2023-02-16: suddenly, poems

i've been doing a lot of writing this year (here, elsewhere on the net), but i haven't written many poems. today i was reading an article on the notion of shadow work, working with your unconscious mind to find parts of yourself that have been repressed or hidden.

all my writing has been to try to find myself through the process of putting things down. hoping to find my way back to what's veiled, what's hidden. and that idea, shadow work, suddenly became the title of a poem, the poem itself being one particular autumn night twenty eight years ago. the poem complete but i think unpublishable, at least for now, a small voice in the back of my head reminding me, you were found once, malachite green, you can be found again. this is all online. your alias can't protect you —

shortly after i was reading a chapbook and an anaphoristic poem sparked one of my own, the lines curt, metrical, musical. not on the same theme as my first, but related. veiled. something i can send out.

and i did, this morning, sending it and a number of others to a bunch of lit mags. i barely submitted at all the last year or so. i'm always thankful for the sudden bursts of energy that fuel those quick and perfect poems. i'm happy the energy followed through and impelled me to submit it, immediately. normally i never would. i'm cautious. i let things sit. but hell, it's a good poem. let's see if i can see it in print.

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