Why I'll Tell You Why I Write (a repost for Martie)

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icebox
Member Elite

since 2003-05-03

Posts 4383
in the shadows

0 posted 2010-01-19 09:30 PM

You asked me why,
not how,
I write poetry.

I don't think my motivations matter,
or would even help you understand
the separate rivers flowing through my soul;
it is hard sometimes for me to walk softly,
and I don't mean to shatter any useful illusions,
but I don't seek ovations
I can just barely handle praise,
even then
only at a distance,
please don't misunderstand
I am not constructing resistance,
I savor your thoughts
the raw and pure energy,
vulnerability,
visions
tastes and scents,
the innocence that never will exist
within walls of my redoubt,
but none of this really counts
or is what this poorly structured poem is all about;
I am writing to thank you
for enfolding me,
though all too briefly,
inside the shelter of your soul,
and as recompense
try to make sense
of what and why it is
that I also try to do
in poems
without needing to give warning.

I write poems
for the sad simple truth
that the voices inside me are maddening;
I have found no other key
to reality's chains
when my soul weeps awake in the morning.

©2004, 2010 By icebox

serenity blaze
Member Empyrean

since 2000-02-02

Posts 27738

1 posted 2010-01-19 10:20 PM

"I write poems
for the sad simple truth
that the voices inside me are maddening;
I have found no other key
to reality's chains
when my soul weeps awake in the morning."

nodding...

Kielo
Senior Member

since 2002-02-11

Posts 1109

2 posted 2010-01-19 10:37 PM

That is exactly it. Makes me wish I had kept writing. I am glad you reposted this, sir.

Klassy Lassy
Member Elite

since 2005-06-28

Posts 2187
Oregon

3 posted 2010-01-19 10:56 PM

Rivers...and I wish I could just make an intelligent or heartful comment on this... nothing comes but the morning, weeping. I do know... in part. ~Karen

Martie

Moderator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-09-21

Posts 28049
California

4 posted 2010-01-19 11:39 PM

You, and this poem...favorites

Krawdad
Member Elite

since 2001-01-03

Posts 2597

5 posted 2010-01-20 12:24 PM

. . . and weeps me to my sleep at night with no surcease.

But that is another story . . . and the ill-fitting key.

Thank you for what you do - it helps us deal, because we know . . .

e

Krawdad
Member Elite

since 2001-01-03

Posts 2597

6 posted 2010-01-20 01:35 AM

from Rainer Maria Rilke's "The Book of a Monastic Life":

"I love the dark hours of my being.
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood."

latearrival
Member Ascendant

since 2003-03-21

Posts 5499
Florida

7 posted 2010-01-20 03:38 AM

Charlie, I love all you write and in your writing you teach and cause others to think. I am not a poet, but I have written journals. I never knew why I felt the need so strongly and why I still do it. My life has no huge story or songs to sing or share except to myself. I read old journals and it helps me to know who I was and who I am. So I guess I write to better understand life as I lived it. latearrival

wranx
Member Elite

since 2002-06-07

Posts 3689
Moved from a shack to a barn

8 posted 2010-02-02 09:37 PM

Glad you gave me another chance to read this.

For myself, I don't quite know why I wrote (though, I've alluded to ghosts)...nor, why I stopped.

passing shadows
Member Empyrean

since 1999-08-26

Posts 45577
displaced

9 posted 2010-02-02 11:03 PM

I can relate and once agreed to this

"I write poems
for the sad simple truth
that the voices inside me are maddening;
I have found no other key
to reality's chains
when my soul weeps awake in the morning."

But now, well... I'll just say it's different. Motivations change but do they matter? Nah, it's just what comes out that's important.

jwesley
Member Rara Avis

since 2000-04-30

Posts 7563
Spring, Texas

10 posted 2010-02-03 06:16 AM

I think you've answered a lingering question many of us have, my friend, and made us better for it.

j.

Father
Member

since 2009-12-15

Posts 58
Confusion

11 posted 2010-02-03 07:21 PM

I sighed over and again as I read this... over and again. Such a personal statement, for such a universal state of being. Thank you for sharing this.

My wife says I never listen... or something like that

CMGrimm
Senior Member

since 2000-02-14

Posts 685
USA

12 posted 2010-02-06 01:49 AM

Nodding my head slowly...

it doesn't quiet the voices... but it placates them just long enough for me to get my daily dose of the rest of the world...

Never be a carbon copy of anybody...make your own impressions. - ANON.

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