When drear, daily drudge impedes
Passionate tapestries
A wavering poet weaves,
The wrinkled fruit of ailing dreams
Fall like crumbling Pharoahs -
Desiccate Autumn leaves.
Every time an author grieves
But anguish ambulates the mind;
Fuels the ire of deeper needs -
The incessant scribbler ever heeds
Ephemeral gems the pen receives.
Besieged, the amygdala seethes;
The cost of wearing hearts on sleeves.
A Muse will starve unless it feeds.
Despair beyond a care
Provides a feast of spoken air.
Tender fare best delivered bloody rare.
A spicy stew of raw misdeeds
Must tap a vein which bleeds and bleeds,
Hemorrhage sentiments, surgical fantasies!
Onerous chagrin spits out the nest of kin,
Brood in thoughts that burst from skin
To form a nexus pulse for current vermin.
Infest the pit, synaptic wick be lit,
Spin with spurious faith.
Prayer wheel cogs oscillate,
Persist in limp prosthetic prose,
Titillate throbbing limbic nodes,
Until thy humble genius delivers;
Commits with a Will that would kill beginners!
Spraying forth verse in gushing rivers
Snatching at slivers of violent spirits
In metallic streaks of speeding bullets.
With cold turkey shivers and vapours of fevers
Fey visions engulf the non-believers.
Infect the fickle flock with inspired desease.
Pluck a third eye from secular sanities.
Grip a heart in agony, and slowly squeeze...
The molten juice of human vanities
Til words leave scars like barbs of Socrates.
Cultivate clear semantic seeds
To bloom amongst the paler weeds.
Lush lyrics that erupt from ennui.
Pithy pearls from abject penury.
And you must shield the crop you yield
With pain.
Every bastard word you harvest must reign
From the split temple of an artist`s caustic brain!
For otherwise the bane of stark inane
Asphyxiates aspiring stems of grain.
Accordingly the scythes of countless rewrites
Purge the page of base profane.
So ask not what heart can do for artery
Nor what artifice will amuse Calliope.
Ask what artist deserves his or her due
Just ask
What CATHARTISTRY
Can do for you!
Author notes
A detestimony if you will. The final scrape of a quill well-worn. Quid quo prolapse undulating from the exterior of Neverwhere. Whatever it does for YOU.
Ever felt like this on a Friday night? [Reward: double points]
Comments
1 - 16 of 16
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A Re-review
gG,
I know I have responded to this before, but given time,
know a half-dozen further views will emerge, with rhyme
perhaps, each from new perspective. In answer, certainly.
New thoughts found hiding there, not seen before, mainly
due to focus in other directions. Even without, no doubt
remains that from time to time new visits would seek out,
indeed be led to find new facets of hidden diamonds here.
You call it Nevermore. That too, but more, to persevere
and let the waters, like panning for gold, wash other
meanings out, bright in their sunshine surprise, another
level, hidden in the strata of multidisciplinary thought.
I realize two things. My first reply was incomplete. Not
nearly approaching the possibilities here, depths sensed,
awareness on other planes, influences not recompensed
by mention --and likely this Christmas day, influenced
while writing, by marvellous radio broadcast of Handel's
Messiah. (Knocks the socks off the toneless bagatelles
they call music today.) Unabridged in all its several
parts. As it, and this, should be! Not at all ephemeral.
The other thing? Rewards only growth can bring, actions:
observations, connections, inspirations, ramifications--
Along with a special wish on a special day, a promise:
I shall return, perhaps again to find the best there is.
The directions suggest:
Any other ideas about how the poem could improve?
They're kidding, right? I can only say, "Who, me?"
All I can do is wish for you, a most productively happy new year! Keep safe and well,
With a truckload of thanks,
Terry
. Rewarded 4
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Incredible re-review, Terry!!
For once, I´m absolutely gob-smacked.
CHEERS!
gG
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Hang in--I'll be back
gG, the Wordweaver's Woof surpasses
Warp with wanton abandon (Hard won?
Or not.... ) The impression encompasses
Rare ingenuity of doubleword-adjunction.
Despair contrapuntally plays misdeeds;
"Muses starving," but here they've fed.
