Anything but Dreams
selected poems
by
Eric Nixon
Copyright 2004, 2011 Eric Nixon. All rights reserved.
Cover by Eric Nixon
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is dedicated to the memory of my father.
He would have been proud beyond words to read this.
Introduction (2011)
Hello and welcome!
What you have here, in your hot little ebook reader (or, on your computer screen if you’re into that) is a whole lot of me; my emotions, my hopes, my fears, and everything in between. Yikes! I don’t even know you!
From 2002 to 2004, I had experienced a range of extremes as my life was radically changed by way of a divorce and the subsequent rediscovery of who I really am. During those two years I poured my thoughts and feelings into my poetry, and ended up writing over 700 poems, 102 of them are in this book (I don’t know how I ended up with that number, it just happened that way).
While I am normally a fairly quiet, and very private person, I’ve found that there’s a certain amount of freedom that can be found with baring your soul to the world. To that end, I have republished this collection, which has often been described as, “Poems for people who don’t like poetry.” I did some very light editing, fixing typos, and general tidying up with this newer edition. Otherwise everything is the same as it was back when I first published this book.
I sincerely thank you, and hope you enjoy the book.
Eric
P.S. I’ll most likely be putting together a second poetry collection in the coming months. Go to EricNixon.net for information and updates.
Some handy-dandy notes from the author (2004)
Thank you for purchasing my first poetry collection!
I’ve broken this collection of poetry down into chapters based loosely on the subject matter. I was originally thinking about releasing a series of books, each one full of one type of poem. Then I got to thinking that most people would probably not want to read a book full of nothing but depressing poetry, so I decided to mix it up and instead put you on an emotional rollercoaster. Here are the categories…
Happy - the happier ones (pretty obvious).
Cautious - these aren’t happy, but they also don’t fit in the sad section. Most of these tend to have some sort of cautionary theme.
Hurt - the bum-you-out poems that’ll tug at your emotional sleeves.
Off - weird, strange, odd and messed up ditties that are a bit “off.”
On – the oh-so sexy ones.
Out - nature poems that take place in the out-of-doors.
The book is laid out so you’ll get a few happy poems, then a few cautious ones, then maybe a stretch of the sad ones, then some of the sexy, another section of happy poems, and so on. The six categories repeat throughout the book so you will get a well-rounded experience.
Each poem is dated and the location is noted. For the most part, they were all written in Manchester, New Hampshire, but a few were written in other places like Atlanta, Seattle, or San Francisco.
At the bottom of most poems are the notes I wrote about each one. I started doing this a while ago after looking back at some of my older poems and wondering, “Wow, what was I thinking when I wrote that?” The notes give me a way to remember what I was thinking, and gives you an insight (although, sometimes weird) into what goes on in my mind. I’ve left them all in, untouched, with the exception that I removed any names that were lurking around.
Once again, thank you, and enjoy!
