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waking things

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So, I think I can say that the UMoB was a success… why?  Because I finally forced myself to write something in one of my books yesterday!  I generated a solid 1000 words in a scene that I had no idea about ahead of time, but that squished out like stubborn playdough from one of those playdough faucet things as I worked at it.

Then… as I was getting ready for bed last night, inspiration attacked me.  Not book related, unfortunately, but inspiration nonetheless.  Inspiration in the poetic sense where something suddenly is, and demands to be written.  This used to happen to me all the time, especially in my late teens and early 20s.  I’d often have a piece of a poem bubble up as I was falling asleep and demand to be transcribed.  Sometimes I’d do it, but more often than not I’d be lazy and want to sleep (because I was probably up too late anyway), so I wouldn’t.  Then, the next morning I’d feel this wave of loss, like something minor died (because I never, ever remembered a fragment the next morning).  It was frustrating.

Now, I have no illusions about myself being a “great” poet.  But there’s nothing I can do to deny that I am a poet in the sense that things that are not prose occasionally force themselves upon me, and sometimes my sleeping mind (as Rothfuss would call it) rears its head and shows me strange things unbidden.  Sometimes conflicting things are simultaneously true for long enough to make sense, then vanish, and seem stupid in the morning’s wakelessness.

The first one I can remember writing was in 5th grade – and it was dumb, but it was a start.  But you know… once you open the door, after that she comes and goes as she pleases.  Sorry if this all sounds pretentious, especially if you happen to think what I write is crap  (not that I think quality has much bearing on one’s state… some people are driven to write bad poetry their entire lives, I don’t think it makes them any less of a poet, just not successful/good ones :P)… but that’s how it works for me.  I generally cannot make myself write a poem.  The few times I have tried they come out noticeably worse than normal.  I can ponder, and process, and encourage… but not force.

Anyway, if you’re curious what kind of thing a non-practicing poet might churn out after half a year of inactivity  (Note that the blog format messes up the line breaks. GRRR.  Each line except the second one begins with a capital, if that helps…)….:

 

WHILE {

Some endless metal monoton(y/e) of the furnace’s verses clunking sullenly onward
stumbles into This and this trembles, sloughing years;
Nonplussed, feeding an animal

Her prophecy written in porn on lcd screens
Letters of fire framed in flesh/insteps aching of arching
Recursive vision, a moment’s curse, then gone and/cursing as it fades
The hart is elusive/but this is immortal, uncaught/
Why now-
The muse chooses to return
Her feautures etched in another’s shame
I am grown old/every time she catches me it’s/Bedtime/
The greetings of forgotten childhood lovers;
Chalk on glass as
Lightning struck here long ago
But now only rain
}

LOOP
05/03/11


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