Pianos and Poetry

I enjoy typing, especially since I've begun using all of my fingers. For years, through college essays on symbolism and empiricism that were put off until that last painful night, I typed with two fingers, both pointers. Some keyboards are more melodic than others. I prefer the clinky, loud ones. I feel like Mozart or Rachmaninov when I type. Funny because I loathed piano lessons as a child. Today I'd pay large sums that I don't have to own a piano. Funny how time changes you.

I would like to write a poem. I've been thinking about it for days. I decided not to write it during the month of bad poetry writing because I'd like for it to be a good poem. In my mind, it's already beautiful, poignant, nostalgic, whimsical. There are images of emmer fields, papyrus-laced river banks, moss-clad tumbling walls. It's a story in my head that I'd like to get on paper. It's been in my head for several years. But I can't seem to force it out. No matter what anyone else tells you, childbirth is relatively simple compared to the birth of a brain child. There's simply no backing down when you deliver a human child. Yes, it's much more painful than rhyming or scanning, but there is no trepidation.

I faked non-contractions when I was delivering Fain. Despite the spiking lines on the machine hooked to me, I swore to the doctor that I wasn't having contractions. I didn't want to push. It hurt. But there's really no stopping a cramped up child with a will of his own who is anxious to see the world. Poetry or novels, on the other hand, are far more content to live within the spacious alcoves and ballrooms of the mind. There's just no pushing them out. Although, I suppose Whitman or Millay might argue another side.