Ramblings of a Happy Land

Don't ever, NO Never get up in the middle of a mindset. When you are writing and it is flowing, don't interrupt the flow.

So what to do when you are in the fully flowing river of the muse, herself, and class is upon you? I had to stop immediately and go to class. And I swear it was the worst coming back afterward to being again. I felt like I was amidst choppy waves, tossing me every which way but where I thought I needed to go. The flow was harder to come by. The river had slowed considerably once I returned. Oh the horrible wretched inconsistent flow of the muse. Darn her! You are so consternating!

I'm working on my list of favorite and most delight-some words. Can you guess any of them that I've come across in my reading that I suddenly find a space for? I'm a hoarder of words. Let me tell you.

I used to have this notebook that I filled with my favorite words. Somewhere along the way it went missing. So my goal is to get it back and simply refill another page with them. Page after page after page of glorious words.

I am obsessed. Clearly. But if you try to give me an intervention, I shall brain you with Oxford's dictionary. Try me.

In the meantime, here is more laughable and somewhat promising poetry from me. Remember all the poems, save the last are simply warm-up poems. And please understand that most of my aims are to play with words, with images, with surprises unexpected, and the overall craft. I am crawling out of my darkness and into the light, but I still have some dark humor. Take it as you will:

Within

“A travesty!” I

Announce. “A travesty

Behest!” No one speaks

Nor writes like such any longer.

“The shame, ‘tis the shame

Of us all!” I cry

Mightily within my heart.

But it’s locked

Away in the closet

the corner closet within

a box within

A safe within

A blackened tiny space within

A room within

A room within

The closet of my heart.

And ne’er will I divulge such whimsy

To the world at large.

But to you

I may just

Someone tie the rope just right

Someone tie the rope just right

The noose is loose

Now too tight

You must be joking at the sight

of this knot

I know knots and

You know not

The pain and sorrow of such sloppy work

Simply won’t do with all that effort

Do it now and do it right

Someone tie the rope just right!

So I can hang myself.

Unnamed

I won’t give you the rhyme

You seek you see

I don’t like rhyming, it’s kitschy and bland

All the writers sound alike

When they rhyme

And I lose all meaning in such light

Playfulness and fondness

Especially when the darker ones

Rhyme and tip the boat too far

Into rhyming and I want nothing more

Than to plunge that author further

Into the darkness

They seem to know so well

And ask if rhyming exists

In such a great and deep abyss.

Unnamed

Poetry is easy for me

Perhaps not you but all my words

When flowing like water over the falls

Comes naturally easily,

Little work at all.

But when I drift slowly,

Eroding the sandy rocks below

Etching and carving my words into stone

I’m carrying bloated wood, a dead crow.

The dam is built, the drops ensnared

Algal is coming to murder us all

So set my voice upon a hill

And watch it run gloriously down

without stagnation

Watch in me for the sky above

As I work to create the image of the heavens.

This week's writing assignment was as follows:

1.    Write two versions of a mixed feelings poem (about the same topic, think differences in tone and mood like "The Bells")

Note: He is referring to Edgar Allan Poe's The Bells. Take time to read if you have not. It's longer than short, but Poe is always worth the time, if not the shiver up your spine. Below is my take on the project. Needs work, but I think it is definitely a start:

A Day With Rain

A cool amber day

Turns foul and moody grey

sky kisses from a dead fish

black oil and last month’s dust

invading the taste of breakfast

stooped leaves on

mom’s tomatoes over

a somber pool that grows

like a silent figure over Owl Creek

hastening my steps to the bus

A day that ceases to end

As the sky just rends

Rends and Rends and Rends

With Rain

O Rain

O Wretched Wrothful Rain

Everywhere and everything is cold slicing rain

Rain will cease to end or end or end

Rain Just rain

Rain and Rain and Rain

Rain and Rain and rain

Rain Just Rain

Do not end or end or end

Everywhere and everything is cool shining rain

O Pattering Puddling Rain

O Rain

With Rain

Lends and Lends and Lends

A sky that just lends

A day I don’t want to end

Hastening my steps to the lot

A gleeful sprite in a spring-rain creek

Wishful puddles that flower

Her innocent daughter’s smile

In a joyful stomping hour

The invading taste of life

Earth and grass, a voltaic cologne

Enraptured frolic, bare and alive

Turns a foul and moody grey

Into an amber day

This poem's title is an homage to Enya's album A Day Without Rain in which exists my favorite song called Wild Child. The poem itself is a nice juxtaposition between today and how I felt about the rain versus a specific time when I was at camp (yes I was about 16, I believe) and it was just storming crazily outside. I was watching it and was just in awe of the rain, so I decided to go out and dance in it. So CD player tucked in my pants with Enya's album loaded up, I went out and danced in the rain for probably a good half hour to an hour, by myself, completely alone without eyes. I danced and jumped and frolicked in that rain and I cannot remember feeling happier about a single moment or time in my life that included simply me, existing in the world and being all that I am. 

I'm hoping this endeavor I am taking on will bring it all back. Leastways, that's my true goal. Where do I see myself in 5 or 10 years Mr. Faculty Mentor and Advisor? Happy. That's where. Enraptured. Frolicking with glee. Fully clothed, of course.

Word Vomit - Of Sorts

See below for my latest work. It is all poetry as that is our current focus in my writing course. It is available for a limited time only. The previous post highlights how I write and prepare to write for the day. Enjoy!

Currently Unnamed

Pop! Goes the winter storm

Frosting the town below

That sits astride an icing lake

A crafted bridge’s milieu.

Sprinkles of green conifers

white marzipan lights, garnishing

homes that brilliantly illumine

those subtle sugar windows.

