A friend of mine HERE has been going through something of a trial... I've been TRYING to support, but we all know the limitations of website friendships in a lot of cases...
Anyway, I thought that instead of sending YOUTUBE music clips as I had been, I'd actually write him something. See below. Here's the thing... (I wrote this in as long as it takes to read...) BUT EVER SINCE I'VE BEEN CRYING MY EYES OUT!!! (And I had a GREAT day!!!)
So my question is THIS?
DOES YOUR ART EVER TAKE YOU TO PLACES THAT YOU WISH IT DIDN'T??? (Mine does...) AND LET'S BE HONEST, I'm not WILLIAM BLAKE or TS ELLIOT!!! (I'm just a wanker who writes...) Now, HONESTLY, I love the below and despite its technical MYRIAD flaws I think it has meaning and integrity but... (I wish it didn't HURT quite so much...) It's like the WRITING MUSE says, "Okay, we'll let you HAVE this one BUT we're going to CHISEL out a bit of your heart in payment..."
Now, look... EVERYONE HERE KNOWS WHAT I AM, good and, (mostly) bad, BUT I ask the question honestly of my fellow travellers... IS IT FUCKING WORTH IT???
(Like that matters... LIKE we have a choice... NOBODY EVER PUT A GUN TO MY HEAD AND SAID "WRITE!"...) Except Nicola.
I didn't TITLE this but I'll scroll down and do that NOW...
And GUYS, forgive me... (Who the FUCK else can I talk to about this if not you lot?)
*DEEPER*
"On days when friends are blue, WHATEVER can we do?
Except to message and simply say...
You today,
Me Yesterday...
And this is how we pay it back,
To MATES who supported us when WE felt attacked...
A note to say, 'I'm thinking of YOU...'
Will do.
It comes with the territory,
(The blessed curse of creativity...)
That we feel things deeper than others often do...
But they can't do what WE do...
Or YOU do, Sweet Boy...
We pay the price
It's NOT a choice
It's simply what we HAVE to do...
But ASK YOURSELF, My DARLING Fairy Boy...
Who better EVER than you?
Blue fades as the night shines and
Banished by moonlight's sunshine
You'll come back to us,
Pretty, kind and ever-true...
I am one of friendly dozens
Brothers, Sisters, Friends and Cousins
Who simply, fondly, softly,
Just LOVE YOU."
xx SF (2015)
If I am writing something that is very personal then I have to go deep into my soul to find it. But, I don't tend to go there unless something is really bothering me and I need to get it off my heart.
Usually, I just like to write fun and very upbeat things.
And your poem to your friend is absolutely lovely....
Hugs,
Mysteria
xo
All of mine are...
What a beautiful poem...so close and as the title is..deep down to..his pain
Hugs to you and your friend..and dear mysteria too
Actually, my art brings me back from places i wish i wasn't.
You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.
Art – to release the demons, defeat their infestations into the heart and soul. Liberate one self.
Of course getting into a good fist fight does all that, but writing some poetry instead will keep you out of jail.
I'm so grateful for these responses...
Many will say, (and they have a point...) that to merely talk about this kind of stuff is 'navel-gazing' at the very least... HOWEVER, the process fascinates me and if I make very gauche statements or indeed ask silly questions, it really is in an effort to understand that process.
You see, when I put a great deal of work into something, I generally get something quite good... OCCASIONALLY, the stuff just falls out and invariably it is THAT stuff that I think is genuinely beautiful... (Almost in fact as if it were written by someone else...) To be honest, that pisses me off... Because it's BEYOND anything I can call true talent or skill... It's certainly not something I can control.
I'd NEVER consider myself a tortured artist, (oh God no) could anything be more dull and boring? And I KNOW I am neither of those things... That said, I VERY OCCASIONALLY write things that move me to tears. I stress, NEVER at the point of writing, (I'm quite a technical, plodding writer...) but sometimes when I read what I end up with...
To Be Quite Clear. I AM an Egomaniac. I sincerely believe that as a writer I'm quite a fine craftsman. The point I'M TRYING to make is that I THINK my best work happens despite any craft or talent I have...
My background is mostly in bands, so I've always had at least three other guys to bounce off, discuss ideas with, to FILTER ideas indeed... It is not so as a solo writer, be it with songs, poems or prose.
So, if upon occasion I treat my fellow writers here almost as band members, (*laughs!*) in many ways that probably stems from a real insecurity about my own talent, if indeed it exists at all. In a rock band, they clap at the end!!! Indeed, live, you can FEEL the energy in what you are doing and in how it's going over. NOT SO as a WRITER and that HAUNTS me... For HOWEVER do you KNOW if it's any GOOD? (It moves ME to tears, but am I REALLY QUITE MAD???)
