I don’t know if I have ever lived with a poem as much as I did with “City Night,” my piece that appears this week -- for the first time in a very long time -- in the Journal of Radical Wonder. Yes, I have taken my time on poems since then, and some have even gone years between first draft and completion. But that process is typically an on-and-off one, punctuated by returns to the writing desk and dozens of slashes and revisions. “City Night,” if I remember the early 2000s well enough, came out in a single draft, but it was a painstaking process in which every line or phrase peeled out when the time was right. If Jack Kerouac had gone at a similar speed to type On the Road, the scroll that he ran through his typewriter might have had permanent curvatures from having sat in place so long.
 
When I wrote “City Night,” I was 21 — an age when poets can be wildly inspired or embarrassingly foolish. I am not sure which category this poem falls in, but more on that in a moment. “City Night” started with an inspiration: One night, I was driving home in the rain from the Los Angeles Times, where I worked part-time during college, and found myself thinking of a young fellow staffer who had left a bit before I did. I hoped that she had made it home safely, then began imagining her journey in the past tense. (As it turned out, she did return alive to the Times the following day.) As journalists, we often live among police blotters and man-bites-dog stories, and the world seems full of horrors. So the opening lines heralded the miracle of my colleague’s return home: Somehow, another made it home tonight. / Somehow the connection wasn’t missed… That was all I had for a day or two, and then more lines came: …out in the dark street where engines hissed / and moaned, packed together close / in the frozen lamplight…
 
I added to the poem in the lecture halls at UCI, in my dorm room, probably at the Times and maybe even in my car. After a few lines, I thought of Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking,” which has uneven line lengths and no regular meter, but in which every line rhymes with another line somewhere in the poem — a merging of order and chaos. That fit the concept of a poem whose subject makes an orderly journey through a chaotic cityscape, so I had my format set. “City Night” ended up being 40 lines long (20 scattered rhyming couplets), and the title made its way into the sentences that end both stanzas. I was particularly proud of the final lines — Deliverance, in the city night, is just a door / with one strong chain — and when I dotted that last period on the poem (perhaps I was in line at the DMV or somewhere by then), I was convinced that it was the best poem I had ever written. Since I had only written about three legitimate poems by then, the competition was not intense.
 
But, as Frost wrote in another poem, nothing gold can stay. After I finished writing “City Night,” recited it proudly at a few UCI readings, and finally included it in Thief After Dark, my chapbook that came out from FarStarFire Press right before I graduated, I found my wonder diminishing. Part of me still felt that the poem was brilliant; part of me now wondered if it was pretentious and overwrought. …where doors draw back and payphones are forbidden / and men pray to women in bright-lit windows — by the time I finished graduate school, I was done writing lines like that. “City Night” didn’t appear in any of my subsequent books, not even the retrospective Tea and Subtitles in 2019. I stopped including it in my set lists at readings. Today, I certainly wouldn’t rank it as my best poem, or even in the top 20 or 30. And yet…
 
And yet I may not be the judge. Artists create art for others, and the audience ultimately decides whether something resonates or not. What the author considers profound, the reader may find dull or preachy; what the author fears is over-the-top may perfectly skirt the top for the reader. Just recently, I finished reading Moby-Dick in its entirety for the first time. I found it arch, self-indulgent and monotonous -- so perverse that I felt like Herman Melville was deliberately tormenting his readers. That novel has been hailed as a masterpiece by countless people for more than a century. By contrast, one of my favorite Bob Dylan recordings is "I'm Not There," whose lyrics consist of a series of fragmentary, slurred phrases, apparently since Dylan never finalized the words. The song makes no sense, but sets a haunting mood. There is no accounting for what will please an audience. Lawrence Ferlinghetti once described poets as "constantly risking absurdity." That is a risk that all artists take, and absurdity is not a terminal condition.

So absurdity has been risked, and "City Night" appears this week in the Journal of Radical Wonder. Perhaps it really is the tour de force that I imagined two decades ago, perhaps not. Enough time has passed that I don't care. The poem exists in finished form, and it now belongs to the world -- there for readers to ponder, forward, repost, or simply ignore. Like the woman who inspired it, it has reached its destination safely. My 21-year-old self would have been relieved.

In Careless Love, the second part of his brilliant two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Peter Guralnick writes that by the end of Elvis' life, his audience loved him not for what he was but for what he sought to be. That is a difficult grace to bestow on celebrities, whose public lives are about nothing so much as maintaining an image. It is even harder to bestow on those around us. If there is one statement that literally applies to every member of the human race, it is that each of us has a vision of ourselves that we try constantly to live up to. Some of us may be less flamboyant than others, but a performance of some kind is inevitably taking place -- even if we don’t expect applause, and even if the only audience (or critic) is ourselves.
 
