Just responding to a prompt from here, requiring inspiration from the concept of ‘unraveling’ ….. but resulting in just more self-indulgent rubbish from me.

What else can I say?

***

He was old now, and tired. He looked down from his position on the summit and saw the great mystery stretched out before him; oceans and islands and rivers and roads and cities and churches and jails and wars and thoughts and dreams of love and hate and sex and murder and colour televisions. Above him moons and planets and stars and solar systems and galaxies. In any direction forever inward or forever outward.
Everything seemingly in place for a reason, but in a pattern so complex as to be indecipherable. To unravel it would be to dismantle it. And to dismantle it would be to render it invisible. To ascend to heaven would be to lose sight of hell. But to lose sight of hell would be to be blinded by heaven.
The weight of ignorance bears heavily on the old.
Gravity has only one direction.
He took off his robes and slowly, one painful step after another, began his descent.

***

It’s best, perhaps, that I give up on the poetry and leave it to the experts. Although, as I suggested yesterday, I’m not really sure who the experts are. And I’m not really sure if they are sure, either …..

Anyway …

For now I’ll just stick to silly verse. Nothing clever, nothing innovative, nothing complicated and …. well …. not a haiku (don’t get me started on that).

I saw a prompt this morning, here or was it here of the word ‘cold’. I don’t know if there were any other rules. I didn’t read that far. And, to be honest, it was the picture and not the word that put ideas into my head ….

Let us explore the great outdoor
Let us leave the world behind
Let us look where no-one’s looked before
And see what we can find

Oh, no, my dear. I can’t I fear
There’s nothing I can wear
Might our first stop be the dress shop?
Can we spend some money there?

Gee, ain’t that funny? I forgot my money!
But there’s nought we need to buy
No need to stress. No need to dress
There’ll be no passers by

You mean, go nude??? Don’t be so rude
Respect my modesty
For I will know what’s there on show
No matter who can see

Please, won’t you play? Let’s seize the day
Besides, it’s free admission
Come with me, where we’ll be free
To shed our inhibition

It might be nice. I like the price
But if I should be so bold
I’ll have no clothes, and without those
I’ll catch my death of cold

It will be fun. We’ll find some sun
I’m there to keep you warm
Under a tree, where I will be
Your shelter from the storm

The sun, you say? Perhaps I may
Be interested in that
I’ll take a chance and drop my pants
If you’ll at least buy me a hat

Anybody who has read much of what I write (hopefully both of you) will be familiar with my struggles to understand poetry. To understand how it differs from prose, to understand what is good, what is bad.

I’m really not getting anywhere with that project, but I stumbled upon something here, referring to paper (the stuff we used to write upon) and that somehow started me on something that became a short poem about a poem (any poem) …. but which, now that I look at it, might just as easily be about any expressed thought.

To explain any further would be to undermine the very notion of what I think poetry, and indeed art itself should be about.

In the end I still don’t know if it says anything or if it is just more little words, neatly lined up in a row.

And it’s probably just more garbage that would assist only (and if only a little bit) to further rape the rainforests of the Amazon, if it were ever to find its way onto a printed page.

***

Pen on paper, thin
Lighter than air
Here and there
A meaning within
Weighing less
Than ink
But is yet
My scream
My dream. To think, to dare
To not forget
What is not written cannot be read
What is not heard has not been said
So let it be
That you might see, too
Perhaps at night
Before the sun
One brief moment of light
Creeping through
Providing sight
When there was none

***

I find myself in a lot of discussions about mental health, depression, suicidal thoughts, and so on. I make no claim of expertise in the matter.

But Stoner via Katie brought up the idea of people saying (or just thinking) that ‘it’s all in your head’, and pointing (I think) to the fact that this must be about the most useless piece of psychiatric advise possible.

Well, of course it’s in my head, you moron. If you break your big toe do I reassure you with the message, “don’t worry, it’s all in your foot”?

“It’s all in my head, you say??? Thank Christ for that. I was worried that it might be in my bum somewhere.”

Anyway. Whatever. I’m just jotting something down for the sake of jotting something down. As usual.

***

I’m sorry that I’m needy
But I’m feelin’ kinda seedy
I think I might be better off in bed
You think I’m being lazy
But I’m going fucking crazy
And every day just fills me full of dread
I am taking all these pills
I don’t take them for the thrills
They’re to kill off all the demons in my head
I wish they’d go away
But I think they’re here to stay
So I think I might just kill myself instead.

***