Long before I wrote fiction, I scribbled poetry back when Anwar Sadat was alive and my college profs thought my poem about "Sweet Soldiers of Nicaragua" was the cat's pajamas. Then I realized I could string my images together and make a story. I wrote poetry off and on over the following years, not as much of late. I would write a story or event regarding Katrina than I would try and write a poem the way people do after a great loss of life (and a failing of government). I've been retyping some of my older poetry from various notebooks, trying to get them all in one place at one time, including the biggest thing I ever wrote, the title you see above, the illustration by Joe Vajarsky. As I've been typing this in segments (the damn word counts exceeds several of my stories), I've retyped much shorter poems. I've attached one here, I had it stuffed in a folder and have never sent it anywhere. From my handwritten notes on the back of the sheet, I wrote it on September 3rd 2001. Very soon, I'll be back visiting Dante, avoiding Desmond like the plague...Wayne
4 comments:
I like that, Wayne. And you're still the cat's pajamas. :)
You've written some great poetry, Wayne. This one is pretty good as well.
One of the first things I noticed about your fiction was its kinship to poetry. Then Mark Rainey told me that you'd published quite a number of poems. (I'm trying to recall the title of the second Sallee story I ever read...but while I can remember the story vividly, all I can recall about the title was that it had an illustration by that amazing dude, Standish, who seems to have vanished from my sphere.)
Good poem. I wrote poetry early on as well and had it published in various "little" magazines from back in the day.
I remember a poem from someone else in one of those magazines. He wrote of a friend, just out of school I'm sure, who worked at Burger King or somewhere like it and watched HBO at night.
Sometimes I wonder how he's doing.
I've come a long way since the '80s, but sometimes, HBO at night is still the bromide that soothes the day's wounds and aches.
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