In which he tries to write a poem but fails miserably

H tried to write a poem about the trees and his experience. He self-consciously wanted to use italics. He knew that poets often used line breaks and that line breaks should be an essential part of the poem. Even if it didn’t make sense on a grammatical or sense level, the point was that a line break communicated absence, existential dread, a hint of a connection like the sub-conscious. Poetry was abstract, except when it wasn’t, like when someone was writing about their first sexual experience. Then it was still abstract but could also be direct. Also, it seemed useful to write about one’s grandmother or relationship to food or the body, sacks of flesh. 

Mornings washed-

In light

Of the same sort

That must have washed

The first of our kind

Bare

Hunched

Retreating from the green tints of the morning--

Clutching a stone and

Scrabbling into the depths of a cave

Scratching into limestone

Thin lines that become a man—

With the body of a deer

Trying, even then, to bring order to chaos.

He really didn’t understand poetry. He suspected that you had to have a sort of mind for it, like cricket. He was fairly certain that if he’d ever had the chance to play cricket he’d have been a legend. Life was like that though, throwing up road blocks that prevent you from becoming the Buddha. Overhead, a helicopter tore through the fabric of the sky, probably carrying someone to a hospital. He tore up the piece of small paper that he’d written the poem on and gave it to the wind. He’d thought about giving it to Lauren, but now it was gone forever, just scraps of paper with markings that meant nothing at all.