Nov 17 2008
Poetry as Catharsis
The Good | Self-expression
I enjoy writing but as with most creative efforts, if I don’t have an idea and a motivation to keep me engaged through the process of seeing it come into being, I generally don’t pursue the effort.
Because of that, you’ll rarely see me participate in activities that do anything and everything to attempt to “stimulate” a different sort of idea. Yes, viewing everything in terms of bananas will have me arrive at a different painting than ever I’ve done, but does it have value?
Sometimes I just can’t help myself, though, and I’ve always secretly wanted to write out straight feelings, free-form, and try to convert or translate it into poetic language.
Last night I heard a good song in a better live performance, the lyrics of which were bizarre and twisty, maybe with their true meaning known only to the creator. It was sung so powerfully it did the job of getting me on the task of finally making good on my wish and creating such a poem. What follows is the result:
The words you left in shadow you would leave for shaded men
The gift you gave in loving me, I had hoped you’d give again
I tossed my need for comfort far, and for a second prayed
The chambers of your open heart would have their close delayed
There’s no way I can be for you what once I thought I could
For just as we have grown apart, we’re partly grown and understood
My vision locked in insight meant your care I did exclude
To live just for a dream and even then to strike a mood
Your habit’s to improve my world, and yet the catch remains
The me I want to share with you, is at top form with all those gains
Whenever in a trench I sit I’m thinking back to our own wars
Would that I could share my fears, and be an ear for yours
Prioritized are rights and wrongs, and how those get made well
My greatest tale is muted now, until when next I tell
The secret link so unexplained emerged in open air
Yet though my mind knew where it stood, my deaf heart was not there
I lay my thickest feelings on, to cover up the gaps
My deepest simply saved away, for when this fever snaps
It’s not that I don’t need you now so much as times ago
But rather you’re more welcome than I’d like for you to know
Are you a crutch? Am I made weak? You’re access to what proves
The good in me that’s good in life exists through all my moves
I’m listening to silence
And looking for your face
Better than my ears can hear
Your voice is here to fill that space
