There was an emotion that started all this. Maybe a long time ago, I can’t quite recall, or maybe just a few moments ago. I forget to make note, I just know there was a feeling of wanting more out of life that lead me to words. I know that I wanted to see the dark and the light, the ugly and the shining, the dirty and the clear of this life. If there was something graspable, something that I knew I wanted to hang onto, then that’s the emotion that has lead me here. Because there is so much crap, too much crap all around. We kick the empty can on the street and have become too accustomed to the derelict sights of the inner cities to ever notice the gap that is coming between us.
When nobody cares is when all things fall apart. When those who could make a change choose to live for the now is when small things show cracks in the ceiling. When I feel I have become powerless and indifferent by the challenges of this world is when I feel I need to remind myself of the most essential emotion that lead me to begin writing all those years ago. Because once the words had found me, I could only succumb. Their power, much greater than the power I can ever comprehend. And the Truth sometimes surfaces in the most hidden lines of my writing, without me knowing, surprising the unsuspecting reader with a phrase that will stick and will haunt until it has the power.
On a hot day I will sit with my skin bare, listening to the simplest magic of a few words and a few musical notes and I will be inspired to cut through the fog and haze and reach deep down for that hidden emotion that started everything. As long as I can find that and through that justify what it means to be a writer without anything to write or a lover without anyone to love, then I can safely create that dream without anyone ever knowing the truth.
Let’s take a bow together and vow that from now on the emotion that has kept us captive will continue to inspire, on even the dullest and most hopeless of days.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Potpourri
If ever you were wondering how hard it would be to slowly dance across a burning room, then you wondered enough about the pointless allegories of life. For life, a mere mirage of ideals and dreams, a recluse for those who believe that there can be such a thing as the realisation of morbid, unearthly, irreplaceable, unattainable goals: a fortress of unsavoury hopes and adorations. Then you find out that there is little more than a year left. Or maybe that year will soon be reduced to a sum of only a few of its months. Perspective changes with each hour passing. There is no more need for courtesy or regret. This is happening to me, to someone close; to someone I should feel close to. But even if it happens to the most irrelevant person, that hymn should not be forgotten solely for the reasons of irrelevancy.
For forty years I have lived a loveless life, without meaning or tenderness. Save, just save a lovely minute of your time for me. I will promise to cherish that dear moment for all eternity. For now I know what time means. You, the beholder of eternity, and me, and how no other can threaten the sovereignty of the magnificent dream. Even if you appear in a glowing white robe, just a silhouette on the distant horizon, I will hold you close to my heart and whisper words like love. You may see the purest of emotions appear on my tired face. The bones sharp and brittle, old and used through the wondrous years of an elusive life. But as of yet, I have not had a chance to weep.
And this, this is a one page poem with no rhyme or structure other than strands of thoughts that run through my mind. But there was an emotion that started this non-poem, started everything. I clearly recall how helpless I felt, how frustrated and how useless. How wondrous I thought the journey home was. How easy it was to love and how painfully difficult it was to be loved. Reciprocity lost interest, a long time ago. And with that, no story got ever fully told.
Who could dispute the obvious? He says there is no way that I can compete with the other woman. So I draw stick figures in the sand, on the paper and imagine my life in only two dimensions. There is the dimension of me and the dimension of what I imagine to be. But I stay earnest in my efforts to convince myself that alone is what leaves me thriving, happy, inspired. Let’s leave tonight with the hard earned conviction that what’s ahead is something to look forward to and what’s behind is nothing but an empty collection of minutes deemed significant. I may even find someone who will make me enter the world of three dimensions.
For forty years I have lived a loveless life, without meaning or tenderness. Save, just save a lovely minute of your time for me. I will promise to cherish that dear moment for all eternity. For now I know what time means. You, the beholder of eternity, and me, and how no other can threaten the sovereignty of the magnificent dream. Even if you appear in a glowing white robe, just a silhouette on the distant horizon, I will hold you close to my heart and whisper words like love. You may see the purest of emotions appear on my tired face. The bones sharp and brittle, old and used through the wondrous years of an elusive life. But as of yet, I have not had a chance to weep.
And this, this is a one page poem with no rhyme or structure other than strands of thoughts that run through my mind. But there was an emotion that started this non-poem, started everything. I clearly recall how helpless I felt, how frustrated and how useless. How wondrous I thought the journey home was. How easy it was to love and how painfully difficult it was to be loved. Reciprocity lost interest, a long time ago. And with that, no story got ever fully told.
Who could dispute the obvious? He says there is no way that I can compete with the other woman. So I draw stick figures in the sand, on the paper and imagine my life in only two dimensions. There is the dimension of me and the dimension of what I imagine to be. But I stay earnest in my efforts to convince myself that alone is what leaves me thriving, happy, inspired. Let’s leave tonight with the hard earned conviction that what’s ahead is something to look forward to and what’s behind is nothing but an empty collection of minutes deemed significant. I may even find someone who will make me enter the world of three dimensions.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
What's up?
