Unpublished (Undone) #1

There are many things I’d like to keep private. Most things, in fact.

I’ve always had a diary. Here’s one from 1993.

I still have the key. I was nine.

And I also have many poems I’ve cut over the years. Sometimes at the last minute before a book goes to print. Sometimes right after writing them.

The idea of sharing what I’ve cut seems unnecessary. And mostly I won’t do it.

I don’t think there’s anything to be learned from bad writing. Nor do I think it gives any insight about a writer. We’re voyeurs. We want to know just to know. Let’s admit that.

But from time to time, I may share scraps I find interesting. Or maybe just this once. Bad writing isn’t interesting to me (and I write a lot of bad poems no one will ever see). Things I’ve tossed and forgotten and didn’t know what to do with—sometimes there’s an aliveness to them.

Here’s a diary entry from Saturday, November 24, 2012 where I think about what to title my second book, Together and by Ourselves.

And below that, a 7 line poem I wrote on an envelope (never titled), on January 3, 2015, and which I included in the first drafts of that book, then cut.

You can see I went back and forth on whether to omit or keep “which” in the last line. I also wonder if the envelope size influenced the line breaks. Quite literally.

Who knows. Who cares. It’s all in the past anyway.

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Saturday, November 24, 2012

2:02 a.m.

Arthur Russell lived at 437 East 12 Street. So did Ginsberg.

8:20 p.m.

Second book titles:

Days and Nights

Nights With People, Days Without

In the Black Hours

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Untitled

No reason to speak of the weather 
when we won’t know 
what death is. No way 
to pretend it’s not raining
or admit there are things
(many things) 
which we won’t do for love.