We are pleased to present our next Poet To Notice: Patrick Meeds

Patrick Meeds lives in Syracuse, NY and studies writing at the Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown
Writer’s Center. What excites us about his work is the juxtaposition of incongruent concrete nouns. There’s a palpable freedom and excitement and uncanniness in his verse. After the poems below, we have included an interview with the author on his process.

How Small Can the Smallest Star Be?

I hear the thank you note
has gone out of style.
That’s just bad manners
if you ask me. A sign of
poor parenting. Remind me
again, what’s the small fork for?
What’s the proper salutation
for a collection letter?
Are dowries still a thing?
I thought I saw a hummingbird
but it turned out to be a drone.
Do you remember when there were
ashtrays everywhere? Embedded
in the counter at the bank and in
the dentist’s waiting room. My mother
let me ride standing up on the seat
with my hands on the dash.
My elementary school
had a fallout shelter in the basement.
I am calling long distance. I am moving
in slow motion as if I am deep underwater.
Sometimes the prisoner misses the cell.
The Earth’s atmosphere balances itself
with lightning. A piano is just a box
full of hammers and wire
but in the right hands
something beautiful can happen.

~

This Is a Beautiful Poem

It shouldn’t start with
getting spanked ten seconds
after you’re born but it does.
This time I believe the magician
when he smiles and says nothing
up my sleeve. We all know that
the real trick is how the shimmer
of fireflies on a summer night
makes us all feel the same thing.
There is a difference between
hearing and listening. Between
putting up a fence to keep someone
out and putting up a fence up to keep
someone in. Who decides when  
partly sunny becomes mostly cloudy?
I hear they built a machine
that can read minds but no one
will go near it. Proper procedures
must be observed. First the pain
and suffering of paint by numbers.
Then the comforts of hallucination.
It shouldn’t end with eating dirt
but it always does.

~

Midline Incision

Yesterday I was on a road
I’d driven hundreds of times
and nothing seemed familiar.
I’ve dog-eared the pages
of so many books
always meaning to go back
to them. My neighbor said
he would fix the fence
where the limb from his tree
came crashing down
into my yard but he never has.
If this is all just some kind of game
I’ll play it but don’t expect me
to care who wins or loses.
Sometimes the math is so pure.
Sometimes patterns establish themselves
before you realize it.
The only problem with midnight is
you’re either on this side or that.
When I was in the third grade
a bird smashed into the window
of my classroom and died.
I still think about that a lot.

~

Gravity There’s Just No Pleasing You

Sometimes the best thing the forest
can do is burn. My father died owing
money to everyone and he considered
it a win. The thing about falling is it’s
kind of a thrill until you hit the ground.
I like a good cafeteria. I imagine
that it is what the afterlife is like.
Everyone lining up to get food. Muted
music playing from a speaker in the ceiling.
For dessert a brownie that fits perfectly
in the square in the upper left corner
of the tray. Better than having to paddle
a canoe with a bicycle pump for all eternity
or climb a towering pine tree while
it’s on fire or admit that you were wrong
and that your British accent was in fact
not accurate nor funny. As an experiment
try this. Keep a secret for your whole life.
Then on your death bed pull a loved one
close and whisper “there is something
I must tell you” as you gasp your last breath.
The further we are away, the weaker the pull.

~

Exploding Head Syndrome

It’s a real thing you know,
and yes I did just fall off
the turnip truck. I was born
yesterday and raised in a barn.
The mind wants to forget
but I won’t let it. It’s a kids game
like Hide and Go Seek. Like Telephone.
Like Duck, Duck, Moose.
I don’t think singing telegrams
were ever a real thing.
Your heartbeat and my heartbeat
are the same except that mine
sometimes flutters like a moth.
Sometimes gurgles like a drain.
Anatomy and physiology is the study
of the structure and function
of the human body. That thing you do
with your tongue and lips and teeth
is called embouchure. There are millions
and millions of sphincters in the human body
opening and closing in a beautifully
choreographed dance.
Go ahead. Pick my pocket.
Just don’t be surprised when you find
there’s nothing there.

~

GMP: How do you take so many turns that are unexpected?

PM: With these types of poems I generally try to start with a concrete image. When I feel it is complete I just start a new line whether it is obviously connected in some way or not and see how it feels. I try not to over think and not get in the way too much (I save that for every moment of my life outside of writing poems). The human mind always wants to make connections and there is no way to know what they will be until you try putting two things and then a series of things together. Sometimes the results can be amazing. Sometimes the reaction is the same for everyone who reads the poem and sometimes it’s different for everybody.

GMP: How do you decide what goes in a poem and what stays out?

PM: A lot of times that comes down to you know, when you know, you know. The good thing about writing this way is that anything that gets left out of one poem can potentially appear in another.

GMP: When you go from a thank you note to a hummingbird to a drone, how do you make it all work together in a poem?

PM: I rely on my gut to decide when it all works in a way that I like. It’s a lot of moving lines and images around until I feel like the poem has some life and spark.

GMP: Do you rely on stream of consciousness?

PM: Yes! Very often I write my first drafts quickly without any editing and then go back to shape the draft into the poem it becomes through rearranging the sections and looking at the enjambment. I try to pull from concrete things that have happened to me (I thought I saw a hummingbird but it turned out to be a drone) or things I have read (The earth’s atmosphere balances itself with lightning) and I never discount anything. I always have my antenna up for something I can use. Because again, when you marry two images together, however disparate, you may create a new connection that reveals something funny or profound. Very often the line that started the draft ends up at the end of the poem when it is finished.

How do you decide when to cut things or when to leave them in?

I really go by feel. I don’t have any hard and fast rules. I do try to keep my poems short because I feel when they go on too long they lose some energy and they just become a long list of images.