squeeze a dry rag,
see if you can get a drop…
out with it now
when you’re done and dying
just wanting it to stop
hoping for a third wind
when the second
was barely enough
you’ll ride hard on an empty tank
when the will won’t punch the clock
so tell me how you dig some more
when it seems it’s all run out?
tell me how you catch the magic
when the day has torn you up?
you sit and stare
then thrash and claw
the bastards from your chest,
you rip demons out
from inside your soul
because you command the final count
shred wounds back open
to resurrect corpses from the past
scrape dust off brittle bones
and crush rocks into gleaming gems
make your mark and find your fire
no matter the time of night
strike iron hot in the final hour
and invoke your flowing, flying fight
the third wind is yours,
so ride it high
and raise legends with all your might
Garbage Notes:
This one’s about finding that extra boost at the end of a long day to do the thing that matters to you most. It’s about being a busy human and also being a writer. It’s about digging deep to find that creativity when your mind is absolute mush at the end of the day.
Writing, if it matters to you, will bring life back to you.
When I’m tired, when I’m sad, when I’m spiritually exhausted, dejected, broken, and confused. All I have to do is catch a little bit of focus, find a little bit of serenity, and start banging away at the keys.
That action, that little bit of effort, even if you have to lie to yourself and say you’ll only write for fifteen minutes—that action creates a cascade of energy.
That’s your third wind.
So as the poem says: ride it high, it’s yours—raise legends with all your might. Invoke your flowing, flying fight.
And, yes, it was very hard to say those three words together like that. I took one look at this older poem of mine and was like, yeah, there’s no way I’m gonna get that triple-F alliteration on the first take.
Franco Amati 2023
I have told myself there are days I write, days I work, days I paint, days I have to adult. I have difficulty multi tasking all of that in one day. And writing, yes - the squeezing of an idea into words until the words begin to dry up, or the idea is fading. Sometimes, I have to put a piece of writing away, and then look at it a week later to get another creative boost. Then I write down other ideas while the one I really want to pursue simmers on a back burner.
I needed to read this so much. I woke up this morning already tired, already overwhelmed with all the non-writing work ahead of me this week. But it's still early. No one else is awake. I can do it now.evrn if it is only for fifteen minutes. Thx