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Subject: eda-thoughts-digest V5 #6
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eda-thoughts-digest      Sunday, February 3 2002      Volume 05 : Number 006




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                               Today's Subjects:
                               -----------------
  ET: guess who's back...                         [EssenceofCha@netscape.net]
  Re: ET: guess who's back...(me too)                       [DPS8315@aol.com]
  ET: also, a suggestion...                                 [DPS8315@aol.com]

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Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2002 19:07:12 -0500
From: EssenceofCha@netscape.net
Subject: ET: guess who's back...

i don't know how many of my old angels are still around (a few i hope!)... so i don't know who, if anyone, will remember me... i'm naomi (or nai as some may remember), formerly electricdream@netscape.net

i've been away awhile... and, anyway, i'm back around and wondering...

who's out there??? :)

lotsolove,
naomi
- -- 




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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2002 19:33:27 EST
From: DPS8315@aol.com
Subject: Re: ET: guess who's back...(me too)

NNOOOOOOO!

*not* her!  I'm happy to say that I've been lurking around for the last few 
posts, all from T and marty, no?   T, want to let you know that the first 
post you sent, that you also sent direct to me, I did critique... but i did 
it on paper and haven't scanned and sent it to you yet :)  short comments 
anyway.  I haven't really written in like two years, decided I was a 
letter-writer and not a poet anyway.

had a little bit of emotion and some spare time recently, conjured up a 
little something...  it's part of a valentine's day gift that's actually a 
year old, but I'd like anyone and everyone's comments on it, if your lives so 
oblige...  it's rough around, well, through the whole thing, but I'll 
probably be working on actually revising it.  (I'm willing to trade comments 
with anyone if you can help :))

James

Off and on I struggled with the freedom
of relationship poetry,
and a lifestyle that lacked the thrills and frills
and out and out romance of the chase,

I fought with the notions that a part of me
you had fallen in love with, your love had driven away.

Sadly, the loss prevailed.
we lived in love,
but love on a different scale of inspiration,
and it took me years
to adapt myself,
not only to communicate,
but to appreciate
the ways you were laughing about my jokes before I told them,
the nights we spent clinging to each other for closeness,
the times and times again
your parents began to accept us, together,
the times we've slowly began to realize,
others saw us that way too.

these days there's more gratification than excitement in our love 
and my inspiration to write,
but I am finally able to write, about it, and hopefully,
in the same rose-coloured-lines
I found so useful in conquering your heart.

as I lay down to sleep tonight,
my dreams are left with the task 
of redefining inspiration, poetry,
even love,
according to the different hues and reflections
of understanding you, and-I,
according to us.
09/25/01
- -----
some days were harder,
between us,
learning at first
what it was like
dealing day in and day out
with each other's moods,
tiny repetitive character flaws
and unyielding, immobile opinions
that couldn't have ever been wrong.

I know I got on your nerves.
You sure got on mine.

constantly tickling me when I was watching tv,
flipping through every.single.channel. when you had the remote,
and you had this way of
winning our arguments
by implying I always had to be right.
I wondered how I seemed to you,
it wasn't that I knew everything,
or had to win every argument,
it's just,

        just the way I am.

fortunately for me,
you have your opinions, too,
your complaints, pet peeves, and
quick fixes for the world
(and you say *I* think I'm always right)

whatever our differences,
arguments or disagreements,
we always end the night
wishing it weren't over,
wishing we could hold on
    to our conversation,
        entertainment,
    the atmosphere we create together,
for an hour, a day, a month longer,
because it means we don't have to be apart.

for what it's worth,
I'm glad we fell in love,
years ago,
even then arguing about this and that,
and which road to take
for the next few months.
- -----
It wasn't unusual for us to work things backwards,
starting with solutions,
and working towards questions,
but it seemed somewhat obscure
that we spent time growing-up growing-old
and our time growing-old growing-up:

for a while I know I'd be president
...I came to terms with the odds for that,
    decided I'd go to Harvard.
Got into high school, settled for being a lawyer,
or maybe an insurance agent.
I had the world pegged
wanted to make money, and fast,
drive nice car, and fast,
meet some cute girls, and fast.
Now I feel like I've got time on my side,
four years of school and 10 years of debt
- -I chose- not to worry about,
and all my ivy-league friends are telling me
the money's not where it's at,
as long as you've got someone to love,
a roof over your head,
and time set aside to write, 
you can be happy.

But the question came to us,
is to be happy,
to be fulfilled?
and what of saving the world,
and the other ideals
our-heart-had-struggled for?
we lay them to waste
and to the wind,
and carry on with
time's current struggle,
and let life pass.

