Unwitting Outsider Poetry From Thursday

I wrote a poem I didn't write today. For some weird reason I had this flashback to a bartender I worked with almost two decades ago who was always telling me about this goof she was dating. She died suddenly, and I had this bad feeling for her that the end of her life was wasted. The title came to mind and I immediately decided I wouldn't write the poem because I've been there and done that on the foul language and poetry about terrible subject matter. Instead I wrote on Facebook about how I thought of the title then decided to do something else, and my friend Andrew reposted what I said in poetry form, and it seemed like a poem to me. Not the one I was going to write, but a perfectly valid poem about why I didn't write the poem I was going to write, which you now know the story of, too.


Her Last Few Fucks Were Wasted

I just had a sudden urge to write a poem titled
"Her Last Few Fucks Were Wasted,"
and even ten years ago
I would have too,
but instead I walked
to the bathroom,
trimmed my nosehair,
and decided this poem need not exist.
You're welcome.


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Greenwood Cemetery Rockford, Illinois

As a poet I'm the first person to admit words can be a damn troublesome nuisance. A lot of times they refuse to do what you want them to do. And sometimes they do exactly the opposite. As a poet I'm always looking at words. Maybe I'm hypersensative, but I don't think I see words the same way most other people do. This is another entry in my series of  Poem Photos, which is a collection of examples where words and images seem to evoke contrary, often opposite emotions from what might have been intended. 

Greenwood cemetery in Rockford, Illinois.

Greenwood Cemetery is one of Rockford's oldest and most beautiful historic cemeteries, established in the 1840s when Rockford itself was still a young community. Located along North Main Street, its monuments and family plots preserve the names of generations of people who helped build the city, including prominent industrialists, politicians, veterans, and ordinary Rockford families.

Like many nineteenth-century cemeteries, Greenwood was designed as more than simply a place to bury the dead. Its winding roads, mature trees, elaborate monuments, and landscaped grounds reflect the rural cemetery movement, when cemeteries were also intended to be quiet public spaces for walking and contemplation. Today it functions almost like an outdoor archive of Rockford history. Walk around long enough and you'll encounter names that also appear on streets, buildings, businesses, and in nearly every chapter of the city's past.

Which makes Greenwood an especially appropriate place to find words behaving strangely.

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