The Life and Times of Mikki: August 2009

I started writing poetry at 7 and at 13 (seriously), then again at 15 and
started again at 18 and then it stuck for
several semesters, started again
at 22, 29, 36, and 39.
Stay tuned for further updates.

I started writing poetry because I fell in love with the word
sordid and I wrote 50 different poems using that word in
a variety of situations and then I fell out of love with the word and
instead became infatuated with the word paradigm but that didn’t
work out at all because I never did figure out what a paradigm was
other than it wasn’t a pair of dimes.

I started writing poetry to be rebellious.

I started writing poetry because there was
nothing better to do on that cold wet snowy day when
the big blizzard hit and all the
electricity went out. It was fine during the day since
there was plenty of light to write by
but then the sun went away like it always does for the night
and I was afraid to write by candle light
because I’ve got this fear of fire.

I started writing poetry so I could
impress people that were too important to talk to me so I could become too
important to talk to them thus paying all those snobs back for
refusing to let me ever be a part of their up turned noses club.

I started writing poetry because
saying I’m a poet at social gatherings is sexy.

I started writing poetry as a response to a visiting lecturer who
complained about the arrangements I made for him.
I thought a nice rhyming poem would soothe
the savage beast but apparently when that beast is
a self righteous pompous jerk face know it all the only thing
that soothes it is a
good 2 x 4 to the head.

I started writing poetry to deal with my anger issues and
it seems to be working out well so far since it’s
been months since I sent anyone to the hospital.

I started writing poetry because I wanted to get
considered for the local literary journal our high school published
and the senior who was the editor was a
total hottie.

I started writing poetry because I had
things to say and no one would listen.

I started writing poetry because I was mad at the bus driver
when she wouldn’t stop ½ way between the sign and my house,
which was six blocks further up
the street in the direction she was going, so
what would it have hurt? I wrote a scathing, blistering
set of haikus designed to make her feel guilty
but then my best friend got a car
for his sixteenth birthday and we all stopped
taking the bus to school.

I started writing poetry when
my cat ran away. I wrote
about how much I missed him
and wondered if he found a good
replacement home.

I started writing poetry hoping I’d figure out what was wrong with me....
I’ll have to get back to you.

I started writing poetry when I was in detention and was
supposed to do homework but I didn’t have anything left to
do so I composed an ode to the lump on the vice principal’s forehead that
he’d gotten from the book I’d thrown at him during the supposed non violent
protest the students spontaneously threw when the administration
announced that at lunch time only seniors could leave campus starting
next week because the local businesses were complaining
about the loitering all the kids were doing.
Then I wrote a really long verse poem about why I though loitering was such
a stupid crime because it sounds so innocent and
it’s designed for adults with
nothing better to do than harass kids to call the cops and send them off
to juvie when really it’s not the kids fault that there’s nothing to do
in a small town with only one theatre and a single floor mall and the closest
two story mall is two hours away

I started writing poetry when
my parents told me that
my cat was hit by a car in a neighbor’s
driveway and they didn’t think I was old
enough to handle his death but apparently
I was plenty old enough to be lied to.

I started writing poetry so that after I die
people will be able to know what I thought
but how will they know what’s autobiographical
and what’s bull?

I stated writing poetry when the culture’s values declined.

I started writing poetry during my second semester abroad
when I realized I had to preserve
my thoughts and musings living in
a foreign land in something other than
the journal I was required to write for the program that sponsored
the majority of the funding I got for that year
because the questions they had me answer in the journal seemed
so mundane and boring that after a semester I just couldn’t take
the monotony of the writing.

I started writing poetry because someone told me to.

I started writing poetry when I started dating, but
maybe it wasn’t poetry so much as it was a jumbled
collections of sensations and hormones and emotions
and I don’t really think that
anyone outside of the ages fifteen to eighteen will ever
make any sense of the ramblings.

I started writing poetry when I took a stupid class
where the teacher made you do these stupid exercises
that apparently had all these stupidly interesting
motivations and crap behind them, which sounded stupid,
and the then you had to have your stupid peers
read and critique your stupid attempts and
then the teacher had the gall to assign stupid grades to it all.

I started writing poetry because I wanted to.

I started writing poetry looking for something I could be good at
since I’d found out the hard way it wasn’t
softball, ice skating, hand bells, sky diving, announcing sports or
speed dating and one of the losers who tried to pick me up at my table
said he was a poet trying to impress me
and act all sexy but he was so creepy that the poet thing
stuck with me and later I thought if that creep
can be a poet anyone can.

I started writing poetry because I was bored at work and my colleague was a closet poet.

I started writing poetry when I fell in love
with the man I thought I was going to marry
but he couldn’t understand
why my poetry didn’t rhyme and when
I tried to explain that poetry doesn’t always have to rhyme
he adamantly declared that the only good
poetry out there rhymed like Browning and
Dickinson and Tennyson and Frost and Poe
and Shakespeare and Keats and Emerson and
Longfellow and Donne and
Andrew Marvell and William Morris and Lord Byron and
Robert Burns and W. B. Yeats and Emily Bronte
and that’s when I interrupted and countered with
what about famous poems by William Carlos Williams or
e.e. cummings or T. S. Eliot or Rudyard Kipling
that don’t rhyme and then I mentioned lots of Shakespeare’s stuff didn’t
rhyme and then that’s when he interrupted me and
said that he could never be with someone with such a wrong opinion
about poetry…so I dumped him
unless you talk to him and then he’ll say he dumped me but really
I dumped him.

I started writing poetry because it was the in thing.

