Poet Or Madwoman?

The experience of being a parent may be something like people challenged with being bipolar live with daily.

One moment you are immersed in the effervescent iridescent ebullience of observing an ant carry something 8 times its weight.

The next moment - you scream on a planet whilst wind, sleet and fire snaps your body back during the whooshing approach of a black hole.

That first moment is today’s feeling. On her myspace profile, my daughter who is “no longer a poet” writes

of herself:

I am a social chameleon.
I can dance with a cup on my head.
I think poetry is literary masturbation.

I am convinced
I was meant to be
a tragic Victorian heroine.
I am bipolar.

I want to work in arts management, but
for some reason I am a psych major.

I had a stroke when I was eighteen years old and
now have blood clots in my lungs.
I want to marry

the kind of person that I can communicate with
entirely in song lyrics and obscure movie quotes.
Sometimes,

I listen to songs that I really like several times in a row
just because I can't bear the fact that they eventually
have to come to an end.


Who does she think she’s kidding? Not a poet? Ha! Poetry is just obsessive observance of the power of life's language and an awkward submission to discipline. In her case, it’s just the submission to discipline which could use improvement.

Comments

Anonymous said…
That is glorious.
Thanks Jax! I was glorious for me, as well.

I think I married someone with whom
I can communicate with
entirely in song lyrics and obscure movie quotes.
Sometimes,


And it is these three lines which sing me high and higher.
Anonymous said…
Perfect description Jax, glorious indeed.
Anonymous said…
OK; wow.

I want to marry the kind of person that I can communicate with entirely in song lyrics and obscure movie quotes.

That pretty much nailed the sort of connection I suppose we're all hoping for, with the "one" and all that, to find the person who understands your insanity, and who you don't have to explain your obscure references to. Had I the clarity of thought to vocalise what I was looking for, I doubt it would have differed much. Literary discipline be damned.