Writing Workshops (written 1/2/10)

Writing Workshops


If you ever asked me
how I think my writing is going,

I would tell you that I enjoy
creating juxtapositions and metaphors,

to connect with the audience through
universal themes and characterization.

And I love losing myself
in a world of delicious fiction,

the antagonist a pure creation
of my alter ego,

the protagonist a resemblance
of Every Man.

I would add that I have broken away
from a prison of templates and forms,

where I’d been held captive,
helpless to escape to these fantasy flights.

And yet I continue to peek into
the closets of other poets,

for a reminder of my own Lost World,
where I used to unite with unicorns.

In fact – if I’m to be completely honest with you–
this poem would not have been written,

had it not been for Billy Collins
and his poem the “Drawing Class.”

Gravestones (a poem from 2005)

Gravestones

There was no sense in sleeping.
       They weren’t ready to experience silent slivers of death.

One had already left the living,
                       the loving…
the life.

                     And she had watched him drown himself,
                                                                                 his friends,
                                                                                          his family,
                                                                                                her.

His blood ran cold, stone for veins
     and a half-eaten heart.
                         Yet they stayed together.
                           She for no other reason, except to protect him.
                            And he for no other reason, except to remain unhinged.

He spat at the world,
                         and she chased the wind down desperate city streets.

But in the end
                they showered their ashes on each other…

                                            And found their gravestones side by side.

                                                                         ~ S.S. (2005)