shocked to see how bad some of my recent stuff looks, after reading a very strong poem by Till Gwinn. saw this material as still vanity-driven, trying to make you like me or something, and edited out what seemed the rotten parts. maybe made it readable. Saw that i go bad when i don’t remember that i’m writing a gift to the reader, one with no strings. especially when i forget that i’m really writing a lyric to a song, and force the music part to cover the chatty wordings.

talked with a good poet yesterday. totally opposite style, i can’t write like him. looking at my stuff, now — the new stuff i’ve mostly just written for this online poetry site, ‘poetry c.’ — it seems short and choppy and not at all as melodic as how i wrote them. maybe they’re ok. but, mostly i should just only write poetry when i should write poetry. the early stuff still works for me. but, it’s like the stuff i wrote for poetry c. is just prose with a limp. it looks like verse but it’s only about some comment about some comment — writing to show people how to write, how to open up out of writing a letter or a sermon. so what? if they can’t dance why want them to dance? it’d probably look as stupid as my disco minuets.

i’ve got to be myself, but i’m only myself when i’m actually writing something. after, i’m just a consumer looking for cookies. nothing to offer anyone but words of wisdom. words which i know are just paper shells to keep my hands busy.