by Eric Nixon
To hang things
But who among us can reach that high
To even try?
And who has the size or intentions for it
To even work?
It’s beyond our scope of range and time
Still though,
It serves as a pointed reminder that
There is more
To existence than our pithy concerns
October 22, 2012
Benson, Vermont
I don’t really know what this one means. A few nights ago the moon was extremely thin and sharp and it, for some reason, made me think of a coat hook. I then thought that when we get caught up in the silly nonsense of daily life in our “modern times,” it’s good to look up and think for a moment on the whole of existence to put things in perspective. When writing this I got more into the visual look of the poem. I don’t know why, but it’s somewhat interesting.
Releasing Emily
This week
With great anticipation
And trepidation
I did and felt something akin
To what a parent must feels
When they drop a child off
To college, and turn them loose
Out in the cruel, wonderful world
For the very first time
I fretted and hoped I did it right
Raising, grooming, instilling, inspiring
Making it the very best that I could
And now it’s her turn
To make her way
Emily’s failure or success
Is a direct reflection upon me
And the job I did
Looking back at my creation
I smile, cry, and laugh all at once.
It doesn’t matter what others may think
She’s perfect, flaws and all
And I can’t help but beam with pride
October 22, 2012
Benson, Vermont
This week I released my novel, Emily Dickinson, Superhero – Vol. 1.
What Fear Wrought
Bullies
Are children
Who hassle, threaten, and beat others
To make themselves feel better
To assuage the fear they feel
Bullies,
Toughs,
Aggressors,
Oppressors,
Tyrants,
Terrorists,
Are adults
Who harass, intimidate, and torment others
Because they are afraid
Afraid of change
Afraid of differences
Afraid of things they don’t understand
Acting in an identical manner
To those they proclaim to hate
Practicing a different religion
On the other side of the globe
The same cause
The same end
A self-replicating cycle
October 22, 2012
Benson, Vermont
I’m not a big fan of all the fear-mongering that gets so casually tossed about.
Devolving Culture
Problems with the system aside,
How contradictory is it
That in an educational setting
A culture of stupidity and ignorance
Pervades and imposes itself
Through the bullying
Of the smartest
By the dimmest?
In order to survive
One has to either walk the fine line
Of indifference and nonchalance
Or join them.
To do otherwise
You risk standing out
And becoming a target
October 22, 2012
Benson, Vermont
I got to thinking about growing up and being in school. I was a C+ student (got As in the classes I liked, Ds in the classes I didn’t like), but bullies frequently targeted me because I was fat, wore glasses, braces, and read a lot. I sometimes wonder how much more advanced our society would be if everyone worked together instead of spending so much time and energy trying to tear each other down all of the time.
Crinkly Sweep Sweep
Crinkly sweep, sweep,
Sweeping the autumnal floor
More jump tumble down
From the woody hands held high
Mocking the process
Making me rake more
October 30, 2012
Benson, Vermont
NOVEMBER
The Wind Raged On
Hundreds of miles away we felt it.
Tens of miles away, it got bad.
First came the natural darkness,
Then nature enforced it.
Beer in hand, I sat on my stoop
And observed an unseen situation:
The city without lights; dead.
Tiny windows of nearby buildings
Lit up with candles and flashlights
While the wind raged on
Rolling garbage cans,
Throwing newspaper boxes,
And blowing noisy things around.
Piercing blue and red with sirens
As the disco cop cars
Raced down the blackened street.
Their lights crazily reflecting
On and off every building.
I sipped a drink
And took it all in.
November 2, 2012
Benson, Vermont
A comic artist I know posted this the following on Twitter during Hurricane Sandy:
@LucyKnisley: Wandered out to sit on my stoop and watch the disco cop cars race down blackened seventh ave while crazy things blew noisily around. Cool.
Her words really struck me and I copied it in my phone’s Notepad so I could mold and shape it into something later. That later was tonight.
Letting The Outsider In
Strangers are easier
Than friends.
