I hear your voice
Transmitted over hundreds
Or is it thousands
Of dead miles
Of dead wire
And I can pretend that you are next to me
You send your words
Your silken reassurances 
And I know that I am still
That I can remain
That nothing is beyond sight
Or the need of sight
I know that this won't last
That you will be coming home
But I still have a need
To remember
Your's is the touch
That I cherish

15 responses total.

Minor nitpick - yours, not your's.

In the line "And I know that I am still", do you mean still, as in calm, or
still, as in an unfinished thought?  I sense you being complacent and waiting
for her homecoming, but it's a bit awkward.  Or maybe it's the way I read it.
=)  It's a good poem about missing someone, nonetheless.  

*sigh*  In regards to the content, Joe, I think you're starting to 
stagnate.

I like the phrase "silken reassurances," however

this is crap...I know its crap, and I have no idea why I posted it. 

You posted it because it needed to be posted.

Like some free advice that you can toss in the garbage if you want to?

Don't force it.  Poetry (like the Force) must flow.  Let the words and 
the feeling of "inspiration" come to you and don't think that you have to 
write something every morning.

That's my advice, for what it's worth.

It's not crap, Joe.  There is some material there that is worth 
developing, re-using, shortening, or whatever.

You remember as well as the rest of us that poetry is always a process.  
It takes time, and sometimes we don't produce our best work.  We've all 
been in a rut from time to time where we couldn't find a lot of 
inspiration, so don't worry about it.

Jon put it more bluntly than I would've in #3, but I more-or-less agree with
him.  There's some cool stuff in here - "That nothing is beyond sight or the
need of sight" especially struck me - but it does sound a lot like a lot of
your other poems.
And I think the ambiguity of "and I am still" is kinda' cool, but maybe that's
just me.  

to put it quite bluntly: everything I've written in the last year and a 
half has been the same thing (with the exception of those pieces written 
while either sleep deprived or intoxicated) or desperately trying not to 
write about the same thing. I"ve been in a rut for a long time, lately 
I"ve been trying to get out of that rut. I can't go on doing what it is 
that I know how to do, which is capitalize on the pain that happens 
across my path. I"ve been doing that for far too long, and this is 
another example of it. It's like I take whatever it is, and I make it OK 
because sure, it may have sucked, but hey...at least I wrote something. 
I don't know. I"m not sure where I'm going next, but where I am isn't 
working anymore. Maybe I should leave my writing for when I'm drunk, 
then maybe it won't just be the same shit.

I understand what you were trying to say...it just wouldn't flow the way
you would like it to.  Poetry is strange that way sometimes.
Let it rest a while and one day you will find another paragraph will come to
be added to this.

Are you doing all your work online?  In the past couple of years, I 
have, but I think I miss writing it out.  Writing poetry by hand is so 
different sometimes than typing it.

I agree. Writing on a computer is a much a differant process than writing on
paper. For one thing, if it is on paper its final. So you are stuck with what
you write, If you revise it than you still have the original form. This can
be helpful in figuring out where your piece came from and where you want it
to go. Also, for me at least, I cant just sit down and write poetry. The words
only flow some of the time, it is much easier to carry around a pad of paper
than a computer to catch those rare and precious literary moments. 

<toking misses his pocket tape recorder>

I've never actually done the mini-tape-recorder thing, but it sounds like a
decent idea - I can't stand writing first drafts on a computer, and my
handwriting is frustratingly slow.  
Writing in new topics is hard.  I remember running across this same problem
when I realized that all I'd written in the past half-year or so was love
poetry, and love poetry is at the bottom of my list of kinds of poetry to read
or hear.  And then, with only half a year of being in that rut, it was still
hard to switch, because any line or image that popped into my head, my brain
would turn it into a love-poem-line as a reflex.  

Trying to imitate a non-pain poem you admire could be a good thing to try,
or trying to mimic the style of a non-pain poem.  

Joe, don't give it up.

Find a place where you are most inspired (this is what I do) and wait for
inspiration to strike.  If it doesn't, it's no biggie.  Try again later.

More advice you can toss if you want to.  ;)

it's not a matter of wanting to give up...it's a matter of needing to 
stop doing what I"m doing...I don't want to write this crap anymore, so 
I"ve got to find something else to write about is all

At least it's coming out of you.  When I write poetry that I consider to 
be decent, it's like there's this huge pressure inside my head that 
won't go away until I release it somehow, and words on a page is one of 
the nicest forms of release.  Lately, though, it just doesn't work.  The 
pressure's there, and the pen and paper (or electronic equivalent), but 
nothing comes out.  

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