This isn’t a poem, it’s a regular post.
Sometimes when you write, you end up writing so honestly that your words are too inflammatory, personal, or polemical to share. It’s not like you lied and got embarrassed about the lie. Rather, the thoughts and words are too fresh, too new, too immature — in the sense that they’re in their infancy. They may die if they cannot ripen.
So I’m holding back from posting Number 38. I thought about posting it with the old password, but I’m willing to bet that the five of you who knew the password have forgotten it by now. A password post like this would have been lame.
What’s more helpful is to write a post that says, “I write honestly and sometimes my honesty scares me.” I have many poems like this. One of them’s called “Virginity” and I refuse to share it both for personal reasons and to protect my bride. The things you write affect you, affect the people around you about whom they’re written, the society you’re trying to help along toward kingdom come and the readers who trust you to continue you-ing. You should always be mindful of how you affect others. Thus the restraint.
So I won’t apologize for holding this one back. Rather, let’s just say I hope when I’m sixty-four, I’ll come out with a book of poems called, The Ones I was Afraid to Share at Twenty-Five or something. Maybe it’ll be okay then…
And now for something completely different: an impressive one-man-band reproduction of “When I’m Sixty-Four:”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klM9WxH3ijQ]
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For newcomers — a note on 50 @ 25:
Once upon a time, I read that the perfect age for writing quality poetry is twenty-three. Apparently most of T.S. Elliot’s stuff came out then, the rest of his work being supposedly non-poetic. This resulted in 46 poems written at 23.
These poems came out exponentially faster and faster before my 24th birthday on April 30th – and I had to write in genres spanning from epic ballads to limericks to get 46 in on time. I guess that means, for better or worse, that’s the best poetry I’ll ever write. Sad day.
Who was I kidding?
Milton was blind and old—oooooold—when he publishedParadise Regained. Emily Dickenson was dead when her stuff came out. My favorite stuff from T.S. Elliot came out after his conversion. So yeah, old age is good for poetry too. Look at Burns and Berry.
(Side note: the name “Berry Burns” sounds like a shady car salesman).
Will I keep up this twice-my-age regimen every few years? Who knows, but this year, here’s to 50 poems at 25 to be written exponentially faster until I turn 26 on April Thirtyish. I do it this the second time around as a way to say: “Here’s to living life well before it’s too late.”
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