Something at all, the air between days, words in a wagon, and Deja Vu - the Tuesday poem roundup

What I wrote Sat, 4/19 to Tues, 4/22

Happy Tuesday, everyone. A weekend of nice weather here on the NH Seacoast, a nice Passover dinner w/my mom, and a nice egg hunt w/auntie and cousin. A little Jewish, a little other-ish—that’s how we do.

And a weekend of poems for y’all. If it’s going well for you, pick up a copy of the original book. Click the button!

Let’s hit it.

4/19/25
I try to write something great.
Even though,
You know as well as I 
That it’s quite 
An accomplishment 
   to write something at all.
Maybe 
Sitting outside,
   as I am,
Will prompt, poke, provoke 
   something a little greater.
Sure, maybe.
But,
You know as well as I 
That it’s enough 
   to write something at all.

Writing daily is the ultimate lesson in humility. You’re only as good as what you did yesterday. And, today, that blank page is just as blank as it was yesterday. Whether you wrote something brilliant that is bound to change the world, or a lousy collection of second-hand words destined for the recycling bin, you start from zero the next day. So putting anything at all down on that page is, for me, always worth celebrating.

4/20/25
When the day gets away from you 
You just have to do
The best you can 
   to get it back.
Throw a lasso 
‘Round its neck
And see if you can stay on 
   for eight seconds.
My luv,
Once I tame this day
And return it safely 
   to its stable,
Will you sit with me 
In the in-between 
Before the next day arrives 
And breathe in deeply 
   the air between days?

No matter how much we wind down at the end of the day, it always feels like life keeps its tentacles entwined around us, at least in our household. Plans to make, emails to write, dishes to scrub. Even on the rare occasion when we sit together for a movie, there’s usually something else on another screen or in our brains. (Or, we konk out after 15 minutes.) So I like the idea that the day can be corralled away in its entirety, leaving some in-between space where we can just sit and be.

4/21/25
When you write these
Every day 
You’re bound
   to repeat yourself.
You’re bound 
   to hit those same themes,
   those same flourishes,
   those same vibes.
Like dragging your wagon over
Those same ruts in the road,
Worn down 
   by yesterday’s wagon
   and the day before’s wagon.
So many wagons of words
With squeaky wheels,
Bent from years of daily trips
To the word depot 
Where they are pounded 
   and melted over fire,
   molded into themes
   and flourishes and vibes.

I like the image of words as tactile things that can be schlepped around in wheelbarrows or carried up stairs in overstuffed backpacks or things like that. I like the image that you could actually wear a rut in the earth if you dragged words across it enough times. And, like Friday’s poem (4/19), this feeds my continual fascination with the blank page and how we fill it.

4/22/25
Don’t worry, baby.
(Don’t worry, baby.)
Three words,
Endless layers
   of harmony 
Envelopes me
   while standing over dishes,
Leaves in its wake
   a blubbering, soapy mess.
You,
Watching that crazy, cool movie 
That ends with those words 
Maybe have no idea
   that as the credits roll 
   and Denzel drives off
   into the New Orleans
   sunrise 
I’ve gone all to pieces 
For reasons I can’t quite explain.

Late last night the wife had flipped to Deja Vu, this preposterous but pretty nifty little movie, one of many Denzel made with the late, great Tony Scott (set in New Orleans, which is always a plus). It’s an insane premise—something to do with a technology that can see four days into the past that Denzel’s ATF agent decides to try and use to foil a bombing of a ferry boat. Or something? Anyway, there’s a love story (or sort of the beginnings of a love story) that is part of it and, well, everything works out (sort of—I mean Denzel stops the bombing and saves the woman but dies in the process but that’s the future him that dies and so the four-days-ago version of him is still alive and waltzes in at the end…) and the Beach Boys’ “Don’t Worry, Baby” plays at the end of it all and…

I don’t really know why but when those chords played it just kind of destroyed me, late last night, doing dishes in the next room.

See you Friday, friends. :)