Here are a few more poems for Arjen, who may or may not see online things at the moment, being missing.
- Lockpicking—a poem about how communication can be hard. Maybe it’s easy for some people, but it can be hard for me, especially when I’m overwhelmed. Some people just work that way, and Arjen has always been super tolerant and understanding of that.
- Walking along the Amstel—a poem about how none of us really knows what to do next in this crazy world. But when we go looking for answers to that question in a serious way, we find others who are looking, too.
- Waiting for Wind and Trains—a poem about waiting and trusting your instincts.
Among other poems I haven’t blogged yet that he inspired, I’m digging in my manuscript… And often what I find that seems like his, is in edits to other poems that I’ve already blogged—and that it doesn’t make sense to repost a new version of when the book itself is almost ready.
Like in “Yearning for the Birth of Athena”—the new version’s bit about the gods watching cat videos online… That’s all Arjen, he would make that joke or observation about attention resource capture, while himself also watching cats. Cats are ok. But wait, I already blogged a rewrite with that bit, too. Guess I’ve been rewriting for a while.
Today I learned a relevant, untranslatable German word for this: Verschlimmbesserung—to keep editing until you’re making the thing worse instead of better. Hmmm. Probably best to write a new one quickly, then.
***
“Arjen???!!!!?!?!??!?!??!?!??!!?!?”
Where did you go?
What did they do?
Didn’t you know
we’d be worried about you?
You would have known, and cared, being you.
So something happened, so… So…
Tomorrow:
stew?
Show up at my door.
We’ll talk some more.
Or not, if talking won’t do.
I’ll still make (poems and paintings and papers and) stew.
I’m so worried about you.
