Preamble:

I am playing with freedom, writing from a space of giving myself permission for anything, for everything.

So, the following poem was the result of looking at a few different writing prompts - I often find that when I want to get into writing again, I spend lots of time reading books on writing, reading writing exercises, reading the work of the most inspiring authors and poets I know of - and then feeling satisfied and satiated, without noticing that I haven't actually written *anything* at all. So, keeping that in mind, I am writing. Also, I often stop myself midway through the first sentence (and the second and the third, if I get that far), because my critical brain is so engaged with - is this any good at all? haven't you written this before? if you write that, people will think you're cynical / unevolved / superficial / a very bad daughter / etc. What will my mother think? What would my grandmother have thought? Why can't you just write happy poems, Ariana? Aren't you supposed to be a joyful person? Whose feelings will this poem hurt? Whose image of me will this poem destroy? And on and on. So, I've decided that I'm just going to play and when I come up with anything fun, I'll share it.

So, my reservations about sharing the following poem are that Oakland is a wonderful place that honestly needs no more bad press than it gets - in fact, it deserves all kinds of odes and celebratory songs, and Lake Merritt is it's shining golden gem. A beautiful Lake and a wonderful place to spend one's time. I do neither Oakland nor Lake Merritt any service by writing or sharing this poem. But, golly sometimes it's fun to just let my cynical, dark mind wander!

it’s not lake merritt’s fault I wrote this poem

The lake / if one can call it a lake / why not / everybody does / full of goose dung and duck shit / and shadows of high rises / and if joggers gave off noxious gases / it would be polluted with that / too / and the residue of couples having jagged conversations at its side / and the remains of girls who run there in the middle of the night to die / yes, in the night it wears a string of white lights like pearls / the whole city is its ragged gown / black dress / it knows how to mourn / don’t invite it to your cocktail party / it makes an awful guest / the lake shows up drunk / wearing the stench of the homeless / barefoot / belligerent beneath that placid exterior / neurotic / it knows about everything / like some kind of psychic / that’s only because everybody feeds it their secrets / that’s only because unlike humans it listens / listen: it’s been poisoned by too many first dates and picnics / fallen promises / the cloying lies people tell by daylight / children’s laughter like a plague of locusts / muggings and murders and date rapes by night / the lake knows those children go home to parents who alternately ignore and abuse them / nothing can hide from the dark liquid soul of oakland / look in the water / see your sins and the sky reflected / then throw your stale bread at the ducks /

04.10.07