As I tried to express in my last post, I haven’t felt so full of words lately. Well….perhaps that’s not strictly true – I am still as full of the churning emotions, images and longings that want to find an outlet and still wanting to write: it’s not writer’s block. It’s just that the words have surprised me by not coming out in the same way. It’s obviously good – nay, essential – to go with the creative flow. But it’s also very frustrating when you think you’ve found your métier and know what you’re doing and then you don’t again. Happens to me all the time! As they say, ‘Constant change is here to stay’ – I’d better ‘get with the programme!’
So it was back in March that I started a poetry blog with my on-line friend, Ray. He nagged me to do some ‘proper writing’ and I thought a lot of his stuff deserved a wider audience. And now… I have to admit it – I find that’s how I prefer to write. Instead of cathartic prose pouring onto the page, stories to be told, details to be carefully described, THIS happens:
Why poetry?
There are many styles of writing
These days I prefer mine concentrated,
Thick with metaphor, sometimes sickly sweet:
Forced rhymes poured into a mould
Are turned out to wobble with emotion
And glisten with colourful adjectives.
As a child I didn’t like blancmange
But these days they’ve upgraded it to crème brulée
Or pannacotta with fruit coulis on the side
.
I’d like to think my word creations can ignore the competition
See off celebrity chefs with their distinct distilled ideas
No more for me the shading in of background facts,
Longwinded detailed description of the story-teller’s art,
All fat’s been cut away to leave them lean
No space for odd extraneous thoughts
My rambling tangents so beloved before
The therapy of pouring out the soul
To exorcise, express, elucidate…
.
The kernel of the thing, the heart,
Those perfect words particularly picked
Employing discipline of mind required to choose
And wield the scalpel to remove what takes away
To prune back hard and liberate the flow
Include some private references only I can understand
Alliterate and radiate (and smile)
.
And stay alert – the country needs lerts
There you have it! I don’t even know if it makes any sense or is any good – but it is proving strangely satisfying 😉 If you want, come follow my Ray and Redhead blog – there’s more getting posted over there than here now and I can’t just keep re-blogging my poems here- it feels like cheating!
Then there’s this other thing… The funny thing about longing to escape is you don’t know which route will open up. I’ve tried memory lane and escapism and raging and travel; then there’s acceptance/resignation/depression (all mixed up together). But recently another outlet has shown itself and as Sam son remains well I seem to have the head- and heart-space to engage with it.
I suppose you’d call it altruism or philanthropy – recognising that the needs out there in the world are greater than my internal ones. Yes, of course I have known this and it has been one of the things that has held us in – along with gratitude for the many blessings we do enjoy. But now it seems to be time to take some positive action and give away… whatever I have got to give. It seems I can escape from the internal struggles by looking and moving outwards – at least for a time, at least for now.
So we have a new project for the autumn – a crazy project. And if you want to know about it, guess what? There’s another blog! Come on over to Headshave for Haiti and find out all about it. I’ll see you there… 🙂