Near Zero Blog

I am sharing this poem after it received over 200 impressions on Medium without a single read. I want to help others by showing them what NOT to do.

Never use a poem title like “I Saw a UFO…” when establishing a reader base.

The association with the psychotic is too deeply ingrained because of the infinite number of “alternative” science news (science reality?) podcasts, newsletters, and websites. No offense to anyone and their personal experiences.

My poetry is not didactic. It is symbolic. It borrows heavily from French symbolism. I am a phenomenological poet who tells the story of the body’s experience and its environment, evoking emotion through imagery.

The poem is about a phenomenological episode involving a 4-year-old boy. Now, unless we are to expel the boy from Kindergarten for delusions, for not comprehending the credulity and incredulity of inferences, we can forgive him for saying he was chased by a monster that he couldn’t identify.

Otherwise, we should tell the old man who he’s become to remember that he, the writer, is perceived as the grown-up adult telling “about” rather than simply what was, and that he should include an author note to introduce his symbolic, phenomenological poetry. Because it will be clunky for some readers adrift in the banality and flowery language of the everyday sanctimonious philosopher-poet.

I bat symbol, imagery, and phrasing around with meter play. I don’t pretend to be the generation’s great poet. It’s just bullshit I do because I am dyslexic and have always had to condense meaning into tight piles of “imagey” words bound with rhymes, otherwise they all fly away.

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Here is the link to the poem on Medium:

The Scared Little Boy