Author: Franklyn Monk

Poet. Geek. Science fiction aficionado. General freak. Get social with me: Facebook| Twitter | Other

Dagnabbit

That last poem was supposed to be the first one of the night, not the last one, and certainly not the only one, but it came to me fully formed and perfect, and it overwhelmed me.

I stepped into the moonlight sipping coffee
and clank the capstan slides under
the pinch roller sucking in tape
while the playhead snapped into place
tape tugging behind pressure pads.
The meters pegged out momentarily
as he turned out of me
faced the wall and sold it
perfect whole and true.
His voice catching and hitching
like it meant something
and he got the perfect sneer in the last line.

A poem exploded somewhere and I was standing in the path of the blast wave.

I had to shut myself up and be like what was that. And he repeated the performance, spot on, same tears same sneer. And again I insisted.

It was done. I couldn’t deny that. It was handed to me having been harvested, packed and express-delivered from some infernal co-op.

The insert read that it came into your world having been forged, over countless time, in the heart of a far off pyre, seasoned with and prepared by time.

Like I Was A People

What am I doing walking around like this
Like I could cope
What made me think that
Like I wasn’t walking around big chunk missing
Nothing to fill it with but despair
And what happens when I run out
What am I doing walking around like this
Like I was a people.

face

This entry is part 5 of 12 in the series Undrafted, February 2015

I don’t want to cry in public
I’ve done it too much
He’ll say to the face
And scurry for the door.

Warning Dark Roads Ahead

I have embarked on a most ambitious piece. It’s going to be painful and it gonna be long. It might scare you or embarrass me. 

I might seem to become bizarre, disorganized, and riddled with mind-numbing pain. Be not concerned, I assure you I will be!

Call it Process or Method, Madness or the First Realm. “Call it shame or being abashed or trying again, for the last time, to return.” Call it Feeling.

If Cummings is to be believed, a poet’s job is to feel, and if I’m gonna feel anyway…I might as well give up and accept the mantle, amn’t l obliged?

So…Poet, it is, then.

A mad poet on a mad quest. And during that trek some bad lands and the messages you receive will seem scary and bizarre and riddled with mind-numbing pain. They will pop in and out of virtual existence, ghosts whispering in wasnever. Poems will flash before your eyes and with every blink you will question if they were even there. Scary things and gloomy things and heart-rendering stop it things will rush by will be distilled and fitted and molded and crafted into a final work which will be something worthwhile if not worth the effort.

Sometimes this is also the way poetry is done.