A Would-Be Poem

I’ve been using the same blog description from the very start: “Another would-be poet lost amid a sea of numbers.” When I first came up with it, I was still a junior accounting major who would have preferred to have majored in English instead. But being the son of Asian parents, I felt compelled to make more pragmatic choice. My strength is language and analytical reasoning, not numbers. I can summarize appropriately, turn a phrase every now and then, and I can offer passable analysis of a written work if you give me time. But when you throw a bunch of numbers at me and tell me to sort them out, I feel like a dyslexic kid being forced to read aloud in his ESL class. Accounting is fairly number-intensive, which is where the whole “lost in numbers” bit came about.

Actually, that’s only half the explanation. Being the self-proclaimed literary type, I tried to infuse that dumb little blurb with two meanings. On one hand, it was about accounting. On the other hand, it was my attempt to say, “Look at me! I’m a poet. But since there’s so many wannabe poets in the world, I’ll acknowledge that fact before you can greet me with a yawn, thereby setting myself apart from the rest of them.” The funny thing is, neither of those sentiments is relevant any longer. Now that I’m done with that undergrad crap, I’ve basically been given free reign to pursue whatever I want to do. And about the poet aspirations, I’ll be honest—I hardly ever write any poetry these days. When I do actually write a poem, I work on it for a few painful weeks, look at the final product, and then I think to myself, “I sure hope the spirit of Allen Ginsberg isn’t reading over my shoulder at this particular moment.”

So, having said all that, I’m not sure if I want to do what I came here to do, which is to post a newly written poem of mine. I suppose I wanted to write you a few paragraphs’ worth of an apology before you actually got to reading it. Yes, I’m poisoning the well, subconsciously hoping to soften whatever blows of criticism that might be thrown my way. But you know what? If it sucks, then tell me so. Suggest how it could be fixed, if you think it needs fixing. And if you think the entire poem is a trite waste of breath, then uh, just do me a favor and politely go fuck yourself. No, I’m kidding. I know I’m treading way-too-familiar ground with this poem, which is what makes me so apprehensive about it. Okay, this train wreck of a confessional, self-conscious monologue must end now. Here it is, this “poet’s” latest work.

On the Verge of Living

I’ve often wondered if dead men dream
And if they do, for what unattainable thing
Do they hope for and long to find?
Sometimes, they tell me, you just shouldn’t dream
for it’s a useless sport, a silly game for the frivolous sort
in pursuit of far more life than one could ever hope to afford

But the dead, to them my thoughts keep turning
Lifeless men
buried far away from where their bodies lay
forever in constant motion
lie to themselves and dream of vital things
worldly sighs, oh sweet desirous life
how hunger sees to it that all will keep turning
the dead, to regularities keep returning
and how hunger compels them all to keep stirring
the dead, to regularities they’ll keep returning
so still they insist, never to dream
since there’s nothing more to life
than immediate need
No time for idle sports, no time for change
hoping for nothing more but advancing in place

And now here I stand, on the verge of living
guessing at all the things that dead men dream
I look towards life with no great sense of certainty
and I smile, unabashed and unafraid
in spite of the unforgiving immensity
and in spite of their good intentions
I turn a deaf ear to what dead men say
resolved to live so long as I’m living
and I will live as I continue to dream