It's a sad thought our ideals growing up,
    have grown old,
perhaps it's sadder to think
        our actions growing old
  have done no growing up

September 26, 2001
- -----
(we were)

smart kids who thought slow,
the sort of piece by piece
analytical thinking that can
break down a movie plot
or the psycho issues
of a party whore in 3 seconds,
and all without having to
say-a-word

for a while, we struggled
with having the same comments
with the same words,
at the same time,
and that's when we stopped talking.
didn't have to,
to get the point across.

basically,
it took two and a half years
and all but living together
for us to realize
the problem with having been 
friends-first:

the day-by-day growing together
takes the excitement out of
conversation,
and all the talking
that brought us together the first time

now i'm scared
you've started over with someone new to tell 
your stories to,
and what really worries me
is that's where we began.

Instead of running out of storytime
or falling asleep on the phone,
awkward silence fills the void
left by running out of stories to tell.
I wonder,
how we will survive
- -----
I think our parents, friends,
and passers-by were waiting
for an end to come,
for walls to climb up between
parallel thinking,
for times and the two of us to change,

but no end came.

there were rough times,
the slow spots of off and on
and working opposite hours,
and somehow we absorbed
the spots and wrinkles
of time and two years of
growing closer to the
medium between us.

when we got there,
there were walls, barriers,
the misconceptions of assumption
and it's not to say,
that I at least,
didn't struggle, 
beacuse I did,
but I never stopped.
and an end never came.
- -----

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2002 19:39:55 EST
From: DPS8315@aol.com
Subject: ET: also, a suggestion...

I decided that I'm not writing for publication... like it used to be one of 
those dreamy-pretend-goals that we all have, I decided, through a large 
course of events, including reading-over the introduction to A Night without 
Armor, that poetry is far too personal for me to ever have written it with 
the intention of anyone else appreciating it. :)

More like an incoherant journal that will help my memory than someone else's 
inspiration

Anyway, some other thoughts convinced me to write a dedication, as though I 
were publishing a compilation, or whatever, and I had a great time realizing 
the things that have been important in my life.

My dedication follows...  I don't imagine anyone, even my friends, could 
quite comprehend how amusing I found this excercise, but I Hope you try it...

- ----
I can't count
on my fingers and toes,
or my family's combined,
the number of books
I have read this month.
or this year.
or this decade.
I -can- count,
I'm just not a reader.
So if anyone ever takes
my feminine view of growing up a man,
  for its romanticisn and dramatic sensuality,
if I am ever credited
for the quiet, lonely observations
I have made of love and life and their
    feelings-for-me,
"I would like to thank everyone who 
has made this possible.



        My Goddamn self."

I don't mean that to strip great things
first of my parents, who have always
encouraged me to be outspoken when I am right,
and righteous when I am wrong;
who have let me chart my own course through childhood & adolescense,
or my granparents who have always provided me
with the greatest unyielding love and support,
who *have* always said I can do anything I want,
and who have _always_, always had an open door to me.
I love you dearly for it.

I would also like to acknowledge, 
in chronological order, cold mornings walking to school, Jewel,
the internet, including but not limited to 
the Everyday Angels and the_poetry_thread, 
john mckiel's father allen,
from whom I stole my first sarah mclachlan album,
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
and Carrie Amestoy.

Friends, in a similar order, 
Ryan "Lester" Leszczewski, 
Stacy Logan, John Mckiel, 
Melody Lutz

Chiarra Conn, you were the first I opened up my original self to.
You turned me away.  Stacy Logan and all of the other Girls I was good enough 
for,
but couldn't close the deal with, 
you taught me everything I know.

Nikki Osmanski, you were my dream.  Hindsight shows me many things,
but dreams always seem so wrong when you wake up anyway.
I wrote some of my most romantic poetry while I was with you.

Thoreau, for the others who don't understand
my connection with you,
I cannot donate my visions or memories, nor most of their splendor,
onto a canvas of greys.

To the makers of Uni-ball pens, I owe you great appreciation and satisfaction.
A thousand writers thank you,  our words are always smooth and even.

Ms. Angela Davis, you made this tiny, minority junior high school student

proud to be a poet.

Thank you for Dead Poets' Society.

Cassie Yost,  you are the woman my words have always sought,
have-now-found, and are-now-for.  
I have spent the last two years without words to describe our love,
and still have not found them.
- -----

James

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End of eda-thoughts-digest V5 #6
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