Proof I Am Not a Poet

I recently came across a slip of paper embedded in an old book of mine which contained a poem I'd written.

Kindly note, this is strictly Juvenilia, and as such, isn't very good. In point of fact, much as I love poetry (and even wrote my fair share), virtually none of it was ever worth the paper it was written on.

I suppose it ought to sadden me to admit that this is likely the best poem I've ever written, given it's little more than doggerel. Still, if I cannot serve as a positive example, perhaps I can still fulfill my role as a cautionary tale of how *NOT* to write. The following is an example. And no, I'm not proud of it; nonetheless, I decided to post it here. Feel free to make fun of it: my skin is exceptionally thick at this point in my life :D

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Oh what shall I do with the thousand desires
          That scream for release from my flesh?

Oh what shall I do with their motivate fires
          Which seek with their endings to mesh?

For the love of their songs, Resolutions I spurn,
          For conflict is the Song of my Spirit;

As within my poor breast, my heart overturns,
          And I write of it so you may hear it.

                                                                    ~JM (circa 1992-3)
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-=SPOILER ALERT=-

In the spirit of full-disclosure, I tend to overwrite...horrendously so. Writing a volume is easy; pruning it down into something worth putting before others is that which I find more time-consuming (if no less enjoyable, in its own way).

Being too lazy to Google the exact quote, I'll simply cite off the top of my head what Pascal (if memory serves...) once said in correspondence to someone else:

"I would have written less, but I lacked the time."

Such it is with me. And such it is with what I'm putting up here. None of it is edited, proof-read, or the like, and any typos/inaccuracies (which I'm sure the quote above falls squarely into the category of) and the like are entirely due to my lack of revision, as I wished this to be a more stream-of-consciousness sort of thing.

My assumption, of course, is that characteristic alone will be adequate to render everything written here unreadable and likely too boring for the general public, as it will all invariably fall into the "Too Long; Didn't Read" category :)


~J