Take a moment to sketch a self-portrait. It can be an imaginary one; you don’t need an actual pen or paper. Perhaps you’re starting with your job, paid or otherwise. You are a firefighter, and your picture shows a strapping, resilient person who bolts to action when the alarm sounds but finds a way to stay methodical under pressure. A politician: You are charismatic, caring, the one who takes action while others dither. An artist: You entertain, challenge, and impress with inspiration. A preschool teacher: Your voice soothes at the right moments and herds cats at others. Note that some of the people described above might be considered “selfless” more than others. Yes, the world is full of people who put on a show of modesty. However subconsciously, that is still putting on a show. Being us can be a demanding task, especially when we sense that others depend on us to do it.
 
“Young Father,” my poem featured this week in the Journal of Radical Wonder, is about a man who is having a tough day being himself. The poem is not about any real person, but no doubt you can identify with it on some level. Perhaps you’ve failed to summon the wit that you typically muster at dinner parties or to perfectly keep track of every work email you received this week. The failure is the same thing at bottom: You feel that you’ve disappointed yourself, and others, and maybe God as well. Possibly a media image gets worked in there somewhere as well. The main character of “Young Father” may at some point have immersed himself in Atticus Finch, or someone Tom Hanks played in a movie, or any other Hollywood conception of an ideal man of the house. He is not that man right now, and he is unsure of his relation to the house as well.

An argument has just flared between him and his young son. He has slammed the front door and stormed outside, where he takes a moment to size himself up. Is there more than one ideal? Yes, and that may be a consolation. He is not poised or cool, but with his work clothes and stubbly chin, he appears fearsome and rugged (the neighbors' daughter, who watches him from a wading pool, provides a ready judging panel). Still, he acknowledges his helplessness -- both to control his temper and also to keep the house intact. Something else is keeping the house, plus the other houses lining the block, whole and standing. Some construction team worked it out, used the right materials and proportioned the weights correctly. The best that the poem's hero can say for himself is that his door slam didn't undo their efforts.

It is the woman who protects the house. She stays calm, holds their son to ease his nerves, sends the subliminal message that rage is not permitted. Am I delving into gender stereotypes here? Was I doing so when I wrote this poem a decade ago? Perhaps. "Young Father" is about specific characters, and a reader can take it as universal or not. For that matter, it is about a specific moment. If this fiery man could stick with the reader longer, he would show different sides soon enough. The next time his son leaves a toy on the kitchen tiles, he might defuse the situation with humor or a gentle reminder. His wife might nod with approval, the house standing as resiliently as both of them wish. The audience is always there. Elvis knew that. After so many muckraking biographies, we still hail him for the times when he got it right.

My newest poem in the Journal of Radical Wonder is "Spectator at the Balloon Launch, 1783," another piece from my manuscript in progress. Flight and innovation are recurring themes throughout the collection, and this one is based on the first hot air balloon voyage, for which scientists sent a sheep, a duck, and a rooster into the air over Versailles, France. As brave as humans can be, we sometimes let another species test the air for us.

Here are two other recent noteworthy pieces in the Journal:

I have read many ekphrastic poems (those inspired by visual art) over the years, but Robbi Nester did a unique twist with "The Missing Sense," which imagines the contents of a missing painting by Rembrandt. In 1624-25, the artist created five paintings that each depict one of the senses, and the fifth one (taste) has since disappeared. There is not even a written description of what it shows, so Robbi paints a scene of her own. An elderly patient grimaces at soup, while a small child gnaws on bread: "I share his pleasure, / savoring the thought that an artifact of the imagination / could reach us through the senses, make us dream." Check your attic for Rembrandt's actual painting, but I will accept Robbi's vision in the meantime.

John Brantingham, the magazine's co-editor, posted a short but profound essay titled "Ambling," in which he opens up about a recently diagnosed heart condition and how it's forced him to adjust his lifestyle, whether by embracing vegan food or simply by slowing down and no longer pretending to be 20 years old. Long ago, Emily Dickinson wrote about how Death was kind to stop for her and relieve her of her responsibilities. In a similar vein, John writes here, "I think about what a blessing it is to have a heart defect and to listen to its message." Feel better, John. May you have many years of ambling ahead.

Today is Jan. 2, and 2024 has begun. This is the first official day. New Year's Day is a warmup -- a blank page, a pause for planning and reflection, a day off school for everyone and off work for many. Now, all the holidays are over, and we get back to business. We may also get around to new business, although that can be notoriously hard. At 6 a.m. on Jan. 1, I got an email from Medium.com proclaiming that over 80% of people abandon New Year's resolutions within the first months of the year and posting a series of links to articles about how to stay on the wagon. In any case, if we've made plans to do things differently in the new year, Jan. 2 is probably the time to begin. This is when we see what the year is really made of.

