Poetry Dare: Day 10

I'm still not sure where certain poems come from.  I also think that I'd like to start doing themed weeks later on in this process so that I'm not just writing poems and not really expanding my craft.  I may do an all revision week (which will feature either poems from this process or poems I just really want to revise but haven't gotten a chance to work with) or an all one topic week (basically write about 1 theme for an entire week to see the differences which emerge).  Anyhow, that's all sort of off topic because I know you (yes, you) came here for poetry rather than to hear some mindless meandering nonsense.



And I want my students to understand
how everything is connected.
I want to tell them that
getting these connections will
help them to get their minds into the way
the world works. I want
to tell them to see how
vested interests connect
to the status quo, how
emotions connect with their fists, but
only if they're being used improperly.
I want to show them how their legs
connect with the sky
when the same legs hold
backs uncracked, hold
spine aligned, hold
head up high. I
want them to connect love
with respect rather
than bragging or
bank accounts. I need them to see
lies sometimes connect to truth but only
until we ask enough questions
to see why and how those lies
trace through the tapestries
of our history. I want
them to feel how pen
connects to page connects
to story connects to
reason for being connects
to why and I and am, that
writing your story is the greatest
gift you can give yourself because
no one else will or
they'll misinterpret your meaning, and
there is no greater sadness than
when you
are connected
to things you didn't do like
too many of them are
connected to laziness or
lack luster drive or
apathy, but these are untruths
connected to lies connected
to commonly accepted conceptions, and
this is not the story
they have to live with, this
is only truth if they accept it; this
is only them if they keep the flaws
connected without a further fight.
I want them to connect failure
with accepting someone else's
definitions
as their own.

Poetry Dare: Day 9

This poetry dare thing has been an interesting experience for sure.  Sometimes, I find myself wondering what in the world I'm going to write about whereas other times I simply don't have a problem at all.  If nothing else, this has given me an incredible amount of practice, and it has made some of my work more efficient.  For example, today's poem hits not one, not two, but three separate reasons for writing a poem: a poetry club prompt, the prompt I posted yesterday (which can be found here), and my daily poetry dare requirement.  I'd like to then conclude that this poem has the power of three poems in one, but I'll leave that to others to decide.



I have a sickness
called
heartache. Its
symptoms include sleep,
silence, food but not for sustenance, only
because I want my guts to feel less
than empty, and isolation like
alone is the one word which
understands how my heart, with
its veins like red wires,
can feel so taut and tired.

I have a sickness
called
heartache. It is
a difficult disease to manage and,
sometimes, I fall for miracles cures like
I fall for women who offer the warmth
of their bed instead of the heat of their heart. I
find myself trying fads like diets, trying
to eat my heart out like change could come
packaged and wrapped, but calories can't
create change unless they
are put to use after their ingestion; I'm
open to suggestions for how to help
manage this sickness because
it may never go away, but I've got
to find a way to live life with survival
as an understood aspect and not
the only goal.

I have a sickness
called heartache; it
takes too much away; I've
discovered
a way
to fight back
with my feet and
movement. When
travelling in a vehicle, we
inherit the same speed
that the craft around us is moving. When
flying through the skies, our
heads are in the clouds, and we
can feel distance like looking
at the earth with the eyes of clouds
allows us to understand how small every
body is; how small each heart
contained within its skin
is.

This
sickness
called heartache is
best fought with the perspective
of movement, with
feet pushing against asphalt, with
muscles set in motion to
change direction, to set a rhythm, to
move veins with the inherited speed of my feet,
to pull my pulse, to breathe deeply, to
wick away sweat like anger could be poured out and
evaporate along with loneliness. This
is the cure I've come up with for heartache:
run.

Run, not away from these problems but
towards a solution; my heart may ache, yet
I don't want it to be because I slept or
spent too much time underneath the covers
of silence. I wake to make my heart
run.

Poetry Dare: Day 8

Trying to find subjects to write about can be very difficult.  This is especially so when you're writing a new piece every day.  I may just begin writing about the exact same thing each week and see how my view on it changes with each poem.  Anyhow, in times like this, one may find it extremely helpful to have a person to offer suggestions on topics.  I have such a person, and she offered up today's topic: Jealousy.



