Poetic Creativity

A Masked Ball

Masked Ball

After a two-week lay-off, the Dance of Colors returns. What caused the lay-off? Absolutely nothing. I grew tired of posting, of writing, of throwing my paint on the waters of the web and waiting to see what, if anything, happened. Well – nothing happened.

Steven King, On Writing, says “Paper your walls with rejections.” And I have done, pages and pages of them. The secret is ‘never surrender’ – ‘never give up’ – or, in the language of the WWII Prisoner of War Camps – Nil carborundum illegitimi. You can Google the meaning, if you can’t read Latin. It is a euphemism for ‘never despair’.

Rejection is one thing. Silence is something else. When I check my notebooks I find submissions, some sent several years ago, that are still unanswered. There is simply no response. It is as if the writer – submitter – does not exist, is not even worthy of a form letter.

I ran into that wall of silence during this two week lay-off. Does it matter? Probably not. The creation of art is as much a monologue as it is a dialogue. Bakhtin calls it ‘a creative artist’s dialogue with his time and place.’ I think of it as ‘this creative artist’s monologue with his time and place.’

Footsteps – I leave them here, I leave them there, you can find those footsteps anywhere. But beware the footsteps left on the beach at low tide. You will not find them on the beach the day after you leave them. The tide will have risen and washed them all away. In spite of that, some footprints are here to stay.

Which activities make you lose track of time?

Daily writing prompt
Which activities make you lose track of time?
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Which activities make you lose track of time?

I guess it depends on how you define activities. Sleeping certainly makes me lose track of time. But sleeping is not an activity, you say. So I say, what about sleep walking? A track to walk on, and sometimes sleep walkers lose track of themselves, and hands of the clock lost in the dark ahead of them, on they go, tick-tock, little clockwork soldiers marching until someone or something wakes them up. Where am I? They ask. And what time is it?

Watching my fox terrier chasing his tail as he runs round and round in circles, never quite catching it, but never giving up his high hopes of catching that little rat-tail of a tail that dangles there behind. And round about and out and in all day that silly dog did spin, spinning in prose and spinning in rhyme, until I lost all track of time.

Same thing happens with that little electric railway that ran on a single loop around the kitchen table. Diddle-da-diddly-da, just like a real train, except no smoke, no puff the magic dragon, no sense of a schedule or arriving and departing on time, when circular time is meaningless, as are the numbers on the sundial when the sun isn’t shining, or the hands on the clock when the numbers are missing, and you don’t know whether you are looking in time’s mirror or are standing on your head in the Antipodes and all the while the clock hands are marching round and round, tick-tock, and there is no track by which time can be tracked. And the runaway hands went round the track and the ghost train hooted whoo-hooo, as it vanished into the timeless tunnel of darkest night, and then exited. like Rip Van Winkle, the engine driver with a huge beard, and the carriages all covered with cobwebs and skeletons peeping out of the compartments and sitting beside some of the travellers as they snore on their seats.

And wow, the activity, if it be an activity, of walking my fingers over the keys has just made me lose track of the last ten minutes. And now it is time for me to drive to hospital, have a needle stuck in my arm, and allow a nurse to draw my blood. And the moment from the first sight of the needle to the moment it is withdrawn from the end is e-n-d-l-e-s-s and takes an eternity.

Real People

Real People

They lie there, lifeless, in their little black coffins.
They refuse to pick up their beds and walk.
Powerful as you are, you are powerless now.
You are unable to grace them with the gift of life.

Listless, disappointed, you turn away. Don’t look,
but now, while you are not watching them, they move.
A gesture here, a wink of the eye, a tiny smile,
a broken tooth, a scar from a dog bite, and they come alive.

Now they stand before you, dressed in the clothes
you wove for them, from their own words.
When you listened, they spoke. They didn’t want
to be forced into falsehoods, forged from your fake words.

True to their own natures, they now walk and talk,
naturally, in the words you heard when you let them speak.

Words

Words

Words grow like flowers, invasive,
cruel, beautiful, cutting, and when cut,
they wither and fade, like flowers too.

Catch them while you can, I say.
Catch them, hold them tight,
press them to you heart,
for time is voracious
 and will soon devour them,
 swallowing them in the black holes
of forgetfulness, carelessness,
and memory loss.

Shine a light on your words.
Underline them, grace them with stars,
think about them, carefully.

And remember, the word
once spoken or written
can never, ever be recalled.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Words

To be a writer (Revised)

To be a writer
revised version

To be a writer ….

Those who would true valor see,
let them come hither.
One here will constant be,
through foul or fair weather.
There’s no discouragement
will make her once relent
her first avowed intent,
to be a writer.

Those who beset her round
with dismal stories,
do but themselves confound:
her strength the more is.
No blank page can her fright,
she’ll with a sentence fight,
and she will have a right,
to be a writer.

Rejections nor false friends
can daunt her spirit.
She knows she at the end
will a book inherit.
So critics fly away,
she’ll fear not what they say,
she’ll labor night and day
to be a writer.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
To be a writer
revised version

Comment: I first wrote this poem in January 2021. It is, of course, a rewriting of John Bunyan’s hymn / poem, To be a pilgrim from Pilgrim’s Progress. In the original version, I kept the male pronouns. However, after collaborating as the only male participant in [Quick Brown Fox] Brian Henry’s Advanced Writing Group of 13 fantastic women writers, I realized that the female pronoun was, in so many cases, the most appropriate one. I therefore made the necessary adjustments. You can find the old poem at this link – personally, I prefer the new version! https://rogermoorepoet.com/2021/01/11/to-be-a-writer/

Self-portrait with flowers

Self-portrait with flowers

I walk past the Jesuit Church
where the shoe-shine boys store
polish, brushes, and chairs overnight.
I walk past the wrought-iron bench
where the gay guys sit, caressing,
asking the unsuspecting to join them.

Nobody bothers to ask me for a match,
for a drink, for charity, for a walk
down the alley to a cheap hotel.

The witch doctor is the one who throws
the hands of all the clocks into the air
at midnight, in despair.
He’s the one who leaves this place,
and returns to this place, all places being one.

The witch doctor sees little things
that other men don’t see. He reaches out
and flicks a fly away from my nose.
“It too has lost its way,” he sighs.

I think I know who I am,
but I often have doubts when I shave,
rasping the razor across my chin’s dry husks.
The witch doctor, my lookalike, my twin,
stares back at me from my bathroom mirror.

Three witches dance on the waning soap dish.
One spins the yarn, one measures the cloth,
one wields the knife, that will one day sever
the thread of I, who the same as all
poor creatures, was born only to die.

You too must one day look in that mirror,
oh hypocrite lecteur,
mon semblable, mon frère.

Type on this link for Roger’s reading.
Self-portrait with flowers

Comment: My thanks to all those who click on earlier poems and express their liking for them. I am particularly pleased when an earlier poem lacks a voice reading. Then I can revisit it, rethink it, rewrite it, record it, and speak it aloud. Here’s the link to the earlier version of the poem Charles Baudelaire. Fast away the old year passes, and we must renew ourselves, our thoughts, and our poetry for the new year soon to be upon us. To all my readers, old and new, welcome to that world.