As I noted the other day, I am not inclined to be political on this blog, even as the year concludes. Biden, Trump, inflation, climate change, Ukraine and Gaza -- any number of pundits for major news outlets can comment on them more astutely than I can. Perhaps 2024 will be as chaotic and bewildering as some of them have predicted, perhaps not. There is still a firm line between the personal and political, however blurred that line may often seem in modern times. So I can say without hesitation that, whatever trepidatious headline may top CNN right now, I am looking forward to 2024. I always look forward to a new year. The Christmas decorations can go back into their boxes for 11 more months, and other festivities can wait. I am excited to be productive again. I have learned to do a job and maintain a home well enough that I don't mind keeping that momentum going. There may be new adventures and surprising revelations along the way as well. A new year is a question mark, and Socrates, of course, believed that true wisdom began with questions.

Of course, a return to business isn't all about mystery. It's also about knowing some definite truths. Today, the Journal of Radical Wonder posted the third poem in my unintended New Year's trilogy -- unintended because they were written years apart and not meant as a continuing story. "Day After New Year's," which first appeared in the collection Angels in Seven in 2016, is about the party officially ending, although I don't view it as a sad poem so much as an honest one. A man who lives in a gated complex feels responsible for his neighbors' safety and casts a stern look at a group of boys who loiter near a woman's garage. They hustle away, and then, a moment later, the man himself becomes the target of suspicion; he's stared too long at a pair of girls who are playing with Legos on their front lawn. The girls race to the door and talk to a shadow that probably belongs to a parent. The man speedwalks away and takes note of the holiday remnants around him: "wreaths left out / for recycling, extensions, unplugged Santas." Personal boundaries solidify again. The new year has arrived, and it feels distinctly like the old one.

Unless any of the world events mentioned above severely disrupts our way of life -- and history has definitely shown that that can happen -- 2024 will probably feel mostly like 2023. We will take the usual precautions and draw the usual lines between generosity and safety. We will flourish optimism over the usual things and temper it when necessary. For that matter, some of us (roughly 20%, according to Medium) may genuinely stick with our resolutions and treat the year as the outrageous gift that it is. We always have the power to be extraordinary. Sometimes, being ordinary is achievement enough. That's how we'll make it to 2025.

Yesterday, the Journal of Radical Wonder posted "Desert Highway, New Year's Eve," one of the bleaker poems in my catalog. I have never ended a year on as despairing a note as the poem's lead character does, but I know that others have. Still, every dark night is followed by a new beginning. That is the cycle that we go through every day, and the new year makes it more decided.

So today's poem -- part of an unintentional trinity, written at different times but set on consecutive days -- takes place on New Year's Day itself. It describes a day years ago (2016, I think; that's when the poem was first published) when my wife and I drove to Laguna Beach to enjoy the sea breeze and the spectacle of unaffordable homes. The poem is not about New Year's resolutions, or really even the lack of them, but simply about gratitude for the nice things in life and acceptance of the things that we can't change. That is the feeling that I have now as I write these words, and the feeling that I have had more or less on every New Year's Day in the past. The start of January is a pause and an intake of breath. Given the prognostications over the last week ("What strange things does 2024 have in store?" a Washington Post headline rhetorically asked), perhaps a deep breath is what we all need.

"To Rachanee, Laguna Beach, Jan. 1" is a love poem. I have always struggled at writing those, perhaps because I get too practical-minded when writing about romance. My inner Pablo Neruda gets cantankerous. Perhaps this poem made it to completion because it's about practical-minded love. I have seldom felt more sincere as a poet than when I wrote:

     We are one day — always a day, not a year — 
     closer to broken, our bodies counting
     toward an end whose only secret is time and place.
     If we are lucky, someday, we will plan our letting go,
     but this year is marked for holding what we can.

I love you, Rachanee. Let's hold as much as we can.

Note: ​When I blogged about "Elegy for a Rhythm Guitarist" last May, I mentioned that the poem first appeared in the Sonora High School literary magazine in 1998. The advisor of that magazine was Marilyn Middleton, who also served as our 12th-grade English teacher, student body advisor, philosophy teacher, prom organizer, and probably several other capacities that I'm forgetting. Ms. Middleton (as she will always be to me) was a genuine force at Sonora High, and on Dec. 29, we received the news that she had passed away at the age of 84.

Tributes are piling up for her online, as befits any teacher who dedicated decades of her life to helping and inspiring young people. I will remember her for her toughness, her warmth, her brilliance as a teacher (among the works she guided us through were Oedipus Rex, Othello, Death of a Salesman, Heart of Darkness, and Chronicle of a Death Foretold) and her support of a young poet who was probably more nervous than she realized. Twenty-six years ago, I was a senior in high school and anticipating what we would learn in her class over the six months to come. That was a good way to start a year.