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Middle of Nowhere, Population: You

i've read the chicken scratch
on the dirt road like tarot cards
"nothing" it said
nothing of your past
nothing for a future
anticipation for the present
anticipating nothing
this small town will bear down on you
with all its weight
throw its chains
turn the key in every lock
and tie you down
no matter how much you hope
no matter how much you want to fly
your grades slip
your world spins different
you crashed and you start to burn
underneath that blazing sun
somewhere in the middle of a hayfield
already regretting the choices you'll make
somehow knowing they'll be wrong
somehow you feel numb to it
maybe you're accepting what you shouldn't
waiting for the epiphany
the episode that will bring you back down
from this cloud of smallness
of empty
of dreams gone to waste
of nothing
so you search a little deeper
work a little harder
leap a little higher
for the answer
for the money
for the time
then you won't drift
with everyone else
toward a lonely mountain
which is really a plateau
and a dead end job
a dead dream
a wasted talent
you try so hard sometimes
so stressed out
tired to the bone
so damn lonely
but still you try
for a better day
a good life
another dime
for a future.

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Comments

I will hunt you down and kill you.

Write to express undeniable truths,
white for beauty and love, but if you write in the second person you are nothing but a preacher or a politician, or worst of all "inspirational". The sheer fucking hubris of it.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

"i've read the chicken scratch
on the dirt road like tarot cards"
loved these two lines,
that was before I plunged into the long wail of despair,
the style could be used for something well,
as in a break-dance sort of way it staccato's along.

A poem about the turning of a dead leaf on the road
comes to me as an image,
perhaps the tarot card getting worn
and loosing its power over gullible people
could be good too.

Depressing me this.
Ann.

"The image of yourself which you see in a mirror Is dead,
but the reflection of the moon on water, lives." Kenzan.

lol - he often tells me off when i forget myself and get sounding 'teachy'
- it's the use of 'you'
and though i understand it is used here to describe yourself really, it does sound as if you are talking in a preachy way
easily fixed when you remove all the 'you's and change a few lines slightly

eg:
'this small town will bear down
tie, with all its weight
throw its chains
turn the key in every lock
no matter hope
no matter wish for flight
grades slip
the world spins different
crashing and burning...'

i really like this write... as anna said - the wail of despair - i love it, but hope it's not how you're really feeling :)
love judy
xxx

'Each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
shall draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of Things as They are.'
(Rudyard Kipling)

he means
what he says and it helps ....
and
you are in the middle of every where
and
never think
of nowhere

loved

UNDISCOVERED
THAN
DISCOVERED ...
works here
even of stalwart poets
then who am I (or u )
a priceless
free verser
Ah! poet

loved

I watched the canadian art film channel until I moved
back in with the girls..in and out of lahlahland with
my whiskey and pain and books
my dandy worn shoes and beat up jacket
with ORGAMI painted on the back and shot up
plane bleeding smoke going down
Ace Spades centered back
Heading to work forgetting my gloves to make
a dime I gave what left over I had to the girls
and stuffed my artistic ability aside to just
barely exist Nickles Pennies and Dimes
in my pocket and scrawling Poems to hear
from the library...If I had not have eaten
from dumpsters or sat with depressed
people for years to just exist watching
them in diabetic highs and lows or
drunken patho listlessness I would
have emerged and escaped but I cared
about them I was scared about the
world then....and I still wrote poems
that early were based on variations of
expression And I read a ton of books

Years later to now...

a year from the Voy experience
along in a motel room
reading Sexton and others during
the focus

I want to say I understand this
poetry well
I relate to it

the futility stone kicking jarring
walk along life
Ive lived it and am living it
and it really is like this

Yes the poem can be turned
again in another angle
just like I and the teen here
experiment with black and
whites and colour shots
of things for internet

or camera angles

everyone wants the personal
storytelling now the
crisp hurrah of intimacy

You can do this all
I know
your talent this young heart
much

I had talent and was told
I was wasting my potential
etc Did not do well
in school etc
and I never became
my father nor mother
but have their traits
which I love them for
otherwise I would
have become the
animal that does
exist within at times

surviving

I love this poem for
as I can relate to it
well
and love the
second person
narrative from movies
and books

Thank You

the good moments are panning for gold,
chance meetings with people others scrabble
to get attention from talk to me about much
about the intimacy of their lives
ah I see this poetry now!!!
sure I could bust my ass and be on a golf course
(never going to happen)
I exist well now
I read my poetry which I love
I am an artist finally living like artists do

reading sexton again
awesome
and other books

i wrote in narration
then younger
to sound older
and because I thought
people would miss
the present tense
writing

LIke comic books that I do still
admire
and then the Graphic
novels

a slight difference in writing
style

grades do not equate intelligence
nor flexible thinking
Ive been able to solve issues
that the plaque loving certificate
boasting freinds could not

panning for god is quiet har d work
but its okay Ive been told

Thank You for todays enlightenment
Neopoet

thanks for the reads, first off. second, my use of second person is me talking to myself. telling myself all these things. we've all had the moment where you're flying out of control and you start talking to yourself, right? and yes it's depressing, and yes it is truth, and yes i really felt that way. but i've accepted that it was a feeling and it passed, not a reality. it's good to hear that people can relate. i will check out the preachyness, for jess and judy and loved. thanks again guys.
mag

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