Looking up from the page
I just barely catch
as the train pulls out
of Jamaica the words
Happy Anniversary Dianne
high on a concrete wall
in a hand unsteady from
haste or joy it’s hard to say.
Were you so completely clueless
hooting at a girl like men
on 35th St. or like a Mayan
priest out there on the
verge of electrocution
mixing moonlight and solstice
to show an angry god
you’d kill out of love?
I know.
With no other hope
or way of getting through
before disappearing you just
put some words downI just barely catch
as the train pulls out
of Jamaica the words
Happy Anniversary Dianne
high on a concrete wall
in a hand unsteady from
haste or joy it’s hard to say.
Were you so completely clueless
hooting at a girl like men
on 35th St. or like a Mayan
priest out there on the
verge of electrocution
mixing moonlight and solstice
to show an angry god
you’d kill out of love?
I know.
With no other hope
or way of getting through
before disappearing you just
any way you could.
– Jim D.
WRITER'S STATEMENT: I like poems that talk about poetry and this is one I wrote about why I write poems. It acknowledges that writing is a risky, even dangerous endeavor (it takes up your time; it might fail; you might embarrass yourself; you're expressing something you might be afraid to show others...) "Graffiti Artist" came from a moment when I was on the LIRR and I saw a spray painted message in a really difficult place to get to that wished some anonymous "Dianne" a happy anniversary. It made me think about the tremendous desire that person had to express himself and the risks he took to do it (unlike the writer of the graffiti in the photo above). The phrase "I know" in the poem is so important to me that I gave it its own line. It's the moment that the speaker, passing by on his journey, identifies with another writer and shares in the understanding of what drives one to write.
– Jim D.
WRITER'S STATEMENT: I like poems that talk about poetry and this is one I wrote about why I write poems. It acknowledges that writing is a risky, even dangerous endeavor (it takes up your time; it might fail; you might embarrass yourself; you're expressing something you might be afraid to show others...) "Graffiti Artist" came from a moment when I was on the LIRR and I saw a spray painted message in a really difficult place to get to that wished some anonymous "Dianne" a happy anniversary. It made me think about the tremendous desire that person had to express himself and the risks he took to do it (unlike the writer of the graffiti in the photo above). The phrase "I know" in the poem is so important to me that I gave it its own line. It's the moment that the speaker, passing by on his journey, identifies with another writer and shares in the understanding of what drives one to write.
"Dianne" must be very happy!
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