When I was 5 I wanted to be a doctor
Until I realized I cried every time I needed a shot
Winced when I saw someone fall
And wanted to ***** when I saw blood.

When I was 7 I wanted to be a veterinarian
Until I realized I was more connected to animals
Than I was to humans
And I cried every time my dog so much as limped.

When I was 10 I wanted to be a teacher
Until I realized I could never let my students go
And would be too concerned about what they’re going through
That I wouldn’t even know what to teach them.

When I was 13 I wanted to be a lawyer
Until I realized I shook every time something bad happened
And if I ****** at arguing with my brother
How could I argue for someone’s future?

When I was 15 I wanted to be a CEO
Until I realized people would have to know my name
And I’d have to tell them what to do
When I didn’t even know what I was doing.

When I was 17 I wanted to be an author
Until I realized I couldn’t even read my own work
Let alone let my family and friends read it
Let alone let strangers read it.

When I’m grown up
All I really want to be
Is so content with where I’m at
That I don’t need to look too far in the future.

When I grow up
I just want a roof over my head
A job I love
And a family that loves me.

When I grow up
I don’t care what I’m doing
Or where I am
As long as I’m happy.

Sometimes I sit in light
And stare at the white.
Stabbing into the blue and black
Sometimes red
Sometimes purple
Not knowing what to write
But still knowing the feeling
Is the hardest thing to put right
When hidden messages bubble away
And lurks in caves and corners too distant to say
I dislike the game
I dislike the play
I dislike the victory of Idea all the way
As it goes I will still have less to say
In one year two year or three or even four
Wrote words of fancy
In muffled grey noise
Try to coax out shapeless love
And fold out furrowed landscape
Pin down stupid symbol
Wheel out old metaphor
Use rhyme all the time
And never fall in front of the stubborn old law
It's a problem with the structure
Its in the letters of old
How can a meaning become new
Or a message so bold
It can't be original
Nothing ever is
But perspective lives on
In its own dreary fizz
Over and over
The battle never ends
Between pen and paper
Between young and old
Between idea and nation
The paper always the victim
never the winner
nor the muse or even the killer
Language indeed is the oldest sinner.

In an unsynchronous, unscripted, parallel of this world lie the unsuspecting pieces of my game. They are as diverse as they are unique, and equally as unwary. Their roles, even unknown to me, will be played out and unraveled along with the secrets of the universe they occupy. They are unwilling, innocent, and utterly perfect.

and if i say i love you
i mean i love myself.

Poetry workshop experiment

Gathering a crowd of pen-holders
Using colored inks, sheets of papers
Asking them to write a few words
Guided by a quickly- scribbled prompt
Asking them to make poetry upfront
With a dose of courage and imagination
Asking them to write a few random words
Telling them that they’re making a poem.

Finding an impromptu rhythm in two lines
Trying to grasp that pattern and persistently
Improvise to capture that flow that uncertainly
Found itself thought out and written on the page
Percolating the images behind the associations
Entering the subconscious minds of the pen-holders
Telling them that they have become writers.

Not on a whim, not just for me, but because
They were not given the consequence or cause
Of their talent but simply, certainly
The reassurance needed to write poetry
Without getting drowned in rhythm, devices and sound
Of what they have created they are undoubtedly found

Pen-holder if you are,
Take patience and courage
To write on your white page
You will discover a writer
If you persist and resist
Daring to trust the rush, the lust
To write, pen-holder, you must
Be aware of the unknown
Flow of words that can be sown

November 22, 2017
Lyon