Back again.

I can't believe it's been as long as it has.  I started this blog to make myself write more, and in a way, it's working.  I'm just not writing here.  That may continue, but I'll try to be a bit more disciplined about putting stuff up here.  I've been working on a series of poems that's not really a series.  I've started carrying a notebook with me again, and when I'm sitting around waiting on something, I've been trying to write.  I say trying because it doesn't come like it used to come.  That was after the antidepressants.  That's been several years now, but the effects linger on.  I really understand Hemmingway now.  He had shock treatments for depression and lost a good bit of his ability to write as a result.  Because of that, he tried to walk into the propeller blades of an airplane.  He was prevented from doing that, but he eventually did succeed in killing himself.  Looking back through our literary history, too many poets have died by their own hand.  I'm in no danger of doing that, but I do understand the loss they went through.  For me, it's more of a sense of helplessness than hopelessness.  I know what I want to write, but the words aren't coming like they used to. I blame the meds when it might be a simple case of writer's block.  I don't know.  I have never really had a problem with writer's block before.  For me, it's always been a matter of having too many ideas than not having enough.  I can still crank it out, but it's a lot more work now than it used to be.  I do have some distractions working now.  School is a big one.  I'm trying to get credentialed (is that a word?) so I can do what comes naturally to me.  Go through the motions, get the box checked off, and get back to work, right?  Anyway, this one resulted from some musings on that.

To Study

To learn, to increase one's knowledge
for a specific end
Or not. Mostly out of curiosity
because I just didn't know

Half-prepared usually
for the task at hand
Half-asleep, semi-conscious
but only on schedule

Class time is nap time
odd how that happens
Search time is my time
when I just want to look it up

Nothing due -- no assignment
just what I want to know
Seems it's a lot easier to remember
than the stuff on the test

c. 2011 C. Thames