The value of poetry, and after it drugged me, this is what it did to me.

The last time I wrote any collaborative poetry was with my dear old friend Michael Esenwien Jr. (or, Eisenhower, as I called him) during our senior year of high school. We titled it 'Kindred Spirit' on Mr. Carcheddi's recommendation, and simply passed back and forth a journal throughout our senior year. Of course, there were many moments when one of us held onto it for far too long, but here's a snippet:

"Where would I be now without you at my side?
I try to hide from lost days that I spent
feeling lonely, unachieving, and a waste.
My mistempered swagger was far from grace.
How have I changed since then?
How do I deserve the things I have?
Everything's great, it's all zen, couldn't be better,
Fuck it then.
It will all deteriorate and writhe away,
leaving me with nothing.
Would you still stay?"

Yes, those are actually the best lines of mine that I could find. Then, some other angsty babble from me (in my depression of dating crazy girls before my long-term relationship at the end of 2002) before Esenwien retorted with:

"Fuck it then?
There can't be a possibility of you feeling this way
We are perfect
At least that's what I say
You are feeling, waiting, expecting the worse
You always say 'let our path take its course'
No tears will be shed any time soon
As long as I still see
Your beauty reflected in the moon"

And, you know, some other lovey-dovey poetry as he was just hitting his affectual stride with his now-wife.

Hopefully, we've all grown up by now, and Ashley 'Turnip' Darner and I collaborated on this poem recently. She wrote the first stanza before I provided the rest. It was a quick jaunt for the both of us, and I adopted a bit more of her psychobabble stylings. I've been working on becoming more accessible, and she's not helping. Ha. For the least amount of effort I've put into a poem this year (and maybe last year, too), it came out a few degrees better than thought. We wrote most of it a couple days ago, and I just edited and added today. The 'valium' part of the title was a text message she sent me quite awhile ago. The rest of the title is my insanity.

“Valium: The Value of ‘Um’, or,
Precipice: The Principles of Edifice, and,
(How I fell off the face of the universe before I could make such a big decision on such short notice)”
 An Ashley Darner & Michael Tkach Production
 July 23, 2008

What will you do with the truth when you're dead?
I sleep with it in bed, I offer it no counsel
but I whisper to it, little secrets, beneath the breath
confidences that have disowned my head, their nest
gypsy notions flee from the old world
they brave the vast fey, and the white immensity
of the sheet cleaner than my conscience, but somehow
less compromised. The truth whispers to me in bed
it asks me what will become of her when I’m dead

but instead of offering whimpering nothings
I give it something to chew on when the beef
jerky I left in the fridge turns frigid.
Nobody loves warm, soggy truth served on stale
bread with morning prayers of pale sermons
led by truth-seeking soul-freezing nobodies
with lives behind them and cold bodies below
them in the dewy next morning

we're holding them. Nobody likes the mind lice
leftover from giving your warm ideas
the cold shoulder. I wanted to explode the home
truth lives in and fuck its fiery remains
in the apocalyptic kitchen. I opted to wash
the dirty dishes and over some awkward
just-had-sex conversation,
I let the truth go.

It wandered through valleys and kissed other
half-truths and made them full again.
It slept with women that lie in bed
with their mouths open, thoughts drifting
into sifting desert sands and faraway foreign
lands of talking vocal pieces that stand
for you and I, serving their truth with a spin
that'd give Teddy Roosevelt a feral grin
in his grave again.

I let the truth go,
it came back around
and I buried it out back.

I hope the dogs don't find it.