My newest adventure is underway. It has lead me to take up residency in a new blog,
Like the Feathers of an Arrow (affectionately known as LFA).

...don't open...don't throw away... is not disappearing completely (not yet),
but postings here will be limited.

Friday, November 16, 2012

2 Can I Have This Dance?: Quinzaine: Mistake


Title:  God Doesn't Make Mistakes
Artist:  Carolyn Dawn Johnson
Album:  Dress Rehearsal
Genre:  Country


Quinzaine:  Mistake

#1
I heard You don't make mistakes.
Why did you make me?
No, really?

#2
I'm perfect just as I am.
Why do I feel like
a mistake?




Wednesday, November 14, 2012

8 Last Call: Forest Fears





Forest Fears

I keep hugging this tree
as the world spins by;
when will someone find me?
is this where I’ll die?

As the world spins by,
I hold every breath—scared—
trapped in my mind’s eye
where too long I’ve been snared.

When will someone find me—
take my hand and lead,
for I’m too lost to see
past the fears I breed.

Is this where I’ll die—
caught in the spiderweb,
unable to fly—
my mind lost to its ebb?



An Aside:  this piece stems from a pom seed written back in June.  It was shortly after this pom seed that I managed to find my way back here to ...don't open...don't throw away....  I went into hiding for awhile (a year if I wish to be more accurate) unable to handle the socio-neti-phobia.  While the focus of the poem and pom seed are different, there is an obvious link between the two.




A Form Aside:  the above is a quadrilew.  It's an interesting form relying on both syllable count, rhyming, and repeating lines.  



This is my offerings for this week's dVerse Poets Pub OpenLinkNight. If you get a chance, check out all of the talented poets who have stepped up into the spotlight.


Monday, November 12, 2012

2 Q Series: Why poetry? -- Q1

Welcome to the first Q Series, aptly named Poetry.  (For more information on the Q Series, see information located at the end of this post.)  Over the course of the next three Monday's I will be exploring three questions about poetry and myself.  They are as follows:
Why do I write poetry?
Why do I like writing form (poetry)?
Why do I prefer free verse (poetry)?

So with out further ado...

Why Poetry?  Of all the forms of writing out there, why would I choose poetry as my form of expression?  Just as important is why I write at all.  These are not simple questions and their answers are far from easy.  Honestly, I find it hard to figure out where to begin or even what to include.  But I do quite enjoy my second form of writing (what I've deemed Ramblings), so hopefully we'll all be able to follow along.

The inner workings of my brain....
I have several theories running in regard to the craziness that infects my brain.  One includes how I was originally right brained (creative/artistic), but due to the irrational thoughts threatening to destroy me my left brain (logical/analytical) took over.  Of course my right brain has continued to plot uprisings and so in the end I have a rather boring--and oddly--well balance brain.  You see while my left brain (the one that loves solving systems of equations in multiple variables and using the Rational Root Theorem to find possible solutions to polynomial equations) has managed to tamper most of my irrational side, those thoughts are still there longing to escape and so I tap into the right side and write (no pun intended).

The irrational thoughts...
So as the tagline for this blog states, "this letting of words is my treatment...my salvation. it pulls all the toxins from my mind, body, and soul."  I write in order to release or purge myself of the incessant and trying thoughts that threaten to consume me.  Does that mean that I never deviate from the internal?  No, occasionally it is just as important for me to write about something so completely unrelated to how I am feeling or the thoughts running around unchecked.  It's how I keep sane...well maybe not sane so much as functional.

The letting of words...
This brings us back to why poetry.  I could just as easily journal (or dear diary) myself into sanity.  In fact, some of my ramblings are just that.  The problem is it is too personal.  With poetry...it's brevity...it's abstractness...I can disconnect myself.  When I write poetry I can take an emotion or feeling and express it in such a way that the thoughts and events that sparked the irrational feeling floating in me are not really easily uncovered.  It is sort of like being covered from head to toe in body paint, so that even though you are completely naked no one can really see you.



The Q Series is a new theme.  I decided Mondays needed to be spiced up a little bit.  Plus I do kind of miss my incessant ramblings.  How it works is quite simple.  I take a topic of interest to me, personal or not, pose two - four questions, and spend several Mondays exploring the questions.  I might miss the occasional Monday with this, but there is no hard and fast rule that I must post on Mondays...at least not yet.


Sunday, November 11, 2012

3 Time Capsule: --After the Journey

Title:  --After the Journey
Date:  06/18/98
Setting:  Summer after final year of college (during a touring Europe)
Form:  Free verse
Yesterday seemed to last forever,
draining me with every passing hour.
To sleep was but a dream
in this endless day it seemed.
And now, as I’m about to drift away
after this 24 waken hour day
goodnight is all I can say.
Notes:  After graduation, my cousin and I took a trip to Europe as part of a tour.  It was an wonderful and amazing experience.  The above is the first poem written outside the borders of my own country.  I really didn't write much while I was there.  I have begun to realize that I tend to write more from inside my head than what I see; I'm not sure how much sense that makes, but I can only image what I might have created had I been more focused on my writing back then.

Artifact I:  The original poem written in a cute little journal.