Insomniac

[poliphilo]

I lay awake last night trying to remember the texts of poems I wrote 15 years ago and of which no known copies survive. 

Not an activity I'd recommend.

Not at all restful. Not at all a good way of getting to sleep.

Certain lines remain. You'd think I'd be able to reconstruct the surrounding text from these markers but I can't. Even where I know the general sense the actual words elude me. In some particularly frustrating instances I know the grammar and rythmn of a line but one or two key words have fallen out. Come on, I wrote the originals; surely my mind stll runs in the same grooves, this ought to be child's play. But it doesn't and it isn't.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Distance lends objectivity.

I look at my "collected" verse- 30-40 years worth- and it's all of it far enough away for me to judge it as if it was someone else's. I reckon there were three- quite short- periods when I was writing on top of my game and everything in between is filler.