran in the rain and in the freezing cold.
When he was sleeping in his four-poster bed
I ran from darkness to light.
I ran so far I got lost
and I kept going"
in a scale of one to ten I would give it a 7 to the final version, the one you posted later; being 1 shhittiest piece of poetry and ten the poem that hasn't been written but we all wish to read (or write)
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