In Praise of the Pen

 

THE PEN

Take a pen in your uncertain fingers.

Trust, and be assured

That the whole world is a sky-blue butterfly

And words are the nets to capture it.

–Muhammad al-Ghuzzi, Tunisia .

(Translated by May Jayyusi and John Heath-Stubbs)

 

Blooms, Booms, and Secret Rooms

It wasn’t too many years ago that I really took my poetry seriously. For me, writing poetry was just something I did; something on which I eagerly spent some of my free time.  Over the years, writing poetry has become something I run to do….I have bursts of ideas, urges to stop, drop, and write it down…… and plenty of human condition to work through.  Writing poetry permits me to do just that.

I recently came across a cool way to understand what I do.  I will refer to Allan Wolf in his book, Immersed in Verse. He has cleverly coined Blooms, Booms, and Secret Rooms as his analogy of what happens to poets; what happens to me!

‘Poems are everywhere.  They lurk at your elbow, waiting for you to discover them. The bloom is what catches the poet’s eye. The boom is what explodes in the poet’s mind. The secret room, with its magnificent views, exists in the poet’s heart.’  How beautifully said Mr. Wolf!!

At the moment I am flooded with blooms.  Life has its way of nudging gently or forcing us mercilessly over those often slippery stepping stones which lead the way across our occasionally turbulent rivers. The rivers that demand human condition on each of their tiny ripples, swells, and every one of their white caps.  I am on the top of a white cap at the moment. In fact, I am  learning more about my human condition than I had ever thought to have done.

 

 

Linguistic Lament

Lately, the writing on the wall

Has decided to stop whispering its messages of

Inspiration. Of care. Of caution.

Recently, the writing on the wall

Shouts its words with a darkened breath

Read! Listen! N-O-T-I-C-E !

Somehow, the writing on the wall

No longer takes gentle pauses between its words

For perceptions have changed; meanings have shifted

The pauses no longer give ‘think time’

The phrases and expletives race to wake me up at cock’s crow

To tell me that I misunderstood.  I misread. I mistook.

Morphemes have are now confusing phonemes

New messages have changed my p.o.v.

The present is bombarded by loud and painful thoughts

I’m being lured by my beckoning future.

I can’t manage my blooms-I avoid all the booms

‘No Vacancy’ in my secret room!