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Lost In Thought

  A Poetry Collection

  by

  Eric Nixon

  Cover image and design by Eric Nixon.

  © 2012 by Eric Nixon

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any process without first obtaining written permission from the author; the exception being a reviewer who may quote brief passages with appropriate credit.

  That being said, I’m pretty flexible with fully credited adaptations. Please contact me if you are considering adapting or remixing any works contained within this book.

  All situations depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination and may not match any reality known to otherwise exist elsewhere.

  Published by Eric Nixon.

  [email protected]

  EricNixon.net

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my brother, Todd Nixon, who was an amazing source of help and support during the period when most of these poems were written.

  Thank you.

  Author’s Forward

  Hello and welcome to Lost In Thought, my second poetry collection!

  In the early 2000s, I was desperately looking for an outlet for my creativity. I first tried drawing; my pictures were ok, but not great and were maybe on par with what a kid in high school might draw. That didn’t work to alleviate my need to express my creativity, so I tried something different: the guitar. In the end, I could never get the hang of it so it fell by the wayside as well.

  Some point soon after the guitar thing, I came across a few poems I had written ten years earlier, when I first went to college. I thought I’d try and give that another shot…and, in the process, I (re?)discovered an ideal outlet for my creativity.

  From 2002 to 2005 I wrote just over 700 poems. In 2004, I saw that I was writing all sorts of poems, but not doing anything with them, so I got a few of my favorites together and self-published my first collection, Anything but Dreams.

  Since then, I completely stopped writing poetry and instead opted to work on a science fiction novel I’d been tinkering with since I was in middle school. The other 600 poems from that time period just sat in my computer, totally forgotten and gathered pixel dust.

  In 2011, Garrison Keillor read a poem from Anything but Dreams, “Riding The Red Line,” on his public radio program, The Writer’s Almanac. At the time, I was hard at work researching and writing my novel, Emily Dickinson, Superhero – Vol. 1. The validation I felt hearing Garrison’s distinct voice read my poem, combined with the heavy dose of Emily Dickinson I was getting with my book, inspired me to pick up the poet’s pen and start writing again.

  Throughout 2012, while I was happily writing both poetry and Emily’s superhero adventures, I kept thinking about my 600 unused poems from a decade ago. Mostly, I was afraid of them…there were so many of them and so few of me. In the summer of 2012, I finally worked up the courage to jump into that dusty folder in my computer and slog though them. After a few weeks, I had read them all and came to the conclusion that there needed to be some serious editing/purging because there was no way in hell I was going to let most of them run free in the world.

  And so began the Great Poetry Purge of 2012.

  When the dust settled not many remained. The surviving 102 make up this collection. Here are their numbers by the year they were written in:

  1992 – 2

  2002 – 22

  2003 – 47

  2004 – 27

  2005 – 4

  My previous collection Anything but Dreams, contained 105 poems all selected from this same era. That means I deleted almost 500 poems. Yikes! I tossed them for various reasons:

  Too political – I guess I used to be a lot more into politics than I am now. I might express a view here or there, but I figured with the terribly divisive nature of things these days, most of these poems would just serve to annoy and anger people.

  Too personal – A lot of these were about people I know and were made up of deep secret kind of stuff…the same things that probably should have never been committed to writing in the first place. Deleted.

  Too sexual – The “dirty” poems I put in Anything but Dreams were more erotic. These were flat out raunchy.

  Too awful – The ones under this category either sounded too forced or were too rhymey.

  I think editing is important. After looking back on that giant treasure trove of poems with the separation of several years and a clearer head/heart, I was able to judge my works between what was good and bad. Had Emily Dickinson faked her death and later discovered that all of her poetry had been published, I bet she would have been upset at not having had the chance to properly edit her work.

  When I fake my death, I don’t want to look at some “posthumous” collection of my poetry and think, “Why is this crap in here?” I’ve taken care of that so just the good ones survive.

  As for missing those five hundred poems, I wouldn’t worry. At the rate I’m writing new poetry, I’ll have replaced them in a few years.

  Thank you for picking up this collection, and I hope you enjoy it.

  Eric

  December, 2012

  P.S. Most of the notes written after poems were written at the time the poem was created. In a few instances, I added notes in 2012 as I edited them.

