Almost Daily Refraction #2

 In yesterdays post I made a commitment to publish "poems" which I have been constructing over the past year.  These were written spontaneously as part of the daily morning meeting I have with my wife. I started writing these a year ago after attending a poetry workshop at my church (Thanks Kate Thorpe!)

In the workshop I was instructed to write quickly with very little thought or control.   I was fascinated by the process but I wasn't crazy about the results. which I thought were often pretentious, sophomoric, grammatically sloppy, etc., But I liked the way it felt and the idea of somehow trying to unleash my expressive capacity.  It was more like therapeutic and spiritual work than writing.

Allen Ginsberg would call this an exercise of poetic candor (For a fascinating deep dive into Ginsberg's perspective read this)

I found the more I could let go of trying to control what I wrote the better/truer it seemed.  I remain fascinated and intrigued by the interplay of elements that shape what I write. 

Here's what I wrote on April 4, 2023 

“Time was once just a clock to me, life a book a biography”

John Prine is dead. But he lives on in so many lives. I am indebted to him. Such a humble, straight shooter.

What became of the wisdom I once had. The sense I knew the way. In the back of my mind I still feel some guidance, but this is often hazy, and no longer a function of my philosophical constructs.  In fact its voice is stronger the less I  try to impose my reasoning on it.

I woke up today feeling as if I had been to a party, drank too much and was worried about what I might have done.

Why had I made this commitment?

The fact is many of these daily exercises. in poetic candor are pretty bad.   It's just that I somehow, somewhere I embraced the idea that its important to put myself out there even though that can get pretty damn uncomfortable. 

Hell I'm 76 and deaing with a boatload of health issues.  Playing it safe would be just plain dumb. 

One of my hopes is that this exercise will be a springboard to higher  quality work.

Here's a poem by Ranier Maria Rilke which captures some of what I'm feeling

Shining in the Distance

Already my gaze is upon the hill, the sunlit one.
The way to it, barely begun, lies ahead.
So we are grasped by what we have not grasped,
full of promise, shining in the distance.

It changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something we barely sense, but are;
a movement beckons, answering our movement...
But we just feel the wind against us.
                                                - Uncollected Poems
 

Deep Dive

I have an idea that is dangerous but I can't let it go.  Okay, I'm choosing not to.

Before taking the deep plunge into this brainstorm I'd like to give some background..

It turns  out that today,  April 3, 2024, is exactly one year since I started writing an almost daily "poem" during my morning meeting with my wife Dorothy. Two  posts ago  I wrote about this process and how it has become an important part of my life and gave some examples of my spontaneous "poetry."  

I went on to wax poetically about the virtues of self-expression and bemoaned the fact that I think most of us are intimidated by "real" artists and never even try to raise our own creative flags.

I strongly believe we each have a voice waiting to surface and be heard - a song to be sung.  It doesn't matter if it's writing, singing, dancing,  painting, drawing, cooking etc.  I just hope each of us can find a way to  "let your soul and spirit fly" (thanks Van). 

Ergo...as an example of expressive risk taking, I have decided to post a year's worth of my almost daily writings.  I  plan to publish each of these exactly a year after they were written.  I'll probably do some elaboration as part of these posts. We'll see.  Be warned.  These writings were made 'hot off the griddle."  They may not be "art" but I promise you they are real, raw, and unfiltered.

(When I told Dorothy my plan and that it felt like I was about to drop my pants in public she said, "I thought you liked to drop your pants in public." Hmm.)

I hope you find them interesting and  are encouraged to find or deepen your own path. It'd be great if you joined me on this journey. It'd be spectacular if you shared via the comments section any thoughts or actions these  words might inspire. 

Here's what I wrote on April 3,  2023:

What I say is the same as every word ever said by thousands of streaming voices trying to find each other over the noise and silence of the empty washrooms of civility

My love is shackled by my mind.

I find no other way than the lonely path of solitude and desire.

Why the losing is so bad is that so much is still unfound. 

I weep for nothing by way of everything.

Thanks for reading!

Post script

I can't resist adding these lines by T.S Eliot in East Coker

And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate,
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate - but there is no competition -
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

Can I hear an AMEN!