i sit / & write — A.S. Coomer

Live from Freeman Lake Park.

This poem—i sit / & write—is anthologized in International Beat Poet Laureate Fin Hall’s beat poetry collection AIN’T NO DEAD BEATS AROUND HERE. You should get yourself a copy.

——————-

i sit / & write

i sit
& write
pound out
my heart’s song
to the rhythm
of drug church
of black coffee
of hope, man,
goddamn
motherfucking
hope

i sit
& write
curse the cursor
for it’s tick against my clock
wear out another
cheap bluetooth keyboard
the space bar & return
return to particulates of plastic
the dust of our age

i sit
& write
try to match
the harmonies
of the scarlet tanager
with the free flowing river
of thelonious monk
of the ethos of baudelaire
& anne sexton & sylvia plath
& d.a. levy & gregory corso
of the spit & cum of punk
of the croaking beauty of mark linkous
of the light in the crack that was leonard cohen
of the fluid poetics & stacked samples of hip hop
of the nod & stomp of underground americana
both homage & reinvention
& i chase the golden thread
being a writer is a constant becoming
not a trophy on the shelf
it’s in the running of the race
so there’s grace at the finish
it’s not a degree on the wall
or all the academic grant
money they give tenured professors
it’s the attempted translation of beauty
into a language that gets it hand-grenade close
that constantly seeks improvement
& through horseshoe luck can find growth

i sit
& write
because we’re all frogs
in a child’s cupped hands
& i can’t paint
or catch anything
but a sinus infection
much less enough to eat

i sit
& write
because books
are there for me
when nobody speaks
a language i can understand
when the discord rings too loud
& i can’t breathe or count
but the words & space of books
can help me retune my vibration
& i know there are resonations
in all this noise i commit to page
that might help one person
weather a night of blue period blue blues
a blue so dark only
the survivors can make it out
from the black

i sit
& i write
& may death
find me working

—A.S. Coomer © 2024

#ASCoomer #Poetry #LiveReading #BeatPoetry #KentuckyLit #KentuckyPoet #AintNoDeadBeatsAroundHere #Anthology