  P.P.S. In the notes, I occasionally mention something called “Line Ideas.” That’s the document where I have always created my poetry. I put my non-complete poems in there, which are basically ideas, fragments of thought, and lines of poetry. There they sit and wait for me to complete and move them to their own documents. During the early 2000s, Line Ideas was often over thirty pages in length. Currently, it’s about eleven.

  Table of Contents

  1992

  A View Shared

  The Blanket

  2002

  June

  Inconsequential

  In The End

  July

  Past The People

  Trespassing On Your Sensibilities (Gerund One)

  Each And Every

  This Is

  Until Today

  Postcard Pretty

  Why They Stare

  October

  Problematic

  Four Years Gone

  The Rest Of Forever

  Carelessly Lucky

  November

  Divot

  Swim Swim

  From Scratch

  Home

  No Receipt No Return

  Beautiful Day

  December

  Zebra

  A Small Carry-On

  Hold Tight

  2003

  January

  Lonely Lunch

  March

  And Here Are Their Shoes

  Forgetful Poet

  April

  Untouched On The Dresser

  Winning Streak

  Abusage The Usage

  May

  53 Pounds

  Sunshine Up There

  So, My Friend

  June

  Two Sets Of Beads

  Dumb-Ass, Stupid-Shit Fucker

  July

  Endangering Massachusetts

  Who You Are

  I Can’t Wait

  August

  Constant Glaring Imperfections

  When Pigs Fly

  Electric Vacation

  Continual Constant

  Dead End On A One-Way Street

  September

  Woodstove?

  Quiet Oxidation

  33336

  October

  Moonlit Contrails

  Swear Barrier

  Violated The Unspoken Rule

&
nbsp; Putting On Wet Clothes

  Writing Is Life

  Seasonal Lag

  Small Town Strip Mall

  Mind The Importance

  Lemon

  Off In The Foggy Somewhere

  Clifford Remains

  Fulcrum

  Hedgehog Water Bottle

  Simple Salsa Excursion

  November

  30 Is The New 20

  Spooned Deep

  11:11

  Second-Guess

  Fruit On The Bottom

  December

  Bigger Man

  Living The One Way Ticket

  My Style Is Now

  A Big Step

  One Year Ago

  2004

  January

  Building The Facade

  Pisces Drowning

  Pavlovian Conditioning

  The Girl Who Cried Crutch

  Tried And Sampled

  February

  Embering Pile

  The Winter That Wasn’t

  Experiences Of A Hotelier

  March

  Glue Trap

  April

  The Numbers Before

  May

  Drowning In The Cloudy Twilight

  Infection

  June

  Fresh Cut Grass

  Way Too Long

  Sapped

  July

  Made So By The Moment

  Swept Along By The Calendar

  August

  Contrast To The Crispness

  The Greatest Poem Ever Written

  September

  Eclipsed

  Last Finger Fell

  Drink The Giggling Murmur

  In An Aisle

  October

  The Heavy Shadow Of Uncertainty

  As We All Will Tonight

  May The Best Of Luck Be Yours

  2005

  Right Of Way

  What Is Going On?

  Smile And Enjoy

  A Stranger Wrote Me

  1992

  A View Shared

  I needed something

  I wanted something

  I missed something

  Her.

  But I can’t see her

  For she is there

  And I am here, away

  Still the need continued…

  Popcorn.

  Yes, that’s what I need

  So I put on my

  Jacket

  Said goodbye to my

  Roommate

  And walked out the

  Door

  Made my way thought the maze

  And outside I went

  As I walked I felt it

  Autumn

  It was determined to announce

  Itself to me

  The wind blew

  I zipped my jacket

  Autumn laughed at my feeble attempt

  And chilled me just the same

  The air smelled like crisp, clean

  Leaves

  Crunched underfoot

  All of my senses acknowledged

  Autumn’s presence

  And conferred with each other to double check

  But the answer remained the same

  To my right, the sky

  Radiated the last of the pale light

  To my left, darkness encompassed all

  In the middle, hiding behind a cloud

  Was the moon

  Too shy to come out as it was

  Peering down on me

  I didn’t know if I was the cause

  Of its bashfulness

  Maybe it was too cold

  So it wore the cloud to keep warm

  For whatever the reason

  There it was, behind (in) the cloud

  Looking at me

  So, under the vigilant eye of the moon

  I entered the building

  Walked across the lobby

  And entered the store

  I asked

  They gave

  They asked

  I gave

  I left

  With popcorn in hand, I entered the twilight

  I walked across a field of grass

  But something seemed out of place

  The smell around me was foreign

  To here and now

  It was the smell of freshly cut grass

  It didn’t belong

  To here and how

  Whoever cut it must have done so

  In defiance

  As if to shout

  “No, wait, don’t give up!