Aloud, read-sharing wonderwords feeds
Silkensmooth transitions internal-knotted,
To transfer totally overwhelming realms of
Empathy cum commiseration, elevated
Rhythm's metric foot-tapping anathema!
Those "scythes of countless rewrites"
Have reverberations past their meaning.
Allowing for poetic license, Aphrodite's
Noncommittal choices smoke-screening
Kaleidoscopic kamikazes for Calliope;
So ends this su-perverse catastrophe!
Enough! That was downright tough, and as emulative writing, it misses the mark by a country mile!! It is not normal for me to harness the horses of poetic flow so firmly, and they were snorting and stamping hoofs all the way, each eager to pull in opposite directions. I suppose that might be called cathartic artistry!
As so many have said, it had to be read again. Make that multiple times, the last (before replying, that is,) was read to my friends with sonorous inflection, and the rhythm of repetition was particularly effective. I have not learned so much so fast in semicenturies! Thank you immeasurably!
I still had technical stuff to add, "how the poem could improve?" and will return!
And I did.
Portrait of a cathARTist --Continued
Rewrites are a lot more easily done on-screen!
Only the changes change. Duh!
Anyhooo:
Lines I really like:
"A Muse will starve unless it feeds." Hadn't thought that way but it's true, or there is nothing to say.
"Infect the fickle flock with inspired desease".-- disease
ie, dis ease?
"Lush lyrics that erupt from ennui.
Pithy pearls from abject penury.
And you must shield the crop you yield
With pain."
Hoo-boy! That resonated. Been there.
"From the split temple of an artist's caustic brain!"
Two halves of the cerebrum have different functions, each for a hand, fighting at times for dominance.
( I am ambidextrous, really 2-handy in crafts and clay modelled-sculpture.) I can simultaneously knit patterns in two colours, automatically one colour on each hand while watching TV.
"For otherwise the bane of stark inane
Asphyxiates aspiring stems of grain."
Uh-huh, rejecting stuff snuffs out germinating thought.
"Nor what artifice will amuse Calliope."
My Muse (note capital) is not one of the classical muses, she's only mine, ever ready to jump in with stuff I do not write, but lay claim to since no one else did either.
My Muse is very easily amused, especially when I look at a finished poem, unedited, and see nothing to change.
My Muse wrote it, but I'm glad to give credit where due.
Dictionary...
Dessicated -- desiccated
Haemorrige -- hemorrhage (haemorrhage is archaic.)
Tittillate -- titillate
A good place to end, say what?
Thank you!
Terry
. Rewarded 4
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i'm not going to leave a long comment im just going to make it simple i like it!!!
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cathartic
gG due to poems length and my inability to concenrate at home reading at lenth on the keyboard i printed this out and read it in the cafe.
this should be posted on the poets wall and recited three times outloud while a cauldon of bat eyes and frog toes brewed (whole hamsters may be substituted) this is a ritual to summon the muse. cathartic indeed. i could go on but i don't want to be too gushy.
dave. Rewarded 4
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Hahah!
Thanx Dave. If it doesn´t kill it just makes you stronger, right? Though of course you puke your guts a lot along the way.
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I'll be back! And back I am.
I've read, re-read and now I want to absorb. Your work deserves considered comment and I want to come back (using edit) to respond properly.
But for now, I just want to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. This is the time when 3 applause is not enough.
I'm back - 5 hours later following the tedium of ironing shirts for the working week ahead. Who said life is dull?
Well gG, this poem encapsulates the poetic drug. From that first hit, through light-headed euphoria, visions and hallucinative hullaballoo, until the downer - back to reality with turgid twitterings of those who can damage our fragile Muse.
And that's why we all write isn't it? The lows are worth it for when the high is reached, there can be no better feeling.
Well maybe one? But no more.
The words and wordplay plyingly moulded into a phantasmagoria - your thoughts expressed in the only way you know, by the only one who can, in such luscious and vicious detail via metaphor, simile and hyperbole. Most of us feel proud to include only one. Yours roll from your pen with apparent ease.
I so enjoyed the manner in which the poet hold in contempt, those who dare to criticise rather than applaud - tongue in cheek I know - yet we all know that feeling of disappointment when our latest essay has not gone according to plan.
And those feelings have inspired one of your best.
