Shuffle

Welcome.

A lot has happened in the past six years since I first started a writing sanctuary, my own little online romping ground in which I wrote under the pseudonym of Sideon. My batting/writing average went south. Quickly.  Year one, 244 posts. Year two, 164. Year three, 143. Year four, 90. Year five was the swan song, with 74 posts, though I rallied through thirty posts in thirty days during the time my Mom died. I published a grand whopping 13 posts last year and took the site offline last week.

Since my Mom died, I've asked myself important questions: did I even like writing, what was truly important to me, what did I want to do with the rest of my life (since I'm 43 and ancient), and exactly how many nearly naked Calvin Klein underwear models would be too many? You know, the easy existential questions. I struggled for over a year and watched myself, numb and shuffling, not caring if I ever shared another word. It took saying hello and goodbye at my Mom's gravesite to start caring again about writing, sharing, poetry, and storytelling. To come out of the fog of a year of grief and loss. To acknowledge that there can never be too many nearly naked Calvin Klein underwear models. Or in writing any of those sentiments.

I thought re-sharing a poem would be an appropriate inaugural post, since it mirrors what I've been doing through several weeks/months/years/lifetimes of drafts. Thanks to the inspirations of Pat Benator, Depeche Mode, Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock, Tears for Fears, and Supertramp, below.

Again, welcome. Here's to a new writing space, new adventures, and new friends.

Shuffle

I stare at this screen,
fingers half extended, half resting,
watching,
but I see nothing.
I hear

Fire and Ice.
I want to give you my love
but then you take a little piece of my heart.

The white screen is waiting for words,
a hunger that craves a word into a
sentence into a poem or a story
where there are

flies on the windscreen.
Come here.
Kiss me.
Now.

There is wisdom in this random.
There must be.
They say there is order in a paint splatter,
some sense in every maelstrom,
rules in each crystal flake inside winter.
But here

I put your picture away,
I wonder where you’ve been.
I can’t look at you while I’m lyin’
next to him.

The screen is white,
but inside the notes are
words inside
sentences that are inside songs,
and I don’t mind where
the time ambles and shuffles and

all around me are familiar faces
worn out places
worn out faces.

Low battery.
The warning light glows orange.
The blank page is a cord without a plug,
a call without an answer,
a rhythm without rhyme,
a simple man who asks

won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned?
I know it sounds absurd,
but please tell me who I am.

-Don Penrose
(from March 2007)