One Christmas my mom made a garden stepping stone that had my name on it with the word “writer” beneath it. For a short time I wore a ring I had made in Tijuana that said “POET”.
I’ve felt guilty for a long time that I haven’t maintained that role.
But recently I’ve been reinvigorated to go back through my poems and curate the best ones. I also want to get back into the habit of just plain writing again. I know everyone fucking says that. Fuck it.
For a long time I was doing these “nonsense” poems where I would just spill out words in a comfortable flow, a random string of associations that “sounded” good but maybe didn’t mean anything. I think nostalgically on this time in my life because I felt like I was really connected to a part of myself that was completely mysterious and would constantly amaze me. Occasionally in the course of this blathering on I would strike against one line that would actually seem to say something.
I think one of the problems that had me give it up is that I always had trouble trying to extract those good parts – they always felt too attached to all the shit around it and never seemed good enough to stand on their own. I’m not sure if I want to stick with this approach to writing any longer, but I know that the feeling of just typing manic on a keyboard has always been very positive for me. A feeling I first noticed with this poem: Verano.
I went looking for it today, just randomly searching the internet to see if I had it on one of my old abandoned blogs and found it “published” (or whatever) on this website: Stirring. I don’t remember ever submitting this. The email address listed here is one I had temporarily but only remember vaguely: villagehd@hotmail.com. The HD stood for hairdresser, not high definition.
I wrote the poem in High School; it’s always stuck with me because I woke up in the middle of the night and scribbled it all down still in a dream-like state. Only in the morning did I take the time to try to decipher my handwriting and figure out what I meant by it all. Still clueless all these years:
Garrett Patrick Kelly
Date of Birth: 02/07/81
Location: Arcata, California
Email: villagehd@hotmail.com
VERANO
I saw you working at Rod’s Hickory Pit
Gnawing on your fingernails
And lime green tic-tac mints.
Thigh-high shoulders, I hated the wait
I found a leap year in my hamburger
and 25c worth of hate.
Fishing tackle, dripping from
an eyesocket
that once was my sexual outlet.
Cigarettes, ashtrays, fine party gifts.
I can’t help getting pregnant at the most
shallow of times.
You never knew me