Poem for Growing 2019

For Poetry's Sake

These Violent Delights

She will drop madness from a pen. 

And from this loss, these ashes,

Softly springs

A twining vine - a growing thing

Green above the deadened mulch of soil

In Care's dim glow, unsolved

And falling slow

A gardener she becomes

Bent low and coaxing daily from illusion

Realities to glitter sharply in fresh suns

"Death be not proud."  You -

were not bright, but sudden gone,

Though bitter tastes the air behind your wake.

The mourner's song floats low among the trees 

A brown leaf journeys to the ground. 

The great dream heavy lies

Crumbling visage of stone on sand - 

      god no more. And in his crown

A worm crawls 'round,

Feeding on the insane root unseen.

Stories, Poems, and Devotions. Oh MY!

I restarted this blog thing a while ago because I wanted to write devotionals, based on the Bible, with substance. What is a devotional, you might say? Yes, it is a word from the "Christianese" dictionary. It is simply a written or spoken mini-sermon, a short message that is meant to encourage, instruct, or challenge believers in God. My hope was to write devotionals unlike many I had tried to use in the past, especially with young people -- so many were trite and fluffy and trying really hard to be cool.

The thing with me is I never have to try to be cool because I simply am - Cool. (snort, smerp, chortle, simper, cough!)

Today I am battling a lovely lung infection or whatever, it makes me weak, tired, and my breathing is shallow and my heart is beating a little too fast. Now, don't be alarmed, I'm quite sure it's not pneumonia. I know, because I've had THAT thing twice. Which is why what for some people is a run-of-the-mill cold or flu, for me can be actually debilitating.

All That To Say.....

I noticed I haven't been writing devotionals lately. First, I'm in a bit of spiritual rut. A low point. Kind of muddy and well, low. Have I lost my faith? Oh no, not at all. I've been in these ruts before. It takes some serious horsepower to blast out of one, sometimes, and I haven't got the jam. Trouble is, the longer you stay in a rut, the deeper it gets, sometimes. If you could experience the Spring road conditions in Alberta right now you would know how appropriate this imagery is!

Second, I'm distracted by thinking up and writing stories. Plot lines and characters pop into my mind all the live-long day; it's like living in a parallel universe. The writing is going slowly as I feel discouraged a lot of the time, thinking that it's all garbage. It may very well be. The last thing I want is someone to read it and say, "Wow, yeah, amazing! I'm enthralled, really, I am!" while inside they are thinking "What-on-earth-was-that-even-about??" As in when a child shows you a painting and you rave and rave, it's beautiful! A pretty red flower on the hillside! but actually it's a helicopter filled with zombies that are spurting out red blood as they devour the passengers.... awkward....


The trouble with the stories I want to write is I have to be dead before they are published. The situations I want to write about would be too real, too obvious. It's a no-win situation! The proverbial Rock and Hard Place that my little ideas are stuck between.
I know how writers do it, they stick the character in but change the name, the age, even the gender, and then have them do the idiotic things that another heavily disguised character loathes and exposes.

For example, say a person you know lives in complete denial of an obvious problem. Let's stay very general, no reading between the lines, I'm actually not thinking of anything or anyone. Well, you change the problem, you change the person, but you take enormous delight in having them deal with it, vicariously through another character. A writer can even take a modern issue and transfer it, say, a few hundred years backward to the French Revolution, and deal with it there. Or take a hypothetical situation and thrust it forward fifty-odd years. What would the world be like, IF? Take Orwell's 1984.

The other writing I do is poems. Also rather obvious. Now I know why Emily Dickinson hid all her poetry in the dresser. No one needs to know how crazy I actually am! So what is the point of writing them, you ask? It's like condensed feeling. Like putting oranges, bananas, pineapples, mangos, and apples into the juicer, and all the pulp and peelings and unnecessary, fruity trappings are left in the bag and you have.... a small glass of pure flavor.  Writing a poem is like letting some air out of a too-full balloon, like hugging someone you love but haven't seen in a long time, like a loud laugh outside after a 4-hour silent examination in a stuffy room.  It has to be done. It brings relief. Simile number four...it's like exposing a festering, painful wound at last to open air and clean water.
Regardless of the readership, poems get written.

