The Locks

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More of a physical kind of frustration

Centered on gravity--lying low

Looking for an out

Inches are insufficient

Foot-pounds squeeze a reserve of might

Massive bulk held at bay by

old-growth concrete trees

dead at the roots

Iron leaves comb trash

Scalp just a bit of the good stuff

from a small but potent torrent

somehow clearer than the source

the rest released into the foam void

Garbage trees jealously bear the weight

Craving more pressure

Frigid

Begrudging the escapees

Over-containing to a spill no valve can safety release

Shrugging it off as the pressure sags to a limp ex-tension

At first furiously dumping

Then just blandly merging

Good stuff, garbage, primary sources

All a spreading foam puddle

Indifferent

apart from the craving

as iron and concrete too are consumed in the blend

There's more where that came from

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In general, this poem is an attempt to explore the mechanism of the creative impulse and the external forces that inhibit and sometimes ultimately destroy its renewability--wrapped in the imagery and metaphor of the Ballard Locks, a Seattle landmark across which I find myself traveling at least a few times each week.  Looking back on my last few months of writing, I notice that I've been repeatedly interested in close-up depictions of inconspicuous physical things or concepts that usually lurk unnoticed in the periphery of our eyes and minds.  The shift in perspective turns the focus on the object's individual personality and isolates the specific nature of its being, resulting in a portrait that's not necessarily hostile but perhaps disconcerting, unsettling and certainly alien to our own sensibilities, even if it's couched in vaguely personified terms (as this poem does).  Scrutinize one object from its own perspective and you realize there are limitless viewpoints, few of which have any relation to our own until we impose it upon them, which usually results in their broad dismissal (we can't help it, it's how our brains work).  Anyway, this method is an attempt to communicate an experience I often have wherein I'm walking by something and I'm suddenly struck by its thinly-concealed strangeness to the point of absorption.  

As for the extended metaphor, I've come to appreciate over the years the delicate pressure-release of the creative impulse.  Complete absence of antagonism results in shitty art, but over-pressurization threatens to override the fail-safes and extend creation's feverish momentary madness into an inescapable morass.  I personally most often notice this external "over-pressurization" in the form of group apathy, remorselessly-short attention spans and the severe devaluation of art (hence the bitter closing line).  Even though it's stylistically mellow and unassuming (some consonance, alliteration and low-profile puns), this poem has become pretty close to my heart for the familiar imagery (standing there on the locks, you can really feel the weight of the water held back by the grace of the small amount that's allowed to escape), the characterization of the reservoir and release of creativity, and the resolve to continue maintaining the balance--even if the results merely disappear "into the foam void."

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