Eric
Contents
Happy
Everything Else Is Secondary
Delve Into the Unknown
Footprint
Thirty
Made the Same of You
Cautious
Cautionary Tales
Part of the Peripheral
Perpendicular Happiness
Scraps of Paper
…And They Were Released
Red Hats Now In Stock
Down the Dyslexic Slope
Kissed By Someone in My Dreams
Debris
Rinse Repeat
Rainy Sunday
Conversation in the Round
Here There Are No Answers
Rearview Mirror
Hurt
Under The Bar
Edges of Everything
Division
Auto-Pilot
By Her Countless Paintings
Flood in the Desert
Off
Glow Star Stickers on the Ceiling
Bad Lazy Font
Down One of These Streets
Touristy Intentions
Footprints on the Fiber
Observation Cookies
Panty-Less Protest
Indie Anna
Perfect Loaf
Blurry Until the Frames
Leaving the Lasting Happy
Pumpkin Ale
Quotes Speak Volumes
Mere Words
Hearse on Fire
Keeping It G
On
Catalyst
Appetizers for the Entrée
Eyes Closed
Nameless Face
Of Your Wonderful Perfection
Forever Affected
Delicious as A Whisper
Out
Ratty Blanket
Autumn Is Faster
Astute Frostian Observations
Streaky With Contrails
Hush
Happy
Only Good Things Can Come Of This
Happily Ignoring
Eggers Can Wait
Save That Wish
After Living A Lemon Life
Going Mad With Smiles
Seatbelting
Reason
Heart and Fingers
Closing My Eyes
Appreciate Perfection
Cautious
Concerns Voiced
Riding the Red Line
Dandelion
Massholes Heading North
Fresh Linen
Dent in the Guardrail
Continually Constant
Mass Corona Injection
Romantically Drowning
Delayed Waylaid
Inaction
Realistically Realize
Rockwell State Of Things
Replayed
Missing The Friend
Imagination Destroyed
Putting On Wet Clothes
Just How I Pictured It
Early Morning Angels
Anything But Dreams
Hurt
A Victim Of That Left Turn
Core Dump
Gardenia
Cars Blur By
Off
Lunch Lady On The Prowl
Picnic For One
Light Abrasion
Fiona
Epiphanal Pockets
Wide Mahogany Frame
Rumpus On The Floor
Peripheral Element
Successful Regifting
Shy Day
Rumble Strip
Glimmers Like Gold
Five Hours In Seattle
Tried And Sampled
About the Author
Other Works by Eric Nixon
Happy
Everything Else Is Secondary
I don’t bel
ieve in resolutions
New Years or United Nations
Since they’re made to be
Broken and or ignored
All I know is I need to make
Some kind of radical change
Something needs to change
Sometime sooner than now
The hard part’s already begun
Now I just need to keep up
Four days into the New Year
The date is merely coincidental
Four days of doing it right
And I’m smiling like mental
Happy with the knowing
That I’m actually getting
Things accomplished
I’m newly refreshed
From being out west
I’ve set out to conquer
My two main goals
First and foremost
And hey
Everything else is secondary
January 4, 2004
Manchester, NH
They’re not resolutions, they’re goals. I think the term “resolutions” has a negative connotation, especially since no one ever keeps them. I did once in 2003. I made a steadfast resolution to swear more, and I was surprised how easy it was to succeed.
Delve Into the Unknown
Surrounded in
Submerging into
Happily drowning
In all that surrounds me
In all the cherishable things
That life has picked
That life has thrown
So happily
So politely
At me at this time
At this point
In my life
In my newfound life
Swirling in
Twisting into
Turning with
Enjoying all
Every moment
It’s all so wonderful
It’s all so precious
So much worth
The price of admission
Yes I’ve been there
To amazingly wonderful
Places that people want
To visit their entire lives
And never get the chance
Yes I’ve done that
Participated in the things
That most people only
Dare to dream about
In their wildest fantasies
And still I want more
Because there’s still more
More that I dream of
More that I need to see
More that I want to do
More that I have to experience
So much more than I can
Ever expect to comprehend
And I’ll fill this vessel
That I’ve been given
Fill it until it overflows
With the sights the sounds
With the sum of my experiences
And then some
Because we are not here
Just to work and slave away
Over a dead end job
Over the secondary things
That bog us down in life
Because you know that
I have cherished and loved
What I’ve been given
What I’ve been lucky enough
To experience in my years here
To the point that if today
I should somehow stop
And lie down once and for all
That my last thought won’t be
That of lamenting the passing
Of my soul and my being
But instead I’ll be happy
With what I’ve been able to
Accomplish and see and do
In the short time I’ve been given
And know that I have truly liven
My life to no one’s rules but my own
And I’ll enter into the next phase
With a wondrous smile on my face
As I delve into the unknown
Knowing that I’ll finally be
Experiencing what comes next
And you can bet that I’ll hold tight
Everything I’ve felt from this life
Hold it dearly close
Place my trust above
And fall backwards
Into the unknown
And just like everything
I’ve ever done in my life
You can be sure it’ll be done
With a smile
July 15, 2003
Manchester, NH
Kind of odd, but when I started this one, I had one single word in my head, “delve.” That’s it. I picked it up and ran with it from there. I also have to say, the entire time I wrote this, I listened to nothing but the song “Never” by Think Of England. I think what I’m listening to has the biggest influence on my writings. If I had been listening to a different song at the time, I’m convinced that this poem would have turned out much differently. Just the fate of the random function on my mp3 player, I guess.
