MP3 Recording

Beginnings

Jeff Winchell
Feb '03
I want to write my first poem.
but I'm too scared to write a poem.
It's too hard, 
I don't know how, 
I'm too busy,
I'm just a fool - fooling my self, my family, my imaginary friends...
to think I have something beautiful to say.

How do I write my first poem?
Where's the rules, the logic, the syntax?
Where's the spell checker checking to see if I cast the right spell?
What is meter and scansion?
What IS iAMbic PENtaMEter FOR?


Oh.


It's penTAmeter?

Is there a "Poetry for Dummies"?

I'll check Amazon


<sigh>


There is.

But it says "Poetry INSPIRATION for Dummies" is just three dollars more....for a new book
or 21? more for "like new".
Maybe it comes with the previous reader's notes in case you're not smart enough to be a dummy.
Hey! I can buy this book with "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry" today for 25.85!
A must have collection for any poetry moron.

If only poetry was my sole problem.

My problem is fear.
Fear of not being good enough, 
  not having enough time, 
  not finishing what I start.
Fear overwhelms...
freezes the moment......
'till something meaningless and habitual takes my attention away from what is human.
Fear is not the little mind killer.
It is the serial body and soul rapist...
that I often evade with laughter... 
    usually at my own expense.

But I'm starting to win now.
I'm trying courage.... 
  enduring the pain.


I'm going to dance my first salsa.
To move with the conga, 
to express the rhythm and passion 
   inside me, outside me;
to let the world, and myself
know I'm not another guy doing the white man's dance.

But will she reject me if I ask her to dance,
ask for the chance,
to learn her name,
and why the motion of her hips, long hair and smile,
captures me even when the fascinating rhythm isn't playin'
to learn what fires her imagination....
and whether love at first sight 
   equals soulmate.

I will re-enter music,
Pick up my sax,
play those attacks,
articulating wisdom with the passion of a life reborn, unfrozen from all those years of fears--
of money, of casual listeners outside the stage... and within.
But the playing's painful right now.
Remembrances of skills and a sound I admired, 
mired in tired lips, sticking keys, and digits 
spent too long on a soulless keyboard that comes with a mouse.

Yet I will fire my soul with music;
and poetry;
and caring.

Tonight, I begin.