Frozen dew - gelatin encasing delicate trees

The drifts of tasty snow

Piped rooftops in nature’s buttercream

Excite my innocent hunger.

At last the artist’s final touch -

And moving from a powdered sugar sky

Morning reveals soft limelight

Silent awe, to the delicious delight of the town.

Alone Should Not Be Me

Somehow I watched the wanderer

Wishing he were me

The aimless direction of his path

Seemed alluring to see

If I lost my way upon the sea

I’d have a direction to seek

Though lost I’d not wander aimlessly

As I have someplace to be

His feet shuffled freely

Eyes dwelling long upon things

Seeming content in his fruitless pace

I wished it to be me

To take a road less travelled by

Would be quite heavenly

I’d take my pack upon my back

And let my feet go free.

I’d say goodbye get on a plane

A bus, a train, or just run

I’d walk upon every place on earth

But did I wish this thing for me?

Then I thought of losing love

Of having to be on my own

It seemed to me in order to be free

I’d have to be alone.

A path has direction

Matter not the aimless walk

And suddenly I understood

Alone should not be me.

The heavy footsteps of the man

Felt sad instead of free

It must not be to wander so aimless

All alone and lost – should not be.

The road less traveled can be free

But one must never walk alone

Take a friend or family, even abroad

One must need a home.

Opposites

Sometimes you take the hit
to achieve the victory
You feel death
To know what it is to live
And you fall
To understand why you rise
An angry spurn
Can blossom from it, redemption
Losing your way
Discovers the path
But in the end, my dear, you shall see
It has been meant to be your beginning.


This last one was my actual writing assignment.  The others were my warm ups and word vomit of sorts in preparation of this particular poem. The instructions were thus: Write a poem featuring at least 15 words that are pleasing to you. Your goal will be to celebrate the beauty and pleasure of these words (there is reference to a poem we read in our previous reading assignments, but I did not use it while I wrote as I had a fairly good idea of what I wanted to achieve). The length of this poem should be at least 15 lines, but not exceed 30:

My own little dribble

I imagine one would ask

To see inside my head. Here are various words

One might venture are written

amidst the walls in my universe:

Tangible cerulean gossamer illumines

the swift autumnal breeze

Arithmetic, enigmatic, on a languid palomino

What a texture, or a shape, the shadow it creates

Slake the emblem! Elaborate!

Now delicate partake:

Pneumococcal hemophilia

Of a misanthrope may be best.

Pianissimo pizzicato

Now allegretto crescendo

And on to, who do I know?

Artemis and her hunting bow,

Aristotle, Sophocles:

Antigone, his creation. Erasmus

Snow, Socrates, Monet and Degas,

For show.

An ebb and flounder, in colloquial lilt ‘tis not,

Now a mighty decrescendo

Into lunar-soft reflection of the lush ether

Staring at the Blank Page

If you take a writing class, here is a tip from me. Don't ever start your assignments cold. Like exercising, you need to warm up. Stretch those little writing brain muscles. You want them to build up strong, not snap and go insane. Save your sanity. Start writing nothingness, or horribly, or for fun. If music helps, bring on the music. If silence helps, either soundproof your room and your ears, or go to the library. Or move to the middle of a forest, or Antarctica. But get yourself writing somehow.

Take at least five minutes to get into it. If you just don't know where to start, then start by writing that. I find that sometimes I come to my empty page with the whole day on my tongue, or annoying snippets of things just bouncing around in my head space. So get that out and onto the page (just have another notebook or file called Writing Warm ups or Word Vomit). Address it, don't just push it out of the way. Address it in a way where your brain is okay with letting it go elsewhere so you can focus on what you need to: your assignment. And once you feel that the words are starting to come as liquid, you are ready to move on.

Now if it's twenty minutes later and you are still struggling with getting words out, it may be anxiety about the actual project. But as long as you are getting words out a little easier than when you first came to the page, you can move forward and see where it goes. 

When I'm really clunky like this: anxious or having a hard time getting anything out, I try to do my assignment sooner rather than later. I do that because I might want to try a writing exercise on my own. You would be amazed at how many writing prompt books there are out there if you are short on ideas. 

If you are still clunky after that, then leave and return later (a few hours or even a day later), do a writing warm up and try again. And believe it or not, it is easier the second time. And even easier the third time. And soon your writing warm ups are about two lines long, if that. Sometimes only a sentence and you are flowing along like a river, caught up in its mighty current.

Now you can jump into your assignment. Normally what comes out now is far better than if you tried to start cold. I cannot tell you how many times I banged my head against a wall with nothing in my head for an assignment but desperately wanting to write. It's there, you're probably just clogged. So get the writing clog out and then go to the assignment.

Whether you look at it as a clog or as warm ups, all the great authors will tell you that writing anything is better than writing nothing. And the more you write, the better you will get. 

Stephen King gives a great tidbit of advice in his book On Writing. Give me a minute to grab his book because it's that important: "Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page." (p. 106)

He even emphasizes that last part in italics in his book. And you need to read his book to understand what he means by that. Or you need to be a writer. Or you simply need to write long enough to understand the meaning. Or you just aren't meant to be a writer. I don't think I was ready to be a writer for many years. I thought a little effort would give me what I needed. But what I needed was a good kick in the pants of reality of what life is like without writing. And now I get it. 

Now don't take this the wrong way, Mr. King, or Stephen, or however you'd like to be called. As much as I appreciate your words, I did enjoy Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury more than your book. Sorry, but maybe it's because he speaks my language more. Or maybe because I'm a huge nerd when it comes to Ray Bradbury's books. I like your books, Mr. King. I love his books. Sorry, you scarred me with It. So you deserve it.