Poetry 2023

by Mary Padilla

Nobody goes there
who plans on coming back,
because nobody who goes there
ever has,
and there’s no reason to suspect
that you would be the first,
or rather the last.
So better plan
as per usual
and know what it is
you’re risking,
– not even risking,
because this is a sure thing –
so what it is
you’re willing to give up
in exchange
for seeing for yourself
what no one
who’s been seen again
has seen,
or heard,
or experienced,
because
to know what it is,
it seems you need
to give up
what you know
in exchange,
without knowing
what it is
you will gain.
You could just lose
if it isn’t even
a zero sum game,
and the odds are
– well, you can’t know
what the odds are
until you play the game –
the chances are
– well, the house usually wins,
so it’s more of a wager
than an exchange,
a roll of the dice
in cosmic terrain.
You don’t know
until you try,
and chances are
you won’t get a chance
to try again.
But knowing
what you would know then,
what would be the chance
that you would?

Mary Padilla is interested in experimenting with using sound and sense to explore felt experience.

by Mary Padilla

You are free to say anything
to anyone
– even to me –
about anything.

You have 15 minutes.

I didn’t make it up.
I got it from a book.
No, it wrote itself.
I’m not responsible.
I don’t know what I think
until I see what I write.
It’s all been said before.
There is nothing new.
What is there to say
when you have said before
what there is to say?
I get what I like.
I like what I get.
Are they the same?
Are they not?
And then, what?
Where do we go
when we must go?
Where is there to go?
Where else?
Is there any there?
Why did we think
there might be?
Might there still be?
There might not be.
How would it be
if that were so?
When I say
what I mean,
do I mean
what I say?
Why or why not?
You must choose.
Must you choose?
Why must you choose?
Why not, indeed?
Because that is how it is.
Isn’t it?
How so?
And all this time
how could I
have thought so?
Did I ever
really
know?
No.
Did you?

Mary Padilla is interested in experimenting with using sound and sense to explore felt experience.

by Mary Padilla

Joy is what
sneaks in
through the cracks,
not something
we can plan.

It isn’t anything.
Actually that’s it –
it’s not a thing,
a concrete noun.

It’s more of a verb –
something that
just happens,
and exists only
in the moment.

It’s just a bubble
whose essence lies
in the immanence
of the “pop.”

Mary Padilla is interested in experimenting with using sound and sense to explore felt experience.

by Mary Padilla

If we’re too busy codifying,
we can’t also be improvising,
not making it up as we go along,
or being the only ones deciding.

We can’t know just what we think
until we write it down or say it.
We don’t know what it is we see
before we draw or sculpt or paint it.

We can’t know where our step will go
until we’re almost ready to take it.
We don’t know what our sound will be
before we actually begin to make it.

The only true way in for us
lies in our trying not to try,
because it represents the key
to the how that underlies the why.

Mary Padilla is interested in experimenting with using sound and sense to explore felt experience.