I Want to be a poet

I want to be a poet.

There you see, I started my first line with my title, how unimaginative is that?, how boring, I already filled one line of a poem that will probably be as unimaginative and boring as the first line, filled with fragmented sentences, and wrong punctuations, too wordy, not enough verbs or nouns, written by my conscious being, not by my unconscious,
which gives me my best ideas,
I am constantly conflicted by my radical unconscious, and my too-too-Tory conscious being, this GD (see I use GD instead of spelling-out God-Damn), terminology and psychology, to try and clear-up and describe
how I feel and what I perceive that is holding me back in my poetry.

I have the vocabulary; I have the formal education, never-the-less,
(oh yea, never-the-less, another unimaginative phrase that gets me out of a pathetic paragraph),
my conscious being says to beware, my critics say I am too guarded, only my unconscious awakens me in the, ‘wee small hours of the morning’, (thanks Frank), and, ‘yells how it yells in my ear’, (thanks again Frank),
Write, Write, Write, about that Dream,
Nightmare, Visitation, Apparition,
that is dredged-up from my dark recesses,
tell all about who am I, what I am hiding,
what I am striving-for, my desires, my wants,
I will name my first book of poetry,
‘Voices in my head, verses to be read’,
nice figurative title, and literally correct,
for example, my gender-neutral personal poems, written in a way to mask a life-style,
I bet you didn’t know that, (or even care),
what-a-life, how the hell did that happen?
I’m not Percy Dovetonsils, (thanks Ernie),
O K, screw-it, just enjoy the poems.

So, unconscious, I am afraid, you come to me and Taunt and Haunt and Torment me,
to reveal things that I do not want to share,
can’t I have secrets? why must I be so open?,
oh, to be a Poet, I must reveal and not hold-back, is this the price I must pay?
am I ready for that?
I am confronting this reality, as my poetry becomes more complex, and to be true to the form and myself, I must be able to look at others and not just write and reveal at 3 AM
in a lonely room where unconscious thoughts
rule those dark hours, with painful memories.

How the hell can you enjoy my poems?
When I am having a difficult time getting
past my ‘hang-ups’, (hang-ups, is that a 60’s bull-shit phrase?), my life has had its share of happiness and disappointments,
if I want to be a poet, I should use all of my life’s experiences (not to mention to clean-up my grammar),
to See, Hear, Taste, Feel, Be,
an observer of nature and people,
to put down those thoughts on paper
and express them, ’as-a-poet’,
those unique feelings, in a unique way,
oh, reader I will get there,
despite or because of these ramblings.

I want to be a poet.




Copyright 2009/Tony Puma
‘Voices in my head, verses to be read’.