Sunday, May 3, 2009

Feeling Gray, Ode To Walmart

This first poem I know was inspired by the number of winter days, by the snow on the ground still, because there was so much of it this year for our neck of the woods.

I need to say, when I have poems coming, and this was a big poem day, there is a joy underneath whatever is coming out as print on screen, just like there is with sad songs...and I play them too. First there is for the player, for the writer, at least for this writer, because they are works of the moment, first there is the joy that I can effing DO this. It's working. I have had the intuitive hit, "Here's a poem!". Then its, "Look at that! These lines are just going together like that!"
and finally it's, "Wow, only two places did I struggle even a little." and the poem is done in fifteen minutes...

That's when I look at it and say, "Huh. That's kind of sad." or whatever. While I am doing the poem, I am not saying to myself, "I am sad and want to write a sad one." That's just not how it goes, not in the writing.

I have seen art and photography like this and wanted to see if I could make a poem do it.

Feeling Gray

If I were to draw
Inside my mind, bring it out,
You would overlook
The piece, and go on
To something more colorful,
More in the moment,
More true to the church
Of what's happening right now.
It would be all gray,

With one color added in
Off to one corner.

December 31, 2008 10:19 AM

********************************

This next poem is an economic statement

Ode To WalMart

My mind is unhinged,
Slashed from my brain's outpouring
Neurochemistry.
My head sparks and sparks
Great flashes of light reaching
Toward my thinking
While it recedes, fades
Into the further reaches
Of disembodied
Life, of odd freedom.

I will go shopping today,
Mindless to WalMart.

December 31, 2008 10:32 AM

I want to say, what a perfect 5 syllable line "neurochemistry" is. I never guessed I would ever use that word in a poem :) I know you can't write poetry like I do without wierd neurochemistry. My friend Rachel seems to have herself wired oddly too :) There might be one or two others out there ;0) Jung wrote of the four primary functions, Thinking, Feeling, Sensation, Intuition. In that sense, I am sure you can't do or understand poetry without intuition. Intellectual poetry sucks. Ooops. Just my opinion...

12 comments:

  1. yes, i have a grey mind sometimes too xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. gray
    has got a secret ray...
    when discovered,
    it'll shine for aye...
    so
    just
    rain
    .
    .
    .
    so
    just
    rain
    .
    .
    .

    ReplyDelete
  3. You don't know how I wish poetry came to me as it does to you and RW and several others who seem to think in poetry. Instead, for me, it's a labor -- but truly a labor of love. Part of what I love about writing poetry is the playing with the words, trying this, trying that, changing and moving and finally feeling satisfied with a phrase.

    I've always thought of Coleridge's summary: "Prose is words in their best order; poetry is the best words in their best order."

    "Neurochemistry" is a great word!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lisa! Long time no comment...good to have you here.

    HB, thank you for your lovely poem.

    Karen, I wish I could read music like that. I ache when I see really good sight readers sit down and do the music. There is something about it that completely stops me at the most elementary level.

    I don't know if neurochemistry is a great word. I like weird better. Just wish I could spel it.

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  5. Christopher, for some reason I thought the WalMart one had something to do with me, just seeing your title. Weird...

    That thing you are describing, before going to Walmart, I used to get high to get that feeling, as a teenager. Then I'd maybe go to 7-11 with a posse of friends, get some snacks, and it felt so surreal. I don't need to get high anymore. I'm just weird all the time. ;)

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  6. I thought Walmart had something to do with Rachel too:)

    We have a lot of grey days here...I know that grey feeling inside my head...sometimes I shut my eyes and pretend really hard that my face is turned toward the sun...I have gotten good at this and really do "see" the light inside my eyelids:)

    Intellectual poetry:D My brother often wrote a lot of intellectual poetry and most of it I just couldn't read!! Now he is writing from his gut it seems...much more accessible (a bit messier too).

    My husband is a town planner -- We have a running joke that I am not allowed to shop at a Walmart unless it is in a downtown district (there are not many that fit that bill):)

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  7. P.S. I love the line "my mind is unhinged" I have been using the word unhinged a lot recently here at home. I really do feel "unhinged" so often but it isn't so bad:)

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  8. I also thought of the Walmart/Rachel connection. I loved hearing your process.

    I think sometimes looking at those gray paintings is magical, especially if all the color was off to one side. It would draw me in...make me wonder why.

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  9. Cat, I don't think the actual process is really definable because it really does vary. I have written a sad poem because I wanted to before. It is just that in the last year my poetry has been coming from the "not me" place in me, and so I grab inspiration and perhaps a first phrase, and then the rest is formed out of poetic flow. Then near the end it is turned back to me for editing or finalizing the last lines. That's why I can write so quickly...if I have to struggle I simply stop.

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  10. Ghost, the grays and I have an agreement, hammered out on my last ftl voyage around Betelgeuse (sight seeing). I would tell you what it is, but...you know the rest. :)

    ReplyDelete

The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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