Friday, August 15, 2014

Poetic Expression

I took some good advice, and went through the history of this blog, saving my poetic indiscretions into a word document. And it got me to thinking...

I've been thinking about pain and poetry. Not really physical pain, so much as mental. How some of the most beautiful thoughts and experiences are beautiful for their exquisite painfulness.

There is beauty in anything that makes people feel. No matter how gorgeous, or ugly, or painful, or wonderful...To evoke and feel real emotion...Is beautiful.

That is why poetry grabs us, like a whisper on the wind it floats through the readers mind, making us feel. Something. Anything.

So often I find poetic ramblings to be an exquisite torture, both as reader and writer. Because the best poetry comes from strong emotion. Whether it's love or pain, poetic expression should leave the reader feeling. Something. Anything. And in that moment, we are reminded that we are alive. Truly alive.

Poetry is not the dull ache of mind-numbing suffering. It is the quick sharp pain delivered by the edge of a knife. It is pain like that of the day of loss, not the simmering river of long since loss. It is sinking into the feeling on a page, humanity in letters.

Poetry is thought without form, feeling without cages, uncensored dreams put to pages. Poetry should make us feel. Something. Anything.

Poetry has no need for reason, or indeed at times, rhyme.

Poetry is the soul on paper. Heartache and joy and passion in the rarely so mutable written word. I have often found the most painful verses to be the most exquisite.

Poetry captures, for a moment, those places between torture and ecstasy. It is the voice of pleasure and pain, capturing that rare place where they become one and the same.

Poetic expression is the history of humanity wrapped up in the ramblings of individual souls, the sound of the mountains in the dreams of man, the voice of hunger and pain, the feeling of rain on one's skin, the glory of love, and the hunger of life...

Like floating on a song, poetry gives us a glimpse of the spirit, an unbridled glance into the human heart, an otherwise unmatched expression of the soul on paper.

Poetry is the voice of hunger and gluttony
the voice of passion and pain
the sound of the soul when it dances in the rain.

Poetry is the blood in our veins
it tells us of our final goodnights
it is the tale of our final goodbyes
the history of humanity's mysteries.

Poetry is love and loss
the story of each man's individual cross
the sound of a newborn babe breathing its first breath
the excruciating beauty found only in loss

Poetry is the voice of the father when he says that he has used up all of his ink
on his way into a never-ending sea
the final line in his own story.

Poetry is the way moonbeams fall across your pillow in the silence of night
the sound of a child's cry
that feeling we have when something we loves goes on to die
the illumination of sunlight on the morning dew.

Poetry is the feeling of skin underneath your finger tips
flesh moving softly beneath your lips
it is the exquisitely brutal kiss of a whip
the touch of steel in a wound that just won't heal.

Poetry is the long lost shore
the feeling that everything we think has perhaps been thought before
it tells us that we need not more than we have been given
and that perhaps we are driven
to be more than we could have been.
Poetry is beautiful ecstasy
love lost and yearning to be set free
the whisper of a song in your mind
poetry transcends time.

Poetry is
quiet
found only in the loudest of silences.

9 comments:

  1. Poetry is quiet found only in the loudest of silences. That is exactly why I love poetry as well.
    Wonderful post, thank you,
    Han

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think this translates across the Arts. In my opinion the greatest expressions of Art are all born out of great pain. Think of the loveliest painting you know,( for me that would be Starry Night which I had the privilege of seeing in person when I was a child), or the most affecting poem, think of Robin Williams comedy, or Philip Seymour Hoffman's acting, All of those beautiful, discomfiting things were born out of the artists pain. Anyone who takes pain and creates something beautiful from it is an artist.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I should have added "Anyone who takes pain and creates something beautiful from it is an artist, regardless of their skill."

      Delete
    2. lm,
      Great point!
      I think that, for me, its poetry because that is the one that I can personally identify with most (in terms of pictures as art, while I can appreciate its beauty, I personally am only a talented stick figure artist lol).

      Delete
  3. Beautiful post Lil. So glad you have combined all your poetty. You should publish. I agree this translates across the Arts. A true artist creates beauty out of deep emotions, whether that be pain, joy, sorrow ...

    Hugs
    Roz

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Roz!
      It would be neat to publish them sometime. Of course, that requires the kind of bravery that I am currently lacking in...

      Delete
  4. I love reading your poetry.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Raine. I'm glad that you enjoy it.

      Delete

Play nice.