Just Wait, Please

Writing a poem requires lots of thought and some considerable effort. But when you get one right, which happens only occasionally, it is very satisfying. I've had that happen.

I've also had the experience of finishing a poem, then finishing it again some time later, then fussing with it again after years have passed and wondering if it will ever be to my liking.

Sometimes I just want to write a poem. That doesn't mean I'll be able to; it just means I want to, and so I might try at such a time. But usually a poem is the result of something that has come into my mind and sticks there, something I find striking or intriguing, and I work it around and put words to it and see if I can write it the way it seems to be in my brain.

That is the considerable effort part.

The inspiration can be something I see or hear or remember. Or all of those working together.

I don't remember who said that a poem doesn't have to mean (as in mean anything), it only has to be. Whoever said it was a real, published, money-making poet, as I recall.

Which thing I am not.

But I have never quite agreed with the statement. Oh I have written poems that just play with language. But, usually, for me, a poem ought to have meaning. So my poems have meaning, and some even have significance. At least for me.

Now, something else.

If I base a poem on something from my memory, that does not mean I am trying to replicate an event or incident. I may simply use a moment and work it around to get a certain feeling across to readers. Or a picture, or at least a sense of something.

So there.

I do not intend here to address matters like the rhythm of the language or the look of the poem or line length or the ends of lines or the beginnings of lines or rhyme, etc., etc. So I will not address those matters.

All of this is preliminary to my saying there is another Bob. And I wrote a poem based, in part, on an actual incident involving him and me. The incident occurred when I was 11 years old--and so was he--but I wrote the poem in my 40s.

I like the poem. But it is one that I have tinkered with over time. Partially because people who knew a lot told me I couldn't write it the way I did--in second person--so I changed it several times, finally coming back to the way I wrote it in the first place.

One thing I think the poem does is show something innocent, childlike. Another is that it seems to make the whole thing a lot more serious than it really was. I can live with that.

Which are probably things I should not say about it. I mean, the poem can speak for itself.

Which it will do when I write about Bobby.