I've never been comfortable with the way
jealousy leave my throat sore. It's
a burned tongue from drinking hot
chocolate before it has had a chance to cool.
Jealousy is a word that will not wait to cool.
It's a word that wants action - one which cries
out for it as though anger were an answer
worth using rather than a last resort. The worst
part about jealousy, though, is that it too often
comes disguised as other things like
another man's hand on your back or
the fact that I want to protect her even
though I know she's
perfectly
capable of protecting herself. Jealousy
tries to pass itself off as chivalry; I'm
trying to pass myself off as chivalrous
when I step in to make him leave his hands
by his side, but I'm
just guilty of letting my blood burn
and drinking this bitter emotion
before it's had a chance
to cool.

Poetry Dare: Day 7

Poetry is a very strange art.  I'm honestly not sure where most of it comes from.  This is certainly true of the piece which I got today.



You can choose when to leave but please
don't decide as though all
other options have no role - one
is the loneliest number, and time
never feels like it's on our side,
but that shouldn't matter - time has
no master, no absolute reason; it just
is. Like you just are. You are
what you choose to be, and
you can choose when to leave but please
don't decide right now - you are
like time; you're ever changing and
a piece of you exists outside of understanding; you
are a character drawn in
greater detail than a graph with
more than one y
intercepting perceptions as they cross
across your plane existence, you you
are not plain - you just are like
time is: a space for existence,
a force for action that
can't be taken back, and broken
things can't always be made whole; how-
ever, you've got to take comfort in that
pieces have potential because they
connect to new things in interesting ways.

Plants kept from the sun will bend toward light, let
yourself soak up sun - grow up under the shining sol;
surround yourself in others whose brightness
rivals your own - the
only reason darkness is so pervasive is
that we're afraid of the light of truth and
keep our broken pieces unfairly stuffed
in drawers or the backs of closets like
light is an addiction which we
need to quit cold turkey or have
a sponsor anytime we have the urge to smile; I
don't want to hide my light, and I'm sick of
solely apologizing for my flaws, so
embrace me. Make me whole for a moment more, and I
can hold your hands like our arms are
meant to intercept to make our y's
have no meaning anymore like these questions
no longer matter like we've grown away
from our shadows and left
them behind; I
am pieces
looking for peace; it's
not time to go, so
don't.

You can choose to leave but please
don't.
Don't go until you're called by light like
a sweet creak of your home's front door opening
after a long,
too long,
day.

Poetry Dare: Day 6

I will be the first to admit that I do not always write good poetry, but I think it's enough to know that I have tried.

So, I dance.  I swing dance, specifically.  Swing dancing is a social event where the dancing isn't indicative of attraction or the like, but it does happen sometimes that attraction will develop between partners - if not attraction then at least interest.  This puts someone like me in a strange position.  Do I ask her if she'd be interested in hanging out sometime, or do I just keep my mouth shut and enjoy the connection we already have?  There is almost nothing more awkward then dancing with someone whom you've refused to give your number to.  This awkwardness is the subject of Poetry Dare: Day 6's poem.



You asked me to dance. I
said yes because your eyes
smiled almost as brightly
as your hands which held mine like
light stayed in particle form, and
you wore it like a glove. You
have this way of letting out a
slight sigh when we dance like
you're mourning the fact that
the moment which just passed
can't be captured for more
than just a beat or two.
I admit that there are certain
dances I don't want to end
 like it's saying goodbye to a friend,
wondering when the chance will come again,
and after a year of music and
moving my feet to the beat, I
understand the value of finding
a connection like that, but
I find myself asking one question
with wonder and a bit of trepidation:
if I asked for your number,
would you stop dancing with me?

January 29 Prompt: Sick of...

Today, I'd like to present the idea of working with metaphor.

There are things in this world which get to us.  Every single person has something or other that drives him or her absolutely crazy.  I want you to tap into that idea:

Think of something that makes you feel sick.

This can be anything from that one food you absolutely love but is just bad for you; it could be politics; it could be other people and their silly eccentricities; it could be anything you want it to be.  Now, to keep this idea going: when we get sick, we have some kind of medication that we can take to help alleviate the symptoms.  So, if you get sick of hearing about politics, what do you do in order to alleviate that "sickness"? Do you talk to other people, yell at the TV, write poems, cry in a corner?