Great job gG!
Mart
. Rewarded 4
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I am fortunate to receive
such a fine and generous comment from your quill, Mart.
CHEERS!
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You are an genius...
this will require much consideration and an hefty thesaurus. Thou art an poetic Mozart and I shall be back to you after due consideration. In presumptuous summation, this is a kick-ass poem about the drive behind a writer and it is spot-on. This is exactly how I feel when I write. For so sedentary a pursuit I am thrilled at the challenge of connecting with others via the written word and I absolutely love it! This poem screams that devotion. Also, when they figure out how to download the language center of the brain, I'd like yours shipped to me via many multi-gig disks. You have an incredible capacity for wrangling the written word and I do indubitably enjoy it. My word base grows daily via your works. I'll be back...
Al
. Rewarded 4
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Thanx Plumeister!
You´ll find an awful lot of crap in that hard-drive - you´ll have to sift for ages, mate. But you´re welcome all the same.
gG
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Poetry bleeding...
Well,I have to look for what to say.It sounds cutting.I dont know it is something heavy about this poem, I seem to be infront of a dying poet who s veins are bleeding his angry and his inspired fury.
My blood and tears have strewed a lot of these.Dont know how I am alive...
Anyway.there are a lot of things we cant chose on this life.Where to born...how to look like...the betrays we gonna suffer...
but the poor words we seed over our life fields and the pains we struggle with and all the human misery we have to deal with....are just material to our poetic bleeding.
Rhyming is perfect , words are fortunately assembled and there is alot to write about.
I am so glad you consider my opinion.
Regards from nonstoping searching for something new
Ludmila607
. Rewarded 4
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Thank you, Ludmila,
for a beautiful comment. "Poetry bleeding" . It has to, doesn`t it.
Warmest regards
gG
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How about most nights? Brilliant.
gG, a cornucopia, a plethora, a treasury of rhyme, feeling and reason all struggling through the burden of a blank night. I like this one for its honesty; I can practically see the poet's heart clinging to his sleeve. And why not? Without this kind of delicious agony from time to time, the poet is dead.
Great stuff here. "incessant scribbler" -- right. If not on paper or screen, then in the mind and spleen.
"amygdala" -- the wizard of words has managed to stitch in one I haven't thought of since my last EEG (ahem) about 35 years ago. (Shhhhh, please, on that little secret.)
15-16: a brilliant 2 lines -- the wordless unwritten sighs of poemlessness. How well I've known that monster.
18: "spicey stew" of misdeeds; the most honest and brave line in the whole poem. Bravo to you for that.
20's "haemorrige" -- I don't have a Webster handy but I'm sure that one needs fixin'.
"prosthetic prose" -- a gem.
39-40: outrageously good lines. And
51-58: the deepest part of the poem for me -- they mean and sound like the Oracle of Delphi on her best day.
Neat and courageous, gG, all the way. Does this mean that Irma 4 and 5 are in the freezer? Hope not.
Lad. Rewarded 4
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Cheers Squared, LAD!
I often find myself using more time on some of your comments than the actual poem they are succinctly interpreting. I think the unsung heroes of personal advancement at SP are erudite and honestly sharp comments/reviews. Without these we would not improve - as poets or people.
Twas a fine day when your quill graced the screens of Sharepo, Pentameterman, both in your (always worth reading) comments and of course your fine work.
To tell the truth I posted this a little unfinished with blemishes intact. I thought I´d try adding focus and sharpness whilst the draft was displayed. It adds a sense of honesty that I´m grateful your astute remarks mentioned.
But
Tis complete enough now. Thanx for hemorrhage, mate.
Irma Vep 4 and 5 are complete - I´m girding my gonads for the dive into six. If you wish I´ll send them to you by mail as I certainly appreciate your eye for wordage and wholeness and would be most gratified if you were to offer my poor lines an appraisal, Lad.
Warmest regards
gG -
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Girding my gonads?
There's a poem in there somewhere! Where's my pen....... 
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Forgot to say,...
gG, you can send your Irmas anytime to my address. I'd be more than glad to look them over and delight in them. How about one at a time, though, so my poor printer can catch its breath? I'll convey my e-mail by private Message to you asap. Lad
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