The Words Come In, the Words Go Out

In just a few days I'll be sharing the stage with Shawn, an accomplished poet and up-and-coming Dancing Wu Li Master, for a night of poetry. This will be my second time on such a stage, and I can't honestly say that I will be comfortable. I don't socialize well (genetic, I'm sure), and being the object of attention even for 15 minutes is not something I look forward to. Or, for you sticklers, is not something to which I look forward.

But, things are as they are....

So, I've been spending some time going through my meager collection of poems and have found that, really, I have written one, maybe 2 poems in the last 5 years. No, really--from words to phrases to themes, not much has changed over the years. Overall, the themes seem to be growing old, family, and gardening, with a bit of insomnia thrown in; the main landscapes seem to be my backyard and the ocean, though the mountains do make a couple of appearances. My favorite of the lot is "Going Crazy," which was written many years ago and which is the only poem for which I've actually earned money--enough to pay for my final semester of graduate school. I do not think, though, that it will make the playlist this time, for it is not an especially happy poem, and now seems a bit dated. "First Poem for my Father," one, for several reasons, I find difficult to read all these years later, will also be left at home, though I think I'll regret this choice. I did share it the last time I read, and I sweated through the entire thing.

I am still not sure which poems will make the playlist, but I'll have a better idea tomorrow after Shawn steers me one way or another with some of them. Here's a rather insignificant one that was, literally, inspired by a Krispy Kreme doughnut. This might be the first one I read, just to start with something short.

Summary

Could you in seven lines summarize your life?
Not the given, crusted ends, but the soft
and creamy center that was a brush of long
grass against your young legs, or drifting alone
to Manila, or the first time a woman
said she loved you, and you believed it?
What could you tell us?

Of course it might be pulled from the starting lineup at the last minute....