If we think about the things that annoy us as a sickness and the things we do to deal with those annoyances as medication, then we can start to build a poem/metaphor out of those ideas.

Good luck and happy writing!

Poetry Dare: Day 5

I had this idea for a poem in mind for awhile, and I finally had a chance to write it out.  I'm very interested in the habits we humans have in life.  One of those habits is nearly undying curiosity.  I think, sometimes, however, that this curiosity gets us into more trouble than it does to help us. This is problematic because we can never know with certainty what could have been if something had been different, and sometimes the word "if" is the worst word that can or could ever be.



If is the heaviest word in
the English language. There
is no way to whisper this
word under your breath without
finding an inundation of
emotions or memories or
colors connected like rainbows
are said to show the way
to a pot of gold.
But this word is not
heavy like change - it is
burdened by moments
that never came to be,
possibilities conditioned on
things out of your control.

Certainty is something that can't
be guaranteed, and if is too
often followed by then as though
the hypothetical could lead into
a consequence...
"If I had been there..."
"If I had done something..."
"If I had said anything, then..."
Then... then...
Then what?

The unknown takes over and
life never goes back, so please
just keep your eyes turned
towards the place to which your
toes point. Feet know that
certain ends can't be questioned - this
is why feet look like exclamation points and toes
can't curl into question marks -
forward is the best way feet embark.

If is the heaviest utterance in
the English language. It has a habit
of transforming those things which touch it
into unanswerable questions like "What if?" It
has this habit of transforming memories
into missed opportunities, and ifs
stick to themselves until we feel
buried by "whats" and "I don't knows"
are the only weapon we have to wield, but they
break like bones under plunging gravity -
falling doesn't crush us; the sudden stop
does.

Poetry Dare: Day 4

It was a good day. Movies and hanging out with friends. Somehow destiny got brought up.



And we become
what we've always been.

Truth is that chance
has little to do with where we end.

Actions speak louder than words
because voices too often go unheard.

whereas eyes acknowledge what
they've been told to see, so

destiny lies not with finding,
falling upon, or going into but

can only be because
we become what we do.

Poetry Dare: Day 3

I have absolutely no idea where this poem came from.  It began from the first two stanzas and then just kind of took on a life of its own.  I think that poetry is a state of constantly questioning the world.  The answers we get may not necessarily be the ones we want to find, but it's important that we keep questioning nonetheless.  Writing allows me that outlet, and I would encourage anyone feeling at a loss for words to pick up a pen or pencil and tell your story straight onto the lines in front of you.  After all, lines won't judge and your story is beautiful... And this rant reminds me of a poem of mine that a friend really likes, so I'd be quite lax in not including a link to that poem here.

A big thank you to anyone who has been checking out my dare/blog, and a big thank you to the person who made the dare in the first place, even if it was for the selfish reason of hearing a new poem of mine every day =D.  Consider this me saying "You're welcome."

But seriously, thank you to everyone for your support!




You've written another language for your story, drawn
a map but forgot the key.
I'm just trying to understand, so please
help me.

What does the sunset mean to you? Where
has the sunrise fallen? What
do you wake up to? Why
is your life calling?

Before you can answer who, you
have to find a reason to be. Sometimes
somethings get lost, but these answers
are too important to lose, so

don't loosen your grip. Who
are you? Where
do you want to be?
What makes you so
special? Why are you with me?

Questions, rather than answers, are
the way in which we explore the world because
answers are an end but questions are the means, so
forgive me for asking so many, but
I've got a wanderlust which feels
unquenchable.

I want to explore your eyes like they
lead me to the fountain of youth; I could
think of my fingertips as children running
through your hair like fields - there is
no end to the exploring and the adventures
on which we could embark; I'm
not even sure I'm asking for answers
anymore, but if you have some
you're willing to offer, I'd
be happy to sit and listen like
ancient mariners would stare
into the sky for guiding stars while
listening to the power of the ocean
as she gently whispered
against the sides of their craft
like the way your breath
washes across my chest.

