Mission Statement

3 March 2014

Mission Statement

 

I could write much about the mountains

Of snow capped peaks where roots fear to tread

and clouds leap out your lungs to float to the heavens

But my home is closer to the sea

 

I could write much about the sea as sailors do

Sailing across a boiling pot in wooden cups with not a drop to drink

Or of the skyscrapers of flesh below that sing their slow song

But I never learned how to swim

 

I could write about the valleys

Where fruits and flowers sway

While the rivers etch soft alleys

But I’d probably mess up the rhyme

 

I could write of love

Of shy kisses and first blushes

Or curled toes or backseat fumblings

But there’s a lot of that on the internet already

 

I could write of fear

and grief and war and blood

and the sweet salt of tears

Forgotten mine fields and rats gnawing on lips

fingers for teeth

napalm and mustard gas

a child devoured by the sow

the smiler with the knife

But those words are ceaseless and I like my sleep

 

I could write to sell pipe dreams to the unwashed masses

Where each pipe is filled with snake oil

A suit and tie and slicked back hair

But I

 

I could write about Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

left Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

so now My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

But I’m just a little bit caught in the middle

 

I could write of the man on the corner

cupping for coins from sippers of art

isanal lattes

But the words belong to those who can do more for him than write

 

I could write in haiku

or lowku or couplets or doublets

or spooners or greens

But I won’t

 

A commercial

for Studio Notebooks by Dell

once said that

“We are the music makers

And we are the dreamers of dreams”

And if you dream in classic rock

and I dream in Top 40s

then we’re just different stations of the same radio

The trombones and saxophones of the same philharmonic

 

But what presses my keys

and makes my fingers go all allegro

was a quote

about how poems

are like children

Sometimes saying things you didn’t intend

 

I want to push them out of the nest

To get their own jobs

building bridges

between Kierkegaard and Kardashian

and Mr Freeze and Robert Frost

the poet Poe and the rest of his Teletubbies

To make people do a double take

And to say things

far

greater than I ever could