Once again the ghost of Carl Gustav Young points the way. I didn't realize just how depressed I've been the last couple of years. Well, this has to fucking end right now.
Two nights ago I woke up with these words ringing in my head. "Why settle for reading something that someone else has written. WRITE something!" So I guess I must.
The first step in my particulary writing process is clearing out all the junk that gets accumulated in your mind. That's where this entry comes in. Hell, that's really always been the point of having this account. A sort of intellectual garbage dump for every stray thought I happen to have. Those of you who are just reading this thing for the first time have probably noticed that I have crazy amounts of typos that I never edit. The grammer here is atrocious also. I don't care about that when I'm typing stuff out here, for the most part. That's not to say that I won't correct something if I notice it in the process of getting it down (unless it's intentional). I just do the majority of my self-editing elsewhere. First however, there has to be something I can glean from all this that I find worth editing. Of the tons of poems I have written here on d-land since 2001, I have maybe performed half to three-quarters. Often combining two or more poems together that seemed complimentary, and tossing out that which I didn't feel worked in either. This is the place where the ideas start, a sort of Emination place, of you will. (all of two people will read that and laugh, the rest of you will just shake your heads.)
Creation begins when I notice something in the much that seems a bit more shiney then the rest. Sometimes it's just a bit of corn, but sometimes it's something more. A bit of gold amoung the shit.
Formation is when I put it together with either other bits of gold, or I try to weave some kind of golden thread with it. My name's not even Fate, imagine that. Cutting the cord of this metaphor, I take an idea I thought was neat, and I form a poem around it. Sometimes it ends up worse then the shit I pulled the idea out of, but most of the time it turns out at least passable.
Action, or the Material world is when I print it up, take it to a reading and test it out on an audience. I am never looking for the mass applause here, as that usually means that I've failed in whatever it is I was attempting. What I'm looking for is that after the reading is over reaction, or having one of the poets make thier poetgasm noises at a particular line. Those of you who are reagulars at poetry readings know exactly what I'm talking about. There is one more possible reaction. Complete stunned silence. That at least is always good for a laugh. It usually means what I've written isn't very good, or is banal, but is so shocking in it's benality that the audience can't bring themselves to applaud it. It's funny. During those times, because I thought I would do something a little different, people will come up to me later and tell me that they enjoyed it a lot. This is those times when the poem had to sink in. I like those the best.
Oh, and in case you didn't notice. I just gave you a little lesson in something called the "Four Worlds", it's a kabbalistic thing, so don't worry if you didn't get it. it specifically deals with the microcosmic version, because I don't feel like that gets talked about enough. You see, people get confused about that whole, "as above, so below" thing. It doesn't mean that the rules above the Abyss work exactly the same as they do below it, it just means that they are reflections of one another. Really, what is up there is so alien to our understanding, that we can only speak of it in metaphor, and most of those are incomplete. Or at least that's what I've gathered. However, because we are a reflection of the Godhead(s), talking about ourselves can help us gain a tiny bit of insight into the unknowable. Just remember, everyone else is God too, even that homeless guy talking to himself. In fact, he's probably closer then you are.
~M
