Poetry Thursday

For me, blogging has been a lot about putting myself out there. I don't just mean talking about my life. I mean sharing my ideas. Which I am normally loathe to share. Not because I don't want to tell everyone every idea I ever have, but more because the reactions I get are often not enthusiastic or supportive or collaborative... they are questioning, judging, or withdrawing. I don't know if that makes sense, but there it is.

I think I've noticed Poetry Thursday here & there but hadn't paid much attention to it until I read this lovely poem on this blog. And then I was interested enough to go find out more. It seems the premise is to post a poem (yours or someone else's).

This week's challenge:

This week, Liz Elayne and I would be delighted if you talked about your relationship with poetry. What has it meant to you throughout your life? Have your feelings about poetry changed over the years? Has reading or writing poetry changed you?

I find that I've been most prolific during the big ups and downs in my life. I write mostly for myself. It's therapeutic, like journaling. Writing it down helps to explore or let go of whatever is gnawing at me. I don't know that my feelings about poetry have changed over the years - good poetry, beautiful words always resonate deeply. I don't know that reading or writing poetry has changed me, but it has changed the way that I write.

In the vein of my Sunday Scribblings post, I wrote this in 1998.

Dancing plastic saxophones
Green matchbox car from Berlin
Stainless steel dolphin bottle opener/paperweight
Whirling dervish silver letter opener with God's eye
The sharp, twisted, purple-green painted office and the dizzying black&white optical illusion poster with a small bright red heart sort of off-center but generally in the middle
And you went out with your friends again
So I'm here alone trying not to do the things I promised myself I wouldn't
Your words repeating in my mind, telling me that I should do what I have to do and it's okay
Did I want it to be harder?

The framed pictures of yourself everywhere; sometimes I look to see if there are any of me, but there aren't
The glass cabinet we picked out together that seemed so right for storing extra dishes, sitting in the office filled with the entire collection of die-cast metal cars from Kay-Bee that you bought last year three days before Christmas; you could never wait
The little collectible clown I gave you a month after we met because you had that striped palyaco bathing suit that I thought was so funny
The video conferencing unit that seemed like such a good idea that we didn't even use when we didn't see each other for three months; I hate never missing you anymore

The bedroom set we picked out at Bloomingdale's that was too expensive but your mother bought for us anyway
The night your mother realized that I wasn't going home to my place because your place was our place and I realized you hadn't told her
The series of month-long ownership of successively larger televisions that ended in the 53" Sony that sits three feet from the sofa
And the Ansel Adams prints from K-Mart that I never actually liked

You know, I hadn't noticed until today that I had stopped wearing your ring

Like a 16-year-old, I'm moved by Natalie Imbruglia song lyrics
You printed them out and thought that torn meant something to do with crying - tear, rip the page, vs. tear, wet stuff running down my cheeks

I stared at the gold cartoony shapes we painted on the walls in the bathroom not quite two years ago and I remember tracing the patterns on cardboard on the bedroom floor
Does it really matter if it's over now or later when it's so comfortable?
It would be so much easier without these happy memories

I need some sanity
I want to scream but I can't because I'm afraid someone will hear me, or at least of what the neighbors will think

I can't let go because I love you and it doesn't work