In April 2014 I was writing a poem a day for National Poetry Writing Month. On day 28 the prompt was to turn the news into poetry. I found a Wall Street Journal article by Andrew Blackman called "The Inner Workings of the Executive Brain," and I could see a poem hiding inside his words. So I rearranged them until they read like me.
I tagged him when I posted it. The next morning he wrote back that it was the first time one of his articles had inspired a poem.
It's still the one I'm proudest of, because it was the hardest to make. Here it is, with the recording I made that night.
On my three-inch by two-inch phone screen
I frantically type to meet a deadline,
all the while the printed paper's ink
has settled into both my left and right hands,
burrowing deep into my fingernails
like an orange jailbird.
There is only 1 calculation I need to know
that equals billions of imaginary squirrels I chase down
never ending rabbit holes. Over 40 hours a week I spend
hunting for the perfect words. Not 3 to 5, nor 9 to 5,
but 24 hours a day, offering you not 10%,
but 39% of my problems, yet 100% of my heart.
I try to unlock the secrets of my brain,
an executive decision not made hastily, as I
balance on the pros and cons of bridging the gap between
intuition and strategician as I dream
of being a statistical magician
using the sleight of my hands.
In fact, I'm always fast acting, getting results,
though not every decision turns out good or bad,
there are no awkward silences as I effectively switch
between social and analytical modes, providing you
encouragement, praise and rewards, which has resulted in a
strong emotional bond and your sense of purpose.
Perhaps it's my attention-deficit-disorder that resulted
in this new approach to rewriting my hardwired code,
as I am a ticking clock holding your thoughts, wound up to
play you a lullaby of chimes at three a.m. in the morning,
signifying that my hunt for words
began but shall never end.
Built from "The Inner Workings of the Executive Brain" by Andrew Blackman, The Wall Street Journal, 2014.
