Thursday, July 28, 2011

POEtry

We all have favorite authors that we connect to more than others. For me, it's Edgar Allan Poe.

I used to sit in class and memorize versus from Alone until I had it perfected. I think, had we lived in the same era, he and I would've been friends. I can understand his depth, his darkness. I am genuinely drawn to darker poems and I find those much easier to write as well. Something about writing it down and getting it out just makes everything seem better, no matter what it is, no matter if it's my pain or someone else's.

I used to think there had to be at least a little sadness in me to be able to write a poem and I thought that was so... so sad all in itself. Then I found this quote and I decided that I was happy for any sadness that was a part of me if it let me do the thing that I love and if it made anyone, even just one person, feel something.

A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music... and then people crowd about the poet and say to him:  "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much as to say, "May new sufferings torment your soul."  ~Soren Kierkegaard

Sometimes it's like the words appear to me out of thin air and I can see them just floating there, waiting to be put on paper. Sometimes the poem turns into a song as a tune in my head forms. Sometimes I know the last stanza before the first one has been revealed. Regardless, if there is anything I love doing with all of my heart, it's this.

It's scary, to let people see this, because some of it's like a road map to my innermost thoughts, but at the same times it's freeing. Since it's poetry, though, it's meant to be a mystery for you to solve and for you to make fit your own life story. That's what I love about it. Poetry invokes something different in everyone and none of it is wrong.

I have an entire book written that I just need to pretty-up and send out, but for now, you, my dear readers, are the one's that get to see everything. So here are some poems - happy, sad, hopeful. Long and short, old and new




All I know is What I Feel

All I know is what I feel,
And what I feel
Is real
Is real
It's here
It’s here
It’s now
It’s now
I am not lost-
I’m found
I’m found

I have not quit, I have not bled
For all I know
Is how to live
For this
For this
For now
For now
I am not lost-
I’m found
I’m found

I am not broken, am not weak
My greatest strength
To speak
To speak
For all
I love
For all
I know
I must not quit-
Have hope
Have hope


To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.  ~Robert Frost


Fight For Me

Find me.
Fight for me.
Don’t let me go.
The road is winding,
The pace is slow.
I sit here waiting.
I will not go.
So find me.
Fight for me.
Don’t let me go.


Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.  ~Carl Sandburg


Thinking, Feeling, Breathing, Hearing 

Overcrowded, overflowing
Seven million thoughts abound,
Not one moment can I sit here
Lingering where nothings found,
One more breath, one more moment
Focus, focus, fizzle out
Sounds are ruining my silence,
Thoughts of who and when and how
Sit up straighter, find the missing,
Searching out where nothing is
Everything has found me quicker,
Overwhelmed, my mind gives in



Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.  - Plato 


You Sleep When I Don't (Song)

Here I go again,
Emotions overload and then... no signs of hope again.
I'm broken,
I'm broken

I fake a smile,
It lasts a little while...I’ve fallen in denial.
I'm broken,
I'm broken


You sleep when I don’t, when I’m damaged and broken
Fighting back all the tears,
I’m choking.
I’m choking.
I muffle the cries, in the pillows at my sides
I suffocate my life in,
These moments.
These moments.
You sleep when I don’t,
When I’m damaged and broken
On my tears I am choking.
Choking.

You sleep when I don’t, when I can’t...
When I won’t.


The scientist has marched in and taken the place of the poet. But one day somebody will find the solution to the problems of the world and remember, it will be a poet, not a scientist. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright



You Can't Affect Me

You can’t affect me
I’m far too strong
I’m disconnected
From my thoughts
I lost connection
Didn’t fight
I let the darkness
Take the light
You cannot reach me
Please don’t try
I like the shadows
In my life
I like the headache
Favor pain
I prefer
The harder way
You’re not the answer
To my problem
Not my savior
For the solving
I wont give in
I’ve found the night
It’s where I find
The most delight

You can't affect me
I’m not here
I put up walls
To disappear
I left my spirit
Left my life
Left my future
All behind
You cannot reach me
Just give up
I don’t recall
A time of love
I don’t remember
Joy or peace
I broke away
From life’s long lease
You’re not the answer
To my question
Leave me here
In self division
Let me go
And let me break
For this is how
I find escape


Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality,
but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know
what it means to want to escape from these thing. - T.S. Eliot


Calm

The wind keeps blowing
The clouds are churning
The circles forming
And the dust is stirring

The storms getting forceful
It’s stronger
It’s closer

But if you take a moment
To gaze into its center
Surrounded by the madness
Is a peaceful, calm surrender


Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition- Eli Khamaro


When You Left

Through the woods and through the trees
When shadows came upon my eaves
The sky was overcast by you
In shades of purple, gray and blue

Through the darkness and the pain
Through emotions I can’t name
Swallowed whole, engulfed, submerged
In the depths of your last words

My breath quiet, shallow, thin
Until I felt a stir within
All I knew is what I’d lost
The day you made my heartbeats stop

Every smile, every moment
Everything that made me someone
All my joy was bound in you
So when you left you took that, too


To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one. - Unknown


Take me by the Hand, We’ll Walk

Take me by the hand, we’ll walk
Down the tattered path of love
Lead me into darkened woods
Teach we with your sweet, sweet words
Tell me all is right and true
Never doubt my love for you
Lie and tell me I’m okay
Tell me what you’d never say
I can't be the one you want
I am real and you are not
Leave me in this state of mind
Where I’ll convince myself I’m fine
Lead me on and cast me off
Leave me on this tattered path
I will stand here all alone
Glued to every stick and stone
Admitting now in such a game
I want a man that has no name
Gentle hands with loving touch
Words that shatter every crutch
A romance filled with zest and spice
To free me from this hollow life


A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.- Jean Cocteau


No One but Me
  
If nothing and no one
(And no one but me)
Can guide me and find me
And set myself free
If all of my worries
And all of my doubts
Would just go away
I would figure me out


Who's your favorite author?

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