Writers

I'm cleaning things up on my interwebs and want to "re-post" here a short reflection I wrote a few years ago.

Writers are:

• passionate, because they are fully engaged in a subject;
• considerate and friendly, because they care about others;
• playful, because they are connected to their "inner child";
• balanced, because they value diversity and differing perspectives;
• thoughtful, because they are careful thinkers and dedicated communicators;
• socially adept, because they engage, listen, and communicate skillfully;
• warm and caring, because they value people most of all;
• normal, because everyone is a writer, so they are no different;
• ordinary people, because they have the same needs and dreams;
• special, because they have found the calling to be artists of words.

I admit that all of these qualities may not be universally true and evident for everyone who writes. Everyone is a unique individual and makes different choices about how they express themselves and experience life. But I can't help but perceive that the act of writing itself must necessarily draw a person more deeply in touch with themselves, as well as with humanity.

The above statements may be the naïve notion of a young writer starting out, but I feel it is true for myself, if for no one else. And this is my motivation for writing.

Alone (written Dec. 5, 2005)

Alone

I am the man who

smiles

while his tears fall,

articulations

my foot taps, dancing

to the music

the beat of my spine

I keep you at a distance

so I can know you, face

to face

Alone, I am with you,

(I love you)

time burns and I am the ashes.

(12/5/2005)

One of my many restless nights in late 2005, I wrote this. Perhaps I'd had a fight with my partner. Perhaps I was just feeling keyed up and was thinking about my life and relationship with him. I know I was working through complex, seemingly contradictory and irreconcilable feelings (antinomy), undeniable life processes, fear of being hurt and causing hurt. I can still feel the experience very closely.

Somewhat ungrammatical and a bit asymmetrical, I probably scratched this out in the dark on the notebook I used to keep beside my bed for my journal. I see the central theme as very hopeful and life-affirming, even through the fear and pain. The last image is like a phoenix, recognizing that we are always constantly being reborn in each instant, a new (existential) self faced by totally new and novel choices: but only if we recognize that power within, the fire that burns. This is inexorable, a fire that doesn't go out but continues. It is passion and creativity, eros/searching out, constant living on the edge, living in the shadow of death. The present self is always already passing away.

I probably was feeling lonely, too, or afraid of being abandoned. My answer: I don't give up. I must not abandon myself.

Older poem: "rain song"

rain song

a faint mur-mur over the othervoice rooms,

trickle driz tric murr

soft song of a nother-world

a world of trickle-drizzle sounds

a world far from drylit place

look through clear-glass shield confirms

trickle driz tric murr

coming down with steadybeat wurrs

softandwet beads up where smooth

few dare go past safeguard doors

look at sky – not much to see

trickle driz tric murr

an ocean of grays above me

patting on the tiles – driz purr

sing until the morning sun come

(3/15/1988)

I wrote this poem for my literature class in the 8th grade. I'd dabbled in poetry starting in the 7th grade, and I was very impressed with a few poets we were reading, like Emily Dickinson, e. e. cummings, and Robert Frost.

I can see some features in this poem that make it like a song, and relate to my style as an artist: parallel, almost strophic structure with a refrain tying the three stanzas together and creating a distinct rhythm; occasional use of rhyme, but not following a strict rhyme scheme; playful running together of words to create image-phrase neologisms ("othervoice", "nother-world", "drylit", etc.). It would be interesting to try to set to music.

To me this poem doesn't relate a lot of meaningful feeling or reflection, just some images and sounds of rain and being inside on a rainy night. I think if it is very significant to me at all now it is mainly because my teachers liked it quite a bit, and I felt very self-conscious to stand out like that. I saw myself as an artist, a poet, but felt very sad at the time because that was not really an identity I felt comfortable in. I really did not want to stand out. I wanted to fit in with my age peers and have lots of friends. Needless to say, adolescence is a challenging time. In my case, I remember how I struggled with a crisis of identity mainly centered on who was I going to try to please, my parents and teachers, or my peers. (At the time it did not occur at all that I could follow my own inner voice.) Just for personal interest, I continued to write an occasional poem through high school, but by about the 11th grade had mostly stopped my creative writing. Some time after college, when I was thrown upon the reality of not caring about the kind of work I'd set myself up for, I started exploring my creative interests again.

Gentle Wind

Gentle Wind 

Tiny spider, your bones appear so slight 

that my barest breath near you comes 

over you as a hurricane of terror. 

The silk-taut line you tug and twist upon 

is invisible to my eyes, merely a 

suggestion of gossamer scaffold. 

You may now cling so tightly, and I fear 

you will fall instantly and be lost, or 

my breath draws you so close and 

you will grab my hair, burrow 

down my skin, down my back, and be lost. 

So we joust the air, my breath and you. 

Your silent twitching music of a 

one-cord harp bewitches my thoughts 

in this momentary song of emotion: 

I am suddenly in your place. I am 

this little fellow, pendulous to life. 

Dry tears touch my eyelids. I reflect. 

The artist 

blows upon the zephyr breeze of Being, 

and hopes the coming rain 

may not dissolve all. 

(6/18/2009)

Two Minus One

Two Minus One

I lived by myself in a big house with

many rooms. I'd choose each night which

big bed to sleep in, and I spent

much time in my kitchen.

Friends and neighbors came to visit, and

we had Christmas in my front room with

a big green tree, all the gifts, and

stockings by the fire.

I stirred in my slumbers, then,

and as I woke the dream veil parted:

I saw how this could soon be my life,

is my life now, and felt a comfort.

In my house I have many rooms. Some

I choose to spend my time in, while

others I leave aside with the door open,

as I may need them later.

In my dream it was only me in this

big house. In my dream I could wander

as I may, exploring, finding the space

I needed in order to be myself.

And as each night I found a new bed,

pulled up fresh covers and opened up

the window to the night air,

I was not lonely in my house.

(6/4/2009)

One

One 

I am fire 

and the sun, 

and the cold, deep ocean water. 

I am the meadow lark's song. 

I am ash 

and the rain, 

and the dark, starless night. 

I am the color of clay. 

I am before 

and right now, 

and the middle of a blink. 

I am the story and the teller, 

and always already awake. 

(6/1/2009)