it’s been a while since we’ve broken the fourth wall – mainly because i’m hesitant to take on any chore, including rebuilding fictional walls – but i wanted to show my work.
my last post/poem, ‘is it possible to write a whisper?’ is a stanza within a larger piece i wrote after re-reading all of the poems and short-short stories i’ve written in the last calendar year. the full piece is below. i pulled the four lines as their own because i think, as an author, they tell the entire story without the over-self-indulgence of the full piece. if a student of mine or peer wrote the large one, i’d have said, ‘take those four lines and cut the rest.’
so, i’m cheating, posted the four lines, and now will post the full, much clumsier piece, and hope for twice as much attention.
* * *
there are few things that stir in me such joy
perhaps intermingled with a touch of wistful-and-sweet sadness
than to reread my own writing from weeks or months or years ago
and to still be that man,
to nod quietly
or even laugh aloud at my own forgotten jokes,
i was telling the truth,
thank the good Lord,
i was telling the truth.’
writing things down, you see,
is risky business, because
i cannot mumble, ‘i never said that’
before clumsily trying to change the topic of conversation.
i am still the man
who made such great claims of love and artistic license and a few puns in the form of silly haiku.
with an audible sigh of relief,
thank the good Lord, i was telling the truth,