I started writing poetry because
I can’t spell and in poetry I can say
I did it on purpose and it means something.

I started writing poetry when I saw my first penguin. He was molting so he,
or was it a she, had really funky feathers and I didn’t know before then that
penguins have feathers because they always looked shiny like seals
or dolphins but I guess feathers make sense
since they’re called flightless birds, but why call them birds
if they can’t fly? Isn’t that a bird requirement? It’s like having a feline
species that doesn’t purr or a species of canine that
doesn’t sniff other canine’s butts. Flightless birds are weird.

I started writing poetry using those magnetic poetry kits but the words
began speaking to me so I stopped but all the words wanted to know
was if the tile that said ‘forlic’ was supposed to say ‘frolic’
so I wrote to the magnetic poetry website and found out and when
I gave the words the answer they stopped talking to me which I thought
was pretty rude considering all the trouble I’d gone
to but then I realized I hadn’t gone to that much trouble and
now that the words weren’t talking to me
I could concentrate on making poems.

I started writing poetry when I had insomnia after
a hard day’s work and my brain wouldn’t shut off
which I’ve discovered is largely a woman’s issue as
it’s become painfully obvious that men have
no problem turning their brain off
and I’ve begun to wonder if they ever turn the cranial area on.

I started writing poetry to
find my voice and now I
can’t figure out how to lose it.

I started writing poetry because it sounded easier than writing short stories
which sounded easier than writing novels which sounded easier than writing non-fiction stuff like biographies and how to and self help books full of facts which are so, well, factual and real and I had discovered I don’t really like reality all that much so why read or write about it? Some days I think I make the right decision and some days I wish I’d practiced
my piano more and become
a musician.

I started writing poetry because my little sister started writing it and I didn’t think
hers was any good so she said I’ll bet you think you can do better
and I said of course I can do better I’m older and so I wrote something
and got it published in the school newspaper and then I
won a bunch of contests and lots of college scholarships
and got a degree in English literature with an emphasis on American poetry
and I got published in every poetry magazine available and
then I acquired a bunch of awards and was named the nation’s
youngest poet laureate and when I went to gloat
my sister said oh that,
I got bored with poetry and took up archery instead.

I started writing poetry because I thought
I had something to say but it turns out I
was wrong.

I started writing poetry when my boyfriend was in a band
playing the keyboard and
his friend who played the acoustic guitar needed help composing lyrics
but really it was just a ruse to spend time with me
and since my boyfriend didn’t even care that his buddy was trying to
steal me away I told him to take a long walk off a short pier
and starting dating the drummer instead
because who dates the keyboardist in a high school band anyway?

I started writing poetry because I read a book of poems that
mostly didn’t interest me until I got to these really fabulous poems by
some guy named e.e. cummings and I looked him up and he really
didn’t want the initials in his name capitalized, even though I was sure that
when I had read his name like
that it had been an editing mistake.

I started writing poetry when my heart
was broken for the first time and I
sequestered myself in my room for almost five months doing
nothing but sleeping, going to school, coming home and going to my room
and I can’t even remember eating at all during that time but I guess
I must have eaten at some point because otherwise I would have died and
even though I felt like I wanted to die I wasn’t really suicidal but
my parents were so worried about me they started trying to set me up
and that’s
when I finally came out of my room
and started living again because anything is better
than being fixed up by your parents.

© 2006 M. Post

She wakes up early,
Rouses the kids,
Showers, dresses, gets things together…

Today’s an early day.
Thank God for school breakfasts.

The kids are up though barely in one case,
The eldest prods and moves everyone out the door,
Keys, backpacks, purses, briefcase, permission slips, homework…
She takes off hoping everyone has everything.
Drops them at school and stops for fuel;
Gas for the car, Diet Pepsi for her,
Still carpoolers to pick up for the 45 minute commute.

Work is maddening at times,
Proving herself again at a new job every few years.
Every time the questions, explanations, justifications:
Kids wonder why they have to move,
Mom and Dad want to help more,
Friends who understand, friends who no longer call,
Interviewers who reluctantly turn her away…
Over-qualification haunts her like
An unknown voice in the dark
Taunting her achievements and punishing her for being smart.
Long days are what she knows.
She longs for the weekend, for friends and family—
Support she couldn’t survive without—
Longs for more than another job to pay the bills
Longs to write, to teach, to help
Longs to be home with her kids—
Who always seem to be without her.
Drives home in the dark asking why why why why why why?
Unlocks the side door,
Finds the youngest asleep but the eldest still up writing,
Frustrated with the history paper’s topic and finding it
Too immense, too overwhelming.
The editor within her takes over,
Despite her exhaustion,
Despite needing a moment for herself…
This is why, her heart whispers
As she peeks in and sees the youngest sleeping peacefully.
This is why, her heart says
As she stays up late proofing, editing, assisting.
This is why, her heart exclaims
As the conversation ebbs and flows between the paper’s mechanics
And the philosophical, theological thoughts presented within.
This is why, her heart shouts
These children of hers, so bright and promising, they are her world.
This is why!

Her desires,
Her dreams—
To give them a chance, a prospect, a future better than what they presently know
Her dues paid now give them freedom to fly,
To soar—
To chase their dreams.

Copyright 2009 Michelle Post

The Life and Times of Mikki

8.28.2009

I started writing poetry…………

Month Metaphors

The Loch Ness Monster of Brown County State Park

Thank You For Your Service

Just Beautiful

Prometheus

8.27.2009

An Exhilarating Work of Astonishing Insight and Incontrovertible Genius