Poetry Dare: Day 2

Today, I was thinking about the prompt that I posted on Monday.  The prompt can be found here.  In short, the prompt asks about freedom and what you think it is.  I'm still not completely sure.  For me, freedom is a tenuous idea.  I don't think there's any way to completely get 100% behind freedom all the time.  If such were the case, we'd move towards anarchy rather than the governance we have.  I think, while some may find this idea interesting, I do not.  I do not like the idea of total freedom...  Unless that freedom is bounded by some kind of responsibility.  This is where I run into a problem with current gun legislation and possible change.  It's as though we don't want to take responsibility for the actions these weapons allow people to commit.  I would love to see common sense legislation about guns, but I'm not sure it's going to happen...  If absolutely nothing else, I'd very much like to see responsible gun owners take a stand and agree that no one but the military really needs to have assault weapons.  I know that bad people exist, and I am all for being able to effectively defend oneself (this is why I study martial arts still), but there is a difference between self defense and making murder far too easy to commit.  I do not know all the facts, but I feel as though something needs to change otherwise we are simply living insane.

Anyhow, onto the poem:

What is the nature of freedom? I
am privy to the calls of coyotes at late night
moon serenades. Birds call their song in flight;
we take caps off bottles and
only dial numbers when we're drunk enough
to forget that we have the freedom to
raise our voice whenever we want. But
something has a bad habit of getting lost; freedom
isn't free from what they've told me, but we
are paying everything we shouldn't be in order to keep
this ideal alive. Please,
tell me why your right
to bear arms trumps
30,000 people's right to life. Please,
tell me why you're right, and
everyone else is wrong. I'm sick
of hearing dirges and conflating them
with liberty's song.

We have lost the right to casually walk
through airports, arenas, capitols, and transportation
stations unmolested by probing question attached to
gloved hands, so why must weapons remain
so easily obtained? Freedom is not attained through force.
Freedom cannot be guaranteed by bullets or anything
material - free may only be forged from the non-
quantifiable. You may have a fist full for a heart,
but it's spirit that
can't be chained, and
bullets will never be able to kill all the world's
words are the way we have to fight
injustice because men can die, but their ideals
live on. So, please,
tell me how your
bullets are enough to quell an uprising
of the spirit - it's like trying to
fire at clouds to stop them from raining -
freedom is an idea too big for bullets to bring down;
it is an ideal that only words
are big enough
to protect.



This is a piece which I would be interested in working with to see if I can get it any stronger or give more weight to some of the ideas.  I think an integral part to any craft is the ability to find both flaws and strengths in the art and diminish the former while increasing the latter - the key is to not focus too much on the flaws and realize that nothing is perfect, but flaws make something relate able.  Regardless of that, I think we need to have an open and honest discussion about many things in our society ranging from guns to mental health to the violence in our entertainment.  There is always a solution, and if art mimics life, then life must also have flaws and strengths.  We just need to diminish the former and increase the latter.  Maybe someday we'll get this thing right.

Poetry Dare: Day 1

Before I begin the poem, I wanted to say that I had an absolutely awesome day.  Very interesting to say the least with quite exciting extra-curricular activities such as hearing an amazing set of poetry from Dominique Christine, a recent Women of the World Poetry Slam champion.  She is an amazing speaker, and she definitely geeked out with a ridiculously awesome tangent about etymology and the meaning of words.  I don't think the following is directly inspired by her set, but someday I hope to have a couple pieces flowing from the great poetry which was shared.

Now onto the poem... piece... thing which was produced:
(As yet untitled - I tend to keep work untitled until its worth doing the mental gymnastics to actually come up with a name for the work).

Some people think poetry needs to be clothed in pain
as though words could take the hurt, act
like a bandaid, cover up scars, and I'm
here to tell you, yes, this is possible, but
don't let words be your only salve. If they aren't
enough, take action and use your limbs to write
what your hands can't. Hold
yourself up on sturdy legs and stand
for something greater when the pen isn't enough.
Words have a limit to their application - they
won't feed you when you're hungry; they
won't clothe you when you're naked, but they can
make your realize how hungry you've been and
tell you what may have gone missing - they, the words,
can make you comfortable with your own nakedness and
expose your flaws as the raiment of divinity.
Your words can connect you, but
only if you allow them to.
Hands can hold just as much as they
can strangle, so
be careful with what you say as
poetry doesn't need to come dressed in the rags
of your past nor the mask of your fears.

