I do not consider myself a poet. Hell, I understand poetry (as well as anyone could) and have written pieces before. I also like poetry. I think it is some of the most evocative creative writing around. But in a lot of ways, poetry intimidates me and leaves me with complicated feelings about how well I really, truly understand it all.
This is a problem as I will be teaching an introduction to creative writing course in the Spring, which is a dream opportunity for me. But I have to teach poetry and how can I teach it when I feel so unsure about it? I mean, I will need to teach poetry no matter what. I want to teach poetry, but I want to understand it further.
But this left me at a strange moment, especially given the current amount of stuff I have going on in my career. I do fully intend to write and update blog on that eventually.
For now though? Poetry. Man. What do I do?
The Seven Hells Project
It’s been kind of a weird couple of months for me; certainly pleasant but not without it’s challenges and more exhausting moments. I realized I need to familiarize myself again with the form and dust off my collections for building the class in the future.
For now, though, to teach I must do, and do I did.
What I have hear is a series of seven poems of varying forms (see if you can identify them) about depictions of Hell; not as a physical realm, but the agonizing, disorienting, painful hells of contemporary life. It helped make this particularly busy week a bit less agonizing.
Anyway, here are the Seven Hells.
First Hell
The boil of blood fills my ears
Every step leads to tears
Endless steps, endless climb, cycle unbroken
Labored steps to the small home where I may rest
I had arrived to find the elevator broken
After a twelve hour day bitter lamentations now spoken
I am not sure of how many years
I can keep my body going with such stress
Concrete walls, steel steps, every sound and grunt reveals me: a mess
Elevator down for a week, more or less my life, I guess
Second Hell
Grace and opportunity afford me salvation
But in my hubris I fell into old patterns
I keep telling myself to break the cycle
But I cannot help but fall into the same
Old habits
Another night with little sleep, stucco ceiling gazing back at me
The popcorn abyss above threatens to swallow me
I feel sweat on my pillow as I turn my head
I smell a sour tang
I can be better; I must be better
But those old habits are hard to conquer
I slap myself, heel of palm to the forehead
It hurts but the worry hurts more
Failure hurts more
Money is my problem – there’s never enough
Money haunts me – it won’t let me sleep
Money promises an escape – if only I was smarter
Money is my solution – if only I was good with it
Third Hell
My foot in my mouth;
They move on with a chuckle.
Why can’t I move on?
Fourth Hell
It is a long night of uneven sleep
as the mind wanders through a maze of doubts
fueled by the previous falsehoods that
shook the foundations of what I knew of you.
There remains a distance; seemingly wide.
Too wide, too treacherous, despite desire
to move past it and find normality
I crave for safety, for comfort, for love.
Radio silence at midnight, of course.
There are valid reasons, I know as much
But again, those nagging doubts nip at me.
The paranoid mind is what it is, yes?
So the rat mind wanders the maze searching
for reasons – the why of you – solutions
to the cruel question: what are we in
this experimental era of doubt?
Fifth Hell
This world is a goddamn fucking mess
Smoothbrains seem content
Accepting the words of those who hurt them
Cloaked aspirations toward their opulence
They don’t fucking see the world is on fire
They don’t fucking now they’re already drowing
They don’t fucking know they’re already dead
Distracted by hostility to those they’re told to target
Elmer Fudd falls for the sign switch
Fascist Bugs Bunny pulls a swift one
Daffy Duck’s face blown away in the trigger pull
They don’t fucking see they are hamburger
They don’t fucking see they are the product
They don’t fucking see the fat man is fed
Go back to the system they cant afford
Even meager pleasures cost more
Sixth Hell
Tick. Tock.
Idle eyes watch the hands.
Tick. Tock.
Serious in ambition.
Tick. Tock.
But merely playing at the process.
Tick. Tock.
Weighty expectations.
Tick. Tock.
Desire is not effort.
Tick. Tock.
Worried.
Tick.
Now.
Tock.
Work. Tick.
Work. Tock.
Not. Tick.
Done. Tock.
Tick tock tick.
Self-imposed goals (ticktockticktock) are (tick) the (tock) most (ticktock)
dev (tick) as (tock) tat (tick) ing.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Seventh Hell
The descent begins with the realization.
The stomach drops out, the head begins to hurt.
Every painful failure plays on loop
in the screening room of memory.
That thing when you were eight.
That thing that happened last week.
Yes. Every. Single. Failure.
Whether they are truly your failures
or if they were attributed to you
you feel each one batter at your spirit
an unavoidable, unending torrent of blows
only meant to punctuate the feelings
that eat at you already.
Tenderizing the soul for the damnation.
This. Is. Your. Fault.
You wonder if you were a bad person.
By any ledger you don’t add up.
Did you fuck up? Yes.
Did you lie? Who doesn’t?
Did you steal? Yes, but everyone does.
Your sins, perceived through rationalism
don’t seem enough to damn you.
Yet. You. Are. Miserable.
This isn’t even Hell, no, not yet.
This is just your mind wandering
as you lay down to sleep.
Sweet dreams, sucker.
Thanks for Reading
We’ll see how successful I was by any comments or criticisms that emerge in the comments. Overall, though, I think the private Hell of expectations regarding my future creative writing class just got a little more manageable by the creative process. If you have suggestions for things I should be reading, please let me know.
I’m not expecting to open up a dedicated poetry category any time soon. But who knows – the world is uncertain anyway and that’s the Hell of it.
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Such visions that don’t seem doomerist, they seem sombre to angry. The fifth one reminds me of the Masscult-midcult-folkculture of Dwight, editorially speaking.
Hell is dystopia, it’s visions of a anti-thesis of topia, and it’s a creation within all of us. Thanks.
Mmm, The popcorn one though. Yummy.
Thank you. I definitely think you’re onto something with somber to angry. More a recognition that Hell exists and we have to deal with it.
At least, that is how I see it.