that's the sun and you are holding my hand

i used to have no speech. i gummed my mother's nipple and the milk grew my brain and my lima-bean kidneys. i did not know what the letter A was. I had no understanding of torture or grief or bicycles. i needed first to be held. i needed to feel i also belong. i rocked against my father's body--but it was not my mother's--he sang different songs in different tones. but they sang similar lyrics. grow strong, i love you, don't be like them or you'll be a shitface. guess what my small baby body did? it rocked back. it heard or felt or smelt the song. i go to whitman now and he says yes you are always an old young witness:

"These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and all lands...
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing..."
--17

as in youth as in poetry: if we're told too much "i love you" (like Billy Collins) we're not quite sure how to help ourselves uniquely. how to be bold and stand for own identity. the value of being included in life and poetry is that you're only told "i love you" after its been earned, worked for. as writers, as parents to our readers, how do we earn trust and requiting?

d. young confuses the reader. his exclamatory and seemingly random pathology disarms the reader to the dangerous point of mere entertainment. he's on the right track. he's got the powerful stride, but he has to pass the baton--and his teammates, us, have a hard time believing he wants teammates.

we have to infuse our art with the imagination of children. then translate it seamlessly into a broader, accessible world (without the sacrifice of ingenuity, freshness). remind me what the letter A is. Tell me how the church bell is a mushroom, the mushroom is a man with a ten-gallon hat, the man is a wall-street banker with an umbrella. the child's interpretation is important. there's a blurry yellow circle and a black snake on the five-year old's construction paper. the child says that's the sun and you are holding my hand. construction paper.

Instant Messaging

I want my mother back

I want her to know that

I tap my heels

I am wishing to come home but

I am not Dorothy

I am not a band not Toto

I am in high regard with courage

I am paying my regards to tin

I am not my machine

I am not a brain but that is all

I am thinking not well

I am immaterial me and my moat

I am impassable and unhinged

I am sick abasic other-absorbed

I not walking away too perfectly

I want my mother back

I want my mother’s immutability

I want you to grow strong

I want you to talk to me

I want you to talk to me even after

I am gone and she was

I am my mother leaving

I am her leaving

I am imbalanced

I ambulance

I amphora of nothing held

I umbilical tied to nothing

I amplify