Please don't ask me that. When you raise your pen and gently roll its tip on the paper and circle the line "what's up?", then that's a question that needs to be answered. But my reply would be lost among the many hopeless hearts, aimlessly wandering in the dark night. So I keep it to myself, better to just whisper it when nobody can hear. "I'm doing all right, just confused sometimes."
There are lots of good plants growing, blooming, oozing their balsamic scents, sweetening the air around them. They are picked one by one. Torn from their stems, from the branches. They happily fall into the sack, then lay spread out on the canvas, waiting to be cut into exact pieces. They will dry and give their power from nature to someone who waits instant remedy. "We're herbs" and they're proudly singing with the birds. We're waiting for the hands to pick us from this tree. We want to travel in the sack, we want to be spread on the canvas, to be dried by the warm air of the attic and stay still in the cup and let the water dissolve all the goodness. We want to bring relief. I know.
"How has your day been?", but we used to walk past each other every single day. You remember what I have erased from my memory because it seemed unimportant. Now I'm faced with you and having to explain where you've disappeared to. I'm sorry, it all seemed too unimportant to record. Maybe if I had kept my eyes more open. Maybe if when I was 13 I could have been 25. Real importance rarely finds me in the now and regret travels much the same road as realisation does with me. If I was to write a poem, your name would be its title. Can that make up for the lost time? A piece of me has been lost to the endless history of childhood.
The story tells of a card that has traveled the world twice. It saw very little apart from the back of another card which read:
From
Mrs Jill Willows
34 Cone Drive
Surrough
OL2 6YF
Only when the light broke through the seams of the Royal Mail bag could the card read the exact address. It never learnt where that other card was heading. It was happy traveling by its side, in silence, in oblivion to when their journey together would end. That was a secret in their relationship neither felt needed to know. They lived for the now and knew that they were moving closer to their destination with every black second gone. The card felt proud of its poppies, bending in the wind on its front. Nobody but the recipient would see that. This made the card feel special, unmoved by the futility of its journey through the busy streets of the suburbs back to where it was posted from. It wanted its sender to quickly lick those naughty little stamps and affix them to its free corner so it could start its journey anew. "I'M TRAVELING THE WORLD" and with that enormous shout it fell into the bottom of yet another grey Royal Mail bag. It never stopped until it came home. My hands ripped the envelope and marvelled at the poppies on its front. It's home now, it arrived from home and traveled the world twice to see its brand new home.
There are lots of good plants growing, blooming, oozing their balsamic scents, sweetening the air around them. They are picked one by one. Torn from their stems, from the branches. They happily fall into the sack, then lay spread out on the canvas, waiting to be cut into exact pieces. They will dry and give their power from nature to someone who waits instant remedy. "We're herbs" and they're proudly singing with the birds. We're waiting for the hands to pick us from this tree. We want to travel in the sack, we want to be spread on the canvas, to be dried by the warm air of the attic and stay still in the cup and let the water dissolve all the goodness. We want to bring relief. I know.
"How has your day been?", but we used to walk past each other every single day. You remember what I have erased from my memory because it seemed unimportant. Now I'm faced with you and having to explain where you've disappeared to. I'm sorry, it all seemed too unimportant to record. Maybe if I had kept my eyes more open. Maybe if when I was 13 I could have been 25. Real importance rarely finds me in the now and regret travels much the same road as realisation does with me. If I was to write a poem, your name would be its title. Can that make up for the lost time? A piece of me has been lost to the endless history of childhood.
The story tells of a card that has traveled the world twice. It saw very little apart from the back of another card which read:
From
Mrs Jill Willows
34 Cone Drive
Surrough
OL2 6YF
Only when the light broke through the seams of the Royal Mail bag could the card read the exact address. It never learnt where that other card was heading. It was happy traveling by its side, in silence, in oblivion to when their journey together would end. That was a secret in their relationship neither felt needed to know. They lived for the now and knew that they were moving closer to their destination with every black second gone. The card felt proud of its poppies, bending in the wind on its front. Nobody but the recipient would see that. This made the card feel special, unmoved by the futility of its journey through the busy streets of the suburbs back to where it was posted from. It wanted its sender to quickly lick those naughty little stamps and affix them to its free corner so it could start its journey anew. "I'M TRAVELING THE WORLD" and with that enormous shout it fell into the bottom of yet another grey Royal Mail bag. It never stopped until it came home. My hands ripped the envelope and marvelled at the poppies on its front. It's home now, it arrived from home and traveled the world twice to see its brand new home.
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