So, obviously, this is not the first time I am trying to tell this story, or parts of it, or some version of it. The most sincere attempts (though the countless failed efforts were sort of sincere too) are contained in my two chapbooks, The night is my mirror and On Turning Fifty. Looking back at those poems now, they are beginnings, threads, tangles…some kind of gunky birthing miasma.
In a poem titled “On the fear of ageing” (from “On Turning Fifty”), written back in 2019, I have said this:
“How can I tell stories so big that imagination,
trying to escape, slips into a quagmire of
threadbare verbs? How can you listen to
stories so small, they stick between your toes
like ellipses till you cannot walk?”
and this:
One thousand stories to
tell. One thousand and one excuses to keep
my silence and not enough nights now, love,
not enough perfect nights left to tell them all.
Funny how things pan out. If you ever want to read the chapbooks, follow those links above.
And here’s the recording of Part 11. I think I was more emotional reading this aloud than when I wrote it. Poetry is a funny animal, that much is for sure.