https://www.lushstories.com/stories/love-poems/litter.aspx
I wrote in, "First Take" in about 15 minutes. (It hasn't been re-edited and it probably should be...) It's VERY imperfect. But it HITS.
I write WELL about Lost Love, I think. (It's something most of us know a lot about!)
A LOT of people ask me, "WHO is it about?" The answer to that is really everyone and no-one, in fact. All your experiences, good and bad, shape you and remain with you in life and art.
My background as a writer of VERSE comes from a SONGWRITING perspective. I'm constantly looking for the MUSICALITY AND INHERENT RHYTHM in the actual SOUND of the words themselves. Much LESS what they mean in terms of initially putting them on the page.
Very often the MEANING of a chosen word of phrase comes LATER to my consciousness. Example: "As Cruel As A Cross..." (Because "A Cross" is surely a symbol of hope, religion, love etc...) And it is. (It's also an instrument of torture and death.) Was I CONSCIOUS of that initially? NOT A FUCKING BIT!!! I do this A LOT!!! I write the line FIRST, so it fits. (Like a jigsaw puzzle...) ONLY LATER am I aware of what I've put down.
This kind of FASCINATES me in that, more often than not, I'n UNAWARE of these kinds of nuances at the time of writing. IF I WERE AWARE OF IT, I'd be CLEVERER!!! (But I'm honestly not...)
"As Subtle As A Gunshot" is an easily understood metaphor/comparison. "As Cruel As A Cross" isn't I don't think. Which one is the cleverer phrase? The SECOND one, I'm sure. The one I DIDN'T think about. Perversely, the line, "From Freezing Pillar To Frigid Post" was a line I DID THINK about. But ACTUALLY, it's rather contrived and obvious, isn't it???
(I do LIKE the phrase "Tear About, Stumbling Like A Ghost..." because of the DUAL meaning of 'tear' AND the fake-echo of 'ghost' and 'lost'!!! Which I DID CONSIDER!!! (SMILES!)
All my life I've been surrounded by poetry, prose and music of all kinds and indeed cultures. I think in an odd way, such experience sort of SEEPS into your unconscious. You DON'T KNOW it's there but it is. It's kind of like SPEAKING A LANGUAGE, in that it has style, form and rules, but you don't THINK about those factors as you simply TALK.
I think being IRISH helps, too. As well as a HUGE oral and musical tradition stretching back centuries, we don't in fact NATURALLY THINK in English. (Now, that's a simplification but what I mean is that the STILL EXTANT echoes of the Irish language SHAPE the way we think, speak and write.) So we have to try MUCH HARDER to kind of TRANSLATE what it is we want to convey into a more UNDERSTANDABLE accepted form of PROPER ENGLISH. Invariably, even in attempting that, THOSE "IRISH" ECHOES remain.
It pleases and FRUSTRATES me in equal measure when a poem like "LITTER" seems to touch hearts. (Pleasing, for obvious reasons, FRUSTRATING because I don't know how I DID it and can't promise to do the same again!!!) *SMILES WRYLY!*
Final point. When I write SONGS, (or indeed wrote comedy for live performance...) they DEVELOP in the PERFORMING of them. It's quite an ORGANIC process, you FUCK WITH the TUNE or the line to see where it goes if you do that!!! With poetry YOU CAN'T!!! It's THERE! That's IT! You CAN re-edit, but I find, (at least with my own stuff...) the more I FIDDLE WITH IT (?) the WORSE it becomes!!!
In my earliest performances as a SINGER, I would sometimes say in intro-ing a song, "This one is about..." My GENIUS musician friend Mark took me aside and said, "NEVER tell them what YOU THINK it's about. They'll KNOW what it's about for themselves..."
XX SF