Dear Readers,

Coming 60, I’m adhering to my 2011 resolutions more seriously than I ever remember addressing them in previous years.  Moreover, after witnessing my dear Mother shed her last tear and take her last breath on August 22, 2010 at approximately 3 p.m. Central Standard Time, I’m making changes—major changes—in what’s left of my minutes in this dimension.  Actor Ted Danson put it most succinctly for me when he proclaimed in a recent issue of Esquire, “Everything that I thought or believed in went flying out the window in the face of the stark realness of my mother dying.  I really have no idea….”

Which brings me to my life’s worth of accumulations  (compounded by the recent acquisition of my parents’ house, shop, and garage, all full of stuff, junk, tchotchkes, memorabilia, keepsakes, heirlooms, what have you). Whereas these were once referred to as “my possessions,” I am now theirs.  And, having observed folks in their eighties (far too late) initiate the winnow-n-wean process, I have decided to get a 20-year jump (one can only hope?) and to begin chipping away at the archeological digs of Paul Zarzyski.  I’ve started in my twelve-foot-square office, where I’ve been discovering folders of poems that, for numerous reasons, never made the cut to a published manuscript.  I’ve dubbed these works Homeless Poems.  Yes, I remember the long, arduous shifts invested into many of these pieces; others, I don’t recall at all, but am nevertheless claiming them as my work, since my name appears on the top of the typed pages, oftentimes, but not always, accompanied by the date and the draft or revision number (e.g. 6-13-1999—8).

I believe it was Robert Frost who proclaimed “I never write exercises, but sometimes I write poems that fail and so I call them exercises.”  Something close to that.  With this in mind, I admit up front that a good number of the works appearing on this site over the coming months were never worthy of a Home in a book to begin with, and will likely remain forever unworthy.  Others, however, merited close consideration and came up slightly short. Some were on the cusp of making the cut into collections published over the past three decades.  They did not, I’m guessing, because of sensibility or point-of-view, because of voice or mood or tone,  because of style, or maybe because the choreographer—in most cases, yours truly—failed to appreciate the contribution the piece could’ve made had he listened to it more carefully and given it its full say on the page.  In any case, I have, in my “old age,” grown more and more nostalgic, while at the same time realizing more and more the crucial importance of the virtue of letting go.  This, therefore,  is my approach to entertaining both strong opposing forces;  this is my process—via revisiting and  revising—of deciding once and for all, if the poems posted here someday deserve a Home between book covers.  And, as you will hopefully learn by purchasing and reading my forthcoming (early March) publication, 51: 30 Poems, 20 Lyrics, 1 Self-Interview, “I get by,” in the words of Joe Cocker, “with a little help from my friends.” 

Here’s where you come in. Should the spirit move you to do so, I would enjoy hearing your brutally honest thoughts, entered in the Jeers And Cheers From The Bleacher Seats email page following the posting of each poem. Sorry, I cannot promise even the remotest likelihood of a response to your response. My primary focus has to be directed toward the rendering of fresh poems and songs. Thanks, in advance, for understanding this need, this torment, this relentless all-encompassing obsession with which I’ve lived for almost 40 of my 60 years. Again, please, I said “honest”— nothing less, no pulled punches or saccharine glad handing, please. I sported a pretty fair chin, a “beard”—to couch my capacity for hard criticism metaphorically in sweet science / pugilistic lingo—before watching Mom die, and now it’s titanium. Trust me, I can take most any heart-felt critical shot. On the flip-side, does it goes without saying, “applause preferred?”

In closing, I’d very much appreciate it if you’d resist temptations to download these rough drafts for whatever reasons.  They’re in constant flux.  In fact, I’ve already rewritten a line in our very first posting, “Down At The Count Of Ten”—not to mention that it’s my best guess that the title itself will evolve into something other.  It does not enthuse me to imagine “lesser versions” of my work in circulation sans this accompanying preamble or preface. Thanks for hearing this plea, and

                                                                                                      welcome to Homeless Poems,

                                                                                                       Paul Leonard Zarzyski