I've wondered if I should have three blogs,  Devotions, Stories, and Poetry. Maybe in future, if I keep this up. I don't think I'm brave enough, though, for the Stories and Poems. Maybe that's a good thing.

Metacognition on a Saturday

Thinking about the last post. Reading over the poem in progress about Selfishness ... it's DEPRESSING! Yeah!
Funny thing I've noticed about poetry, writing or reading. It means so much in a certain frame of mind. Writing it expunges whatever violent emotion is clamoring at the gates. Reading the right poem sometimes can help you FEEL, when you're numb. Or give some shape to a nebulous but powerful feeling or idea, like nostalgia or unrequited love.

But today, said selfishness poem means not a great deal, I can't even recover the feeling. I know I need to hack and slash and save the good parts, but not today.  So while I'm waiting to be inspired again, here is something else I wrote. This one is from a long time ago. It's a short one. Length is unnecessary when you've said what you have to say.  

Control

 

If I looked you straight in the eyes,

their golden light would ignite my insides.

That much electricity

cannot be good for me.

Nations, rockets, have been launched with less fire.

Desire has never cured desire.

 

Selfishness Poem and...New Version

So... seems I'm writing about sins this year, jealousy et al. A bit strange, and yet a person seizes upon any inspiration and wrings it out. This one is new, recent, like today October 25, 2012.

i've had a picture in my mind. This image of someone in an impressive gallery looking at a painting by a master, expecting perfection and wonder and being shocked by the ugliness and blackness of a noxious mold seeping through and destroying it. It's not clear whether the mold is real or imagined. Is it on the painting, or is it in the mind of the viewer?

Or the mind of the poet, or the reader...I thought it would be interesting to open up the process, as in explaining some of where the idea took root and watching where it branches off to, through a poem like this that is raw and unfinished.

I'm still evaluating everything.
Punctuation, or not. Title, or not.
Placement and selection of words...haven't spent enough time finding just the right word to give the level of suspense and shock I'm after.

And so if you have any thoughts or ideas or comments, please, speak your mind!
What image do you see when you encounter selfishness, in yourself or others?
It's a universal and inescapable problem. Anyone who says anything else is selling something. 

Selfishness

Oozes like creeping black mould on a masterpiece.

You take a step closer to an ancient Renaissance,

a small smile of wonder.

Hues, dabs, streaks, plays of light, all strokes of genius!

Priceless.

Up close and inspecting your smile fades,

Gradually…

a frown gives way to fright –

Grim and dreadful.

And the suspected pestilence grows

Noticeable to your wide and blameless eyes

The darkest spot just shadows

Wasn’t it, now spilling like ink through parchment

Stained through.

 

A speck of infection renders beauty undone

The love tainted, the honour wasted

Mother hated daughter jaded photos faded

 

We survive and pretend it doesn’t exist, the picture is perfect

And smile and smile and crumble inside

Our motives are true and our hearts are, too

I don’t see yours, and you don’t see mine

And using each other, all of the time.


                 (THAT was the original. This is the 
              current version. Which do you like better?)

 

Selfishness

Oozes

creeping black mould on a masterpiece.

Italian Renaissance,

Oh smile of wonder.

Hues, dabs, plays of light, strokes of genius!

 

Inspecting – coming closer.

Mouth corners fall,

frown gives way to fright

at the grim real.

A suspect pestilence grows darker

Before the wide and blameless eyes

The blackest spots were shadows,

Now—

 spilling like ink through parchment –

Stained through.

A speck of infection renders beauty undone

love tainted, valor wasted

daughter jaded, photos faded.

We survive, we pretend, the picture is perfect,

And smile and smile and crumble inside.

Our motives are true and our hearts are, too

I don’t see yours, and you don’t see mine

But using each other, all of the time.