Some people think that, in order for the pen to be
as powerful as the sword, it needs to make
someone bleed, but
poetry should not be forced into fighting
unless this is what it needs to do.
Sadness doesn't need to permeate your stanzas,
but it's okay
if it does.

You may not have known the kind of dark
that other poets do, but that doesn't mean
you should apologize for trying to make light
of the life you've seen, and you don't need to go
searching for dark to understand it. You've
already pulled all nighters to watch the sun
come up, sat on a roof and hugged your knees
in place of a warm body, felt loss like it
can't be explained, and you don't need to explain
yourself because these lines will not judge.
Just like no explanation is needed to see
the beauty of a sunrise in weary eyes, you
do not need
to apologize for yourself because you
are your words; you
are poetry. You
are never finished, yet
you are a complete sentence. A subject
constantly in search of lively verbs
and their
compliments.

1/21/13 Prompt: Freedom

Today is an important day of remembrance.  One on which we ought to think back on progress which has been made and reflect on how we may be able to push our causes further.  Sometimes, however, it can be difficult to find common ground with another person, and this is where poetry comes into play.  Poetry is a way that we can create morals out of mythology; it is a method by which we can take the uncommon and make it understood.  To use a piece of a Sartre quote: "every age has circumstances which can be expressed or transcended only through poetry."  To me, this means that our language, our methods of communication are somewhat inadequate.  Poetry, in and of itself, does nothing but take the uncommon (your private experiences) and turn it into something that can be more fully understood (through use of metaphor and similes - analogies and comparisons help to make light of stories).  This is a process of telling stories - something which comes naturally yet also takes much practice to actually perfect.  Anyhow, I wanted to focus back in on a more straightforward topic: Freedom.

I think this topic is one which has gotten a lot of attention over the past month.  How much freedom should we possess?  How is that freedom granted?  Is it a paradox that freedom isn't free?  Is anything truly free?  Are we "condemned to be free"?  Or is freedom a natural gift?  Something in between?  These questions should help you start thinking about this prompt:

What does it mean to be free?

To translate this into poetical terms: Think about a situation in which you have felt free in some way or another and write about that.  What were the circumstances?  Were you alone?  Have you never felt completely free?  If you can, think of a time that can be used as a metaphor or a simile for freedom then explain why and/or how.  Take this poem to anywhere it feels like it wants to go - don't feel you need to be constrained by anything that doesn't feel necessary, and, as always, make sure you have fun!



On another note: The blog has not been updated in a few weeks due to that horribly scary thing known to many as writer's block.  However, I was dared by a friend to write a poem a day over the next few weeks... months... year.  I'm not sure I can do it, but I'm certainly willing to try.  Therefore, I would also like to take this challenge a step further and post any pieces I come up with here.  This, I think, will give me a good chance to catalog the different pieces about which I write, and it will also give me an opportunity to show how a small piece/poem can be worked through and edited or revised to bring out its potential.  The writing process, as a forewarning, is not one which is pretty.  However, the name of this blog is Life is Rumored to be Written Here, and life, as we all know, is not always pretty.  This, if nothing else, is the goal of my blog and work: to show how life can be made into art and vice versa.

I look forward to this experiment over the next few however longs.  C'est la vie.

Have fun and happy writing!

Prompt 1/1/13 : The Little Things

Well, mostly. Today, I'd like to throw out a somewhat timely prompt:

Think and write about a particular gift which you've received.

What did the gift look like?  Smell like?  Taste like?  Feel?  Sound?  Paint a picture of this gift you've been given AND let us know why this thing is so significant to you.  Is there any special meaning attached to this thing?  Has it unexpectedly grown in significance over the time during which you've owned it?  What might someone else overlook about this that you absolutely adore?

In order to help you with this, try writing 5 metaphors to help explain what this gift means to you to other people.  A metaphor can be thought of as:

Noun + State of being verb + Noun

Now, if you get stuck writing, try using one of these as a jumping off point to write your poem!

Good luck and happy writing!