No history
No future
Just mild hope
Washed warm
And tumbled low
With expectations
It doesn’t matter
Where they’ve been
Or what they are now
The comfort is there
The need is filled
With no messy cleanup
How easily they blend together
Just as easily as the months
Blend into one another
New page
New stranger
Same situation
Letting the outsider in
November 2, 2012
Benson, Vermont
While in town, I saw someone flirting with another person and the title popped into my head so I wrote it down. Later, I tried to imagine someone who just lives in the temporary now as opposed to the long-term present and future.
First Night Of Standard Time
Quarter of five
My view is dipped
In a tinted shade
That, not long ago,
Was more like
Quarter of nine
I know the reasons
For ending the savings
But the first night
Of standard time
Is as shocking
To my system
As a glop of snow
Sliding down my back
And is the season’s
Way of saying,
Summer’s done
Autumn’s fallen
Winter’s coming
November 4, 2012
Benson, Vermont
It seems almost unfair, in a way.
Living Between The Xs
Was a three XLT
But I’ve been lessening
And steadily shrinking
To the point where
The three is too big
But the next size down
Is still too small
The awkward in-between
Of living between the Xs
; Is like a winding mountain road
I’m in a place where I can’t stop
I have to press and drive on
Or put it in reverse
And roll back down
Which isn’t a serious option
So I keep running
Toward my goal
Soon I’ll be down an X
And there’ll be no going back
November 4, 2012
Benson, Vermont
Weighty issues.
Factories
Pieces of nature
Are removed
And delivered to
Factories
Where they are
Manipulated
Changed
Combined
Distilled
Decorated
Packaged
Revalued
Trucked
Shelved
Marketed
Purchased
Used
Trashed
And returned to nature
In an unnatural state
November 4, 2012
Benson, Vermont
The other day it hit me that factories take the raw materials found in nature, do lots of things to them, and, in the end, they end up back in nature. I haven’t yet touched on all of the things I wanted to with this, so I finished my thoughts with the next poem, “Consumption Is A Hungry Thing.”
Consumption Is A Hungry Thing
Raw chunks and bits of nature
Delivered to factories
Repurposed; made civilized
Turned into pretty things
Designed to appeal
To our wants and desires
So we buy buy buy.
Consumption is a hungry thing
Simultaneously soothing
And blinding us to the fact
That we’re eating up our home
November 4, 2012
Benson, Vermont
The continuation of the theme started by that last poem (“Factories”).
Notion In Mind
We, as people,
Should, in my belief,
Be improving, advancing, evolving
What we do and who we are
With this notion in mind
It’s interesting to look online
See people I know from my past
And who they are today
Some, have grown greatly
And advanced their lives;
Some, have stalled still
And settled for mediocrity;
Some, have run reversed,
And regressed to something less
There are three choices
Focusing ahead
Looking down
Longing back
And it seems not many
Share in my beliefs
November 5, 2012
Benson, Vermont
Why is there such a resistance to forward movement?
The Problem
Tonight’s culmination
Of a too-long campaign
Finds me avoiding the news
Steering clear of social media
Or anything of the sort
I don’t know how
They can call a state
In favor of one or another
When only 1% has reported
It seems fishy to me
Too much speculation
Too much consternation
Eventually giving way
To much jubilation
And much condemnation
I think what Jesus said
About a house divided
Also goes for the Senate
And the rest of the country
But no one wants to listen…
…and that’s the problem.
November 6, 2012
Benson, Vermont
Election night. I’m going to shut down the computer now and go read my Kindle.
Disasters Are Wonderful
Disasters are wonderful
Opportunities for companies
Occurring when natural selection
Teams up and joins forces
With planned obsolesce
Ruining everyone’s everything
So they have to buy more
November 8, 2012
Benson, Vermont
Heard something on NPR this morning where the National Automobile Dealers Association estimated that a quarter million cars would have to be scrapped because of Hurricane Sandy. This sounds like a dream come true for them, but it also got me thinking that all sorts of companies love disasters because disasters ruin everything and cause people to replace it all, spending tons of money on their stuff.
