Words as Refuge

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been feeling a little lost about the direction of this blog. A friend asked me recently, "What's the point?" I told them, honestly, I wasn't sure. It still feels too corporate, too self-serving. But my goal is simple: to share more of myself. To express my creativity. To take you, dear reader, behind the veil and show you more of my creative life.

A quiet moment with words at PAX East

Today, I'm doing something that makes me deeply uncomfortable—I'm going to share some of my poetry.

Words as Refuge

I love words. I had a speech deficit in my youth—I couldn't pronounce certain sounds properly. That was more than thirty years ago, so I don't remember all the details. But I think it had to do with enunciation, making sure to include all the sounds in a word. I still struggle with this sometimes, needing to focus my mind to make sure each specific sound comes out right.

This is part of why I love poetry. It forces me to focus on language—on the sounds, the rhythm, the weight of each word. To embrace them. Evoke them. With purpose.

Poetry has become especially important to me recently. After experiencing a profound loss, I've found myself turning to words as both refuge and processing tool. When grief makes everything feel chaotic and senseless, poetry helps me find some small sense of order, even in the questions that have no answers.

Early Influences

When I was a child, I thought poetry was dreadfully boring. Most kids do, I suppose. But I had the benefit of a father who loved it. At night, as I was falling asleep, he would read to me. Between stories like Homer's Iliad and Brian Jacques' Redwall series, he would sprinkle in poetry.

Shel Silverstein's 'A Light in the Attic’

The first poetry that really appealed to me (outside Dr. Seuss—who I now recognize as a poet, though I didn't then) was Shel Silverstein. I still have my childhood copies of Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, and Falling Up. Now I try to sneak them into bedtime stories with my own son, though he usually objects if he's still alert enough to do so. So, as my father did before me, I have to wait until the boy is too drowsy to protest. That’s when I break out the classics my father would read to me. My favorite these days is Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Silverstein remains an inspiration—his lightness, his playfulness with words and concepts. I don't think my own efforts come close to his mastery, but I carry him with me internally, evoking his spirit whenever possible.

My Process

My writing process is rather chaotic. When words strike me, I either jot them down in my phone's Notes app or sing them into voice memos (I write songs too, but let's stick to poetry for now while I still have my focus and nerve). Periodically, I return to these fragments in my phone, or find myself remembering them. Then my real work begins.

Voice memos of inspiration

I sit with the words. I repeat them to myself, feeling how they land, seeing if my mind wants to change anything or celebrate what's there. Then I sit a little longer. If they started as songs, I try to reshape them into poems. If they began as poems, I search for melodies for them.

Sharing the Work

All the pieces I'm sharing today are part of that process—fragments of trying to make sense of things that don't make sense, of finding beauty in the midst of confusion. Some emerged from joy, others from sorrow. They might seem like silly, pointless things to an outsider, but they're profoundly meaningful to me. They're how I process the world when regular words aren't enough.

So I hope you enjoy them. And if you don't—maybe you can still be kind? Sharing this work feels vulnerable in a way that's both terrifying and necessary. These poems are small pieces of my heart, scattered like breadcrumbs on the path I'm still trying to find.

FEEL IT GATHER

It's been four long years
And we've got four more left
And though our will was strong
We've just got no more left
And now we come back to
All them thing we left
O how a mind grown old
Become so circumspect

And now I feel it grow
Deep down in my chest
Fill my lungs (so full)
Til it break my breath
Fill my heart (and soul)
Til there no room left
Fill my brittle bones
(my emptiness)

And still it gathers

MARRIED YESTERDAY

Let's get married yesterday
Before it fades into some random day
In a past we can't remember

Let's get married yesterday
Think of how special it would be
It will have meant something forever
Not just lost in memory

Let's live inside infinity
Out of reach of today
Let's get married yesterday

LANTERN FLY

Felt you vibrate in my fingers
So I opened up my hand
Peeled back your paper shroud
Just enough to peer inside

Are you moving little lantern fly?
Or are you no longer alive?
I know I pulled the trigger
But I'm sorry if you died

ALL THEM WHYS

All them whys
And them whats
And them how did it happens

Don't think I
Could even try
To make it make sense

Don't know much
But I know where I went wrong
I've been here a little (too long)
I've been here a little (too long)

⸻

Thank you for letting me share this part of myself. Your patience with my experiments means more than you know.