Some poems

I am beginning to remember why I stopped writing poems. It's detrimental to sleep habits.

Anyhow, I started off looking for the poem I wrote about spiral notebooks, which I thought people might enjoy, and which I didn't mind posting online. Since then I've been editing. I've decided that I really don't mind posting a poem now and then. Copyright laws in the US protect original work the moment it is expressed in a tangible form, so I am protected, and it's not like I plan to publish some day.

Here is the notebook poem. It's not particularly good or interesting, but it's kind of amusing.

A Lefty's View of Spiral Notebooks
I'm tired of these barbed-wire fences,
These shiny, spiraling barriers.
I write and grumble
Line after line after line
Until the region between my knuckle and ulna,
A man-made mountain range,
Is clearly marked in purple every quarter-inch.

But I love their perforated edges.

Then for reasons I don't want to mention out of respect for friends, etc., I was working on this poem I wrote a while ago but never really liked. This is the current working version:

The Aging Circus
Crepe-paper face,
Why do you stare so blankly?
You can see the nurses, the IVs,
Maybe even smell death here.
Do you know where you are?

Do you hate the rows of books you once loved?
Treasure their memory?
Both.
Neither.
What's the difference?

My favorite book reminds me of you.
Read and examined so many times,
The pages are tissues,
Bound by dust.

I'll miss you.

I like this version more than the original, but it's still missing something. Maybe personal experience. Anyhow, it gave me a line, which became a new poem. I hope it's not too cliched/boring.

The Aging Circus (2)
The visitors just keep coming
To this aging circus.
It's interactive.
Talk is reserved for trapeze artists.
Leave quietly during medical intermission.
You'll be the clown some day.

So that's it for now. Over and out.