Footprint
For too long I thought
I was too young
To make a difference
In anything
Now I look around
Now I realize that
I'm past my prime
And feel like I'm in
The clearance bin
But I stopped short
Of saying I'm too old
Knowing age has no
Bearing on the size
Of the footprint
You leave on society
I'm putting on my shoes
The big ones
And I'm ready to go
For a nice long walk
November 22. 2003
Andover, MA
I entered this in my palm pilot just before I went to bed last night. I was watching something on TV and it made me feel kind of like once you hit 30 years old and if you haven’t made your mark on life by now, you never will. Then I realized that was just crazy talk.
Thirty
Starting today
I won’t be able to trust myself
Because those damn hippies
Said way back when
Never to trust
Never believe
Anyone over my age
And yet here I am
More than a number
More like my age
I think it adequately reflects
Who and where I am
I’ve never been more trusting
Of me and my abilities
Walking the wafer lines
Between finding myself
And diving deep in love
And working my career
But still I make it all work
While retaining undeniable
Overwhelming happiness
I’m not going to lie
A part of me still yearns to be
A third younger and still in college
And live in blissful naivety
But the rest of me
Wants to be nowhere but here
Joyful and content
Where I am
I’m thankful for my past
And what it has given me
But the past is back there
And I always want to be
Somewhere up where
I never could have imagined
Being, seeing, doing
Constantly striving
To improve and make new
Myself and who I am
To give back where I can
Taking it all in, in my view
To see
To experience
To capture
Everything out there
Determined to make it all
Part of the growing
And livingly rich tapestry
That’s been the first thirty
I know where I’ve been
I know where I want to go
Don’t worry - I’ll send you a postcard
April 30, 2004
/> Manchester, NH
A lot of emphasis has been put on turning thirty over the years, with the one that sticks out most in my mind is seeing protest signs from the 60’s that say, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” I think I might have missed something somewhere, but I didn’t feel any less trusting of myself on my birthday. For that matter, I didn’t feel any different at all.
Made the Same of You
You sent me a letter
Just when I needed
To hear from a dear
Friend the most
Not just an email
But an honest to goodness
Real here in my hands
Something that you
Took the time
And the thought
To sit down and write
Kind of letter
Making me feel like
The most special person
Who ever existed
Which immediately
Made the same of you
January 7, 2004
Manchester, NH
I wrote the first half of this in Bay Point, California. Every night I was there, I would sit up with my headphones on and listen to my mp3 player while I wrote down ideas in my Palm Pilot. No true events inspired this poem, but it’s still such a wonderful thing to think about.
Cautious
Cautionary Tales
Living life leads to loss
Or so it can often go
I just throw them out
And you can take them in
Mull them over, think and
See if you can relate at all
To some or all of these
Course grains of sand
These cautionary tales
I’m sure you can
Since we’ve all been
The sometimes victim
Once or more in our lives
November 19, 2003
Manchester, NH
Tonight I got the brainy idea to look into publishing my poems as several e-books. That got me thinking that I need to create a web site. While working in Publisher, I got to thinking about cover art for each of the e-books I want to make. I was staring at the picture I took of my friend Kimberly holding up the orange flag when her husband fell into the water while waterskiing and got the idea to separate the e-books into different genres. One of them was full of loss and divorce type poems. One was filled with happier stuff. One chock-full of messed up stuff, etc. I wanted to call the loss one Cautionary Tales and realized that I had to write a poem with that name, so this is it.
Part of the Peripheral
Part of the peripheral
Instead of part of the solution
Always on the fringes
Living on the side of it all
Happily observing
Staying out of everything
Part of the peripheral
So easily forgotten
Sadly, no one knew
Anything about you
Always the one
Never having any fun
Part of the peripheral