Consumer
It’s a horrible thing
To refer to a person
As a consumer
As if insinuating
Their sole purpose
In life is to do one thing:
Buy buy buy buy buy
And nothing more
November 8, 2012
Benson, Vermont
A continuation of the theme from that last poem, “Disasters Are Wonderful.” What gets me about the word “consumer” is that we, as a society, are a-ok with it. I think calling a person a “consumer” is just as offensive as referring to a man as a “sperm donor” or a woman as a “baby factory.” In both of those cases, it is essentially breaking down our genders to their primary biological functions, but my God, we are so much more than that. Same with being called a “consumer.” Despite what the politicians and CEOs think, our life’s purpose isn’t merely to consume, and we as people should be actively rejecting that label.
There Will Be Duplicates
There will be duplicates
I know, I am aware
Please be patient
With what I may write
Now and in the future
A poet cannot write just a single poem
About the moon and stop, done,
Never to broach the subject again
So you may see some themes touched upon
Over and over
But one thing that will happen
Is the lens viewing
Combined with
The mind observing
Will make the description clearer
Through the additional experience of life
And the repeating thoughts
Should be better refined
Hopefully.
November 8, 2012
Benson, Vermont
It occurred to me that I tend to get inspired by the seasonality of life, and that, in turn, may make for a lot of repeated ideas in my poems. I imagined me, decades from now, looking back over my poems and seeing a lot of the same titles, sighing and saying, “damn it.” After some thought, I realized, hey, it’s ok, Emily Dickinson probably wrote over a thousand poems about birds* (bobolinks in particular). That clears the way for me to write dozens about hearses on fire or glow star stickers on the ceiling.
*Just kidding.
The Futuristic Sight
A woman working at her computer
Using the Wi-Fi at the local McDonald’s
Talking to her MacBook
With her headphones on
Skyping with a project co-worker
A large group of older people
Taking up several tables
Are all atwitter, bothered, and confused
By the woman acting crazy
Conversing with her computer.
Trying to figure out what she’s up to
One by one, they go to the bathroom
On the return trip, they lean and peer
See someone on the screen, and know.
Impressed by the futuristic sight
They report back to the rest of the group
Ignoring the intense stares,
Puzzled looks, and camera lean-ins
Streaming from the group of olds
She keeps on working
/> November 13, 2012
Benson, Vermont
This happened to Kari today.
Getting The Word Out
It’s one thing to write something;
The personal nature of the work
Can make a writer feel protective
Naked, and exposed
But getting the word out
Can be a double-edged blade;
The deeply rooted need
For people to read it
But also being equally afraid
That people will read it
November 13, 2012
Benson, Vermont
This is how I feel right now. I’m in the process of sending emails to potential reviewers trying to get them to read Emily Dickinson, Superhero – Vol. 1. I’m happy every time I send off an email, but at the same time, I’m constantly looking at my inbox with a feeling of apprehension and dread…that someone might possibly write back.
Reading Someone Else’s Poetry
This is going to sound stupid
Coming from someone
Who labels himself a poet
But wow, when I’m reading
Someone else’s poetry
It’s hard not to roll my eyes
And groan inwardly
At the layer of pretention
Slathered thick between
The obvious end crusts of irony
Sandwiching in the rancid cuts
Of painfully melodramatic allegory.
Glancing at it, I usually pass
And fill up on chips.
I say these things
Despite having frequented that kitchen myself
Partaking of those very same ingredients
And preparing the same steaming meals
That I am refusing to eat.
Over the years, I’ve learned a lot
Most notably, restraint.
Now I sprinkle rather than smother,
Garnish instead of bury,
And hint as opposed to ladle.
Like anything, moderation is the key
Being too heavy-handed is fine
And sometimes what one needs
Once in a great while
The rest of the time,
It’s best to hold back
And offer a varying buffet
Enticing the reader to return
November 13, 2012
Benson, Vermont