  Summer exists

  Can’t you smell it?

  It’s a warm time smell of

  Spring and Summer

  Do you remember it?

  (please say yes)

  I know you do

  Now, won’t you continue to live it?

  (please say yes)

  give me a chance

  don’t put me away for a year

  I’m still here!”

  But the pleas were cut short

  By a bone-chilling gust

  And the crunch of

  Leaves

  Popcorn

  I turned and walked

  Into the darkness

  South

  The glassy blackness of the pond greeted me

  Reflecting the artificial yellowness

  Of a nearby building

  With ripples cutting the light

  And quacks cutting the silence

  The ducks floated

  I walked to the edge

  Where a form floated

  I threw some popcorn

  Which disappeared

  I threw more

  Which attracted others

  I threw more

  And more came to visit the

  Altruistic biped

  With half my box gone

  I bid farewell to the

  Floating feathered forms

  And started walking

  Movement caught my eye

  And I turned to see

  The ducks clambering onto land

  Asking for more

  Popcorn

  I threw more and left

  Ignoring the cries of protest

  I walked

  I munched

  Only a small section of sky

  Was lit, and even that faded

  As the shade of darkness was pulled

  I watched

  I walked

  I munched

  I reached to the box

  And I thought about…

  And I missed…

  And all thoughts were consumed by…

  I forgot about the coldness because of…

  I was oblivious to all that surrounded me…

  My only thought was of…

  Her

  A car or a tree

  Right now they were

  The same to me

  Something made me look to the moon…

  Which was no longer hiding but out

  In the open with blinding white light

  A view shared by

  Her

  As she, at that moment, looked up and thought of

  Me

  Eyes fixed on this object, which belonged to

  Us

  For a moment

  My thoughts returned to her

  Until I somehow ended up in my chair

  Here

  Unaware of anything but…

  I got pen and paper and began to write…

  Her

  A letter, and this poem

  September 29, 1992

  Amherst, Massachusetts

  The Blanket

  My alarm greeted me to another new day

  I awoke, rose

  And looked into the grey

  I stood and froze

  As my gaze focused on a beautiful scene:

  Everything was white

  Not the bright green

  As I had left things

  The previous night
/>   The Earth had been covered

  With a blanket of purity

  For all had been smothered

  Into a state of obscurity

  The whiteness covered everything

  Its purity was made anew

  With richness like a king

  And the cleanliness of spring

  My thoughts then returned to that of you

  November 18, 1992

  Amherst, Massachusetts

  2002

  June

  Inconsequential

  Want to kiss her

  Need to kiss her

  But don’t

  But can’t

  But shouldn’t

  But want to so bad

  The frustration

  The anticipation

  Is overwhelming

  Is overpowering

  But I need it

  But I want it

  More than

  Anything

  More than

  Anything

  Just a simple kiss

  Trivializes it all

  It’s so much more

  You just don’t know

  When our lips finally meet

  The explosion of emotions

  Love

  Lust

  Longing

  Passion

  Rip through our bodies

  Time stops being important

  Everything else just melts away

  Everything else is inconsequential

  Just us

  Just now

  Nothing else

  Nothing but us

  June 6, 2002

  Chelsea, Massachusetts

  In The End

  Thinking

  Alone

  Drinking

  Alone

  Which is worse?

  One always leads

  To the other

  The only one

  Who wins

  In the end

  Is sleep

  Meaning

  The only one

  Who loses

  Is you

  June 30, 2002

  Chelsea, Massachusetts

  July

  Past The People

  Staring out over the ocean

  Captivated by the motion

  And beckoning of the waves

  The seeming infiniteness

  Spread out before me

  Seems to be calling

  I pull out my pencils

  And begin to sketch

  My Discman blocks out

  All the mindless chatter

  All the prattling banter

  That surrounds me

  Drawing is creating

  It’s a quiet outlet of

  Expression for me

  I look up and see