It is perhaps VERY (SELF) INDULGENT of me to post/discuss such things... But you know, LOOK WHERE I POST! If I can't talk to you lot, WHO THE FUCK CAN I TALK to? It HELPS ME to hear how others do it, how others HANDLE their creativity... (In every sense...)
You're my band.
xx Stephen
I don't consider myself a poet or even blacksmith hammering out verses. I do like to float out words and see how they fly. It wasn't but a couple years (maybe three) that I wouldn't even bother putting a line together. I have come to love the art prose and have discovered that there is life or death in poems, only because I feel my inner being when scratching with my Papermate.
Someone once said to me, "why not build a canoe," and so I did.
When words abandon my midnight blue
and adjectives evade my moonlit script,
I build a canoe of birch-wood bark
There upon a pond to settle,
with an oar of thought
my pen rattles.
This is a very interesting discussion.
I don't see myself as a poet and I don't know too much about it. I can't quote any big names or tell you about poetic styles or what is right or wrong. People start using fancy words and I am lost. I write what I feel and try not to think about it too much. Some poems I write, mean more than others and I leave a piece of myself on the page. I wish I could write stuff that was a bit more lighthearted and fun, but unfortunately I tend to lean against the darker emo stuff I suppose.
I am not technical and I make plenty of mistakes. I think with poetry, you can probably get away with things a little more and I think that is okay. If you start being too worried and "work" on your poem too much, I think you lose the true feeling behind it.
I write for me, not for anyone else. Like someone else mentioned, most of the stuff I write I don't even post, it goes straight to the garbage bin. For me, writing poetry is about expressing something that is inside of me that is bubbling to get out. That does not mean it’s good or will get posted, but I usually feel better once I get it out.
Steph, you wrote something that left you feeling raw and emotional because it meant something to you and you wrote it for someone and I think that makes you leave a little part of yourself in it.
Like the lovely and beautiful Avrgblkgrl said, I think we have all written stuff through tears and clenched fists and I have no doubt in my mind that intensity and passion will show itself in that poem or story.
Not everything I write will leave me feeling like I just ran an emotional marathon, but there are a couple that have left me feeling just that…
I also worry about writing the same thing over and over again and some days I feel I will never write another poem again. And maybe I won’t. If I don’t, then I am sure the things I feel will express itself in another way.
Sprite, what you said is amazing, that it brings you back from places that you wish you didn't go to. That is a beautiful thing. For me, it sometimes takes me to a place I am afraid to go, but I need to for myself.
But isn't that what art is all about? It allows ourselves to dive into a part of ourselves that we have no other way of expressing or reaching?
Most of my writing is like acting. I am someone else when I do it. It is like taking a vacation from myself.
Until a few years ago I didn't think I would ever write poetry, although poetry has been part of my life from early childhood when my mother read it to me - and I'm not talking about children's verse. That all changed a few years ago after a failed love affair that never really took off, and I found that the only way I could escape from the pain was through poetry.
Since then I have written poetry in response to deeply felt emotions, and they are therefore intimate expressions of my innermost feelings. Whether my poems have any worth I don't know, they mean something to me, and of late, the person for whom they were written. They are much harder to write than prose stories, both from an emotional and technical point of view - they may be outpourings from my heart, but writing them is also an intellectual exercise, and I like to experiment with form.
But I also suffer from a reaction after I have written something particularly challenging and intimate, so I understand your position completely my dear friend Steph. I don't claim any special emotional sensitivity for myself, that is just how I am built, and I have learned over the years to live with it. However, at times of emotional crisis I have been restored, if that is the right word, by the selfless love and caring of Elizabeth, without whom I would at times have been completely lost in the dark.
I believe that those who think that relationships formed online are only a pale shadow of those in real life are mistaken. But the deepening of my relationship with Elizabeth has happened as much because of the mutual care and support we have given each other in difficult times as for any other reason. I have already probably said too much, because our relationship is private, and no one else's business, but it is as real to us as anything in so called real life. I believe that there is no fundamental difference between loving relationships carried on through the medium of the Internet than those in past years entirely carried on through letters, and there are many example of these.
Except for school (high school and college) I've successfully written one poem (it would have been two but the second one was lost with my OS crashed.) Those who write poetry well make it look easy. Some will say writing a poem is easier than writing a story... others will say the opposite is true. For me, poetry is difficult... damn difficult. Finding the right words to covey my feelings about a given subject is a challenge. I'm sure other poets would agree.
You Steph... wrote an incredible poem for your friend. You are an amazing writer. Your talent is unmistakable.
When you put you heart into your writing... it shows.
And because everyone else is quoting something and I want to seem real smart too:
