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I'm a lonely teen who uses poems to express myself and hopefully influence others.
Poems
Raj Arumugam
Mar 2012
This is not a poem but my reflections on one aspect of the creative mind...I thought I'll share it here as we are, as people involved in poetry, part of this creative mind...
1
All of us, to varying degrees, lead the creative life. We are all creative.
Observing ourselves in our creative moment, or on reflection, one notices that the silence of the mind is one of those moments when the creative mind is at work. Or is it still?, you wonder.
It is a beguiling silence. A quizzical stillness. A paradoxical one – for while it appears to be still, the creative mind is working…perhaps working in a very different sort of way, but hey - it’s still work. For after the silence comes that creative idea, that blast of ideas.
Observe it in your mind. See it for yourself.
2
Before the silence in the mind has gone much work. One has the input of all that has begun since one’s birth. Or perhaps even as one was in the womb. All that one has ever done and contemplated.
Then there is, just before the silence, the specifics. The immediate task and the work one has put towards its fulfilment. One has considered deeply the task at hand, the creative question at hand…one has gathered the information, one has fed the mind with all that one knows in relation to the creative issues at hand…One has worked intensely and long on the questions…
Then from somewhere deep within, the mind says: *“I have enough…That will do…Leave me to work it out…”
And that is when the silence begins…
3
Observe it in yourself the next time you are involved in this creative process...no matter how trivial the creative process might appear to you…
The silence is there…it’s as if the mind is exhausted, yet it is not…There does not seem any answer or creative idea or result apparent to you, but you know something is happening in the stillness of the mind…of the creative mind there deep within…
4
And you might even be engaged in routine matters, in things that are totally unrelated to the creative mind or your creative endeavour…You think it’s over…you might even think: “No, I’m not going to have a creative solution here…The sparks are gone…the fire’s dead…”
Just the silence, the stillness of the mind…But just then it happens…That creative mind rolls out towards you in waves…or like a tidal wave…and in its wave, the mind offers you a pearl – that pearl of the creative idea: a poem, a solution, an illumination…
That is the silence that is part of one’s mind…Observe it…It’s there – that creative silence, all part of one’s mind…
1
All of us, to varying degrees, lead the creative life. We are all creative.
Observing ourselves in our creative moment, or on reflection, one notices that the silence of the mind is one of those moments when the creative mind is at work. Or is it still?, you wonder.
It is a beguiling silence. A quizzical stillness. A paradoxical one – for while it appears to be still, the creative mind is working…perhaps working in a very different sort of way, but hey - it’s still work. For after the silence comes that creative idea, that blast of ideas.
Observe it in your mind. See it for yourself.
2
Before the silence in the mind has gone much work. One has the input of all that has begun since one’s birth. Or perhaps even as one was in the womb. All that one has ever done and contemplated.
Then there is, just before the silence, the specifics. The immediate task and the work one has put towards its fulfilment. One has considered deeply the task at hand, the creative question at hand…one has gathered the information, one has fed the mind with all that one knows in relation to the creative issues at hand…One has worked intensely and long on the questions…
Then from somewhere deep within, the mind says: *“I have enough…That will do…Leave me to work it out…”
And that is when the silence begins…
3
Observe it in yourself the next time you are involved in this creative process...no matter how trivial the creative process might appear to you…
The silence is there…it’s as if the mind is exhausted, yet it is not…There does not seem any answer or creative idea or result apparent to you, but you know something is happening in the stillness of the mind…of the creative mind there deep within…
4
And you might even be engaged in routine matters, in things that are totally unrelated to the creative mind or your creative endeavour…You think it’s over…you might even think: “No, I’m not going to have a creative solution here…The sparks are gone…the fire’s dead…”
Just the silence, the stillness of the mind…But just then it happens…That creative mind rolls out towards you in waves…or like a tidal wave…and in its wave, the mind offers you a pearl – that pearl of the creative idea: a poem, a solution, an illumination…
That is the silence that is part of one’s mind…Observe it…It’s there – that creative silence, all part of one’s mind…
the mopey poet
Mar 2015
I don’t want to become a Creative Writer because I usually suspect that being a Creative Writer is a lot like having a Pretty Face.
When I wake up at 7:24 instead of 7:00 like I always plan to, and my nearly empty journal falls out of my bed, and I look in the mirror at my vaguely pink eyes and that cowlick I have on the right side of my forehead, I do not feel Creative. I also do not feel like I have a Pretty Face. Mostly, I feel very tried, and frustrated that I am going to be exactly seven minutes late to work like I am on every Monday and Wednesday.
Men and people who were almost-men have told me that I have a Pretty Face. At the poetry things I have gone to, the presenters have called me some variant of Creative Writer. I smile with all of my teeth when they say it, because it is a compliment and I know that when I receive a compliment I am supposed to smile like this, a little crooked and a little coy and a lot humble, even though I know that I am only an occasionally creative writer with a face that is pretty in the right light with the right liquid eyeliner.
The trouble with Creative Writers is that their paper crowns start to make them recognizable to people. People recognize them and then they are forced to wave their pencils around like the conductors of a silent song with whatever rhythm is currently in style in the artistic world, and if they hit the wrong note, people tell them they don’t deserve that crown. That Creative Writer is a faker if I ever saw one, the people say. She pretends to be something special. If she wants to get to know you, she will probably tell you a poem instead of telling you what she means.
The trouble with Pretty Faces is that people get so angry at them that they get called fake, too, if they’re lucky. The first day that the Pretty Face shows up to her yoga class without makeup on, or with a friendly zit in the dimple on her chin, people do a lot of pointing. They point and snicker, because that is what we are supposed to do with pretenders. When the truth gets revealed, we like to publish headlines about it and jump up and down with our index fingers out, screaming that we knew it all along. We love to find out that other people’s good things are not real. I don’t know why that is, but I know it is true.
The people in charge rarely give you any power for your titles. The Creative Writer’s paper crown is usually one that she made for herself—you can tell because she gets really frustrated when it starts to sag, weighed down by an accidental cliché about boys’ tears or the rain. Paper disintegrates in water, did you know that? And the Pretty Face probably had a snaggletooth until she was thirteen, so she feels like a fraud even if no one has called her one this week.
I like reading stories and theories by writers who we all took a vote on and decided are definitely both authentically Creative and Important, even if we did not give them those titles until after they died and became noble corpses with hardly any face at all. Sometimes I think that we are incapable of calling anything important until it is gone. I like writing about them because writing about writers is a marvelous loophole—no one but other academics ever questions it, so the popular opinion stays on my side.
One time, a man at a bar in a yellow polo told me that my Face was not Pretty enough for me to laugh like such a tease. I wrote a poem about it and read it at a conference with a toothy mask on, people loved it, and then I decided I did not want that to be my livelihood.
When I wake up at 7:24 instead of 7:00 like I always plan to, and my nearly empty journal falls out of my bed, and I look in the mirror at my vaguely pink eyes and that cowlick I have on the right side of my forehead, I do not feel Creative. I also do not feel like I have a Pretty Face. Mostly, I feel very tried, and frustrated that I am going to be exactly seven minutes late to work like I am on every Monday and Wednesday.
Men and people who were almost-men have told me that I have a Pretty Face. At the poetry things I have gone to, the presenters have called me some variant of Creative Writer. I smile with all of my teeth when they say it, because it is a compliment and I know that when I receive a compliment I am supposed to smile like this, a little crooked and a little coy and a lot humble, even though I know that I am only an occasionally creative writer with a face that is pretty in the right light with the right liquid eyeliner.
The trouble with Creative Writers is that their paper crowns start to make them recognizable to people. People recognize them and then they are forced to wave their pencils around like the conductors of a silent song with whatever rhythm is currently in style in the artistic world, and if they hit the wrong note, people tell them they don’t deserve that crown. That Creative Writer is a faker if I ever saw one, the people say. She pretends to be something special. If she wants to get to know you, she will probably tell you a poem instead of telling you what she means.
The trouble with Pretty Faces is that people get so angry at them that they get called fake, too, if they’re lucky. The first day that the Pretty Face shows up to her yoga class without makeup on, or with a friendly zit in the dimple on her chin, people do a lot of pointing. They point and snicker, because that is what we are supposed to do with pretenders. When the truth gets revealed, we like to publish headlines about it and jump up and down with our index fingers out, screaming that we knew it all along. We love to find out that other people’s good things are not real. I don’t know why that is, but I know it is true.
The people in charge rarely give you any power for your titles. The Creative Writer’s paper crown is usually one that she made for herself—you can tell because she gets really frustrated when it starts to sag, weighed down by an accidental cliché about boys’ tears or the rain. Paper disintegrates in water, did you know that? And the Pretty Face probably had a snaggletooth until she was thirteen, so she feels like a fraud even if no one has called her one this week.
I like reading stories and theories by writers who we all took a vote on and decided are definitely both authentically Creative and Important, even if we did not give them those titles until after they died and became noble corpses with hardly any face at all. Sometimes I think that we are incapable of calling anything important until it is gone. I like writing about them because writing about writers is a marvelous loophole—no one but other academics ever questions it, so the popular opinion stays on my side.
One time, a man at a bar in a yellow polo told me that my Face was not Pretty enough for me to laugh like such a tease. I wrote a poem about it and read it at a conference with a toothy mask on, people loved it, and then I decided I did not want that to be my livelihood.
Ivan Brooks Sr Jan 2018
Darkroom Of My Mind
Ivan Brooks Sr
Jan 2018
The world's gone mad but my mind is made up.
Time to let ya'll into the darkroom of my mind,
A place where I'm the referee of a poetic world cup.
This is where I am creative even though I'm blind
Don't get me wrong I am not leaving from town.
No more radio or TV saturated with all the sad news,
I have got enough breaking news of my very own...
Breaking to me each and every moment as it brews.
Come and meet the hard drive of my creative doom,
That contains my beautiful and liberated mind.
Welcome to my one bright side I call my darkroom,
It's a place that's so special, I reckon it's one of a kind.
You have to know that I always act blind but I see.
In my mind, I can walk stack naked and levitate.
My mind is where I remain totally black and free.
Come join me set my poetic dial and help me activate,
The code that will outshine any power on this earth.
My mind is where I live and where nobody has access,
Here I can run a poetic marathon without taking a breath,
Call it my playground and intellectual fortress.
My mind is deep, a place of absolute calm and refuge,
Somewhere I will always see as the final frontier.
It is dangerous and toxic like a nuclear centrifuge.
In there, I am all alert and vigilant like a soldier.
My mind is a darkroom where I give birth to new ideas.
It is a vessel and place in which I do magic with letters.
It is my holy land of thoughts, my own creative Judea,
Where each idea is sacred and light as bird feathers.
Welcome to the epicenter of my creative mind.
This is where I turn letters into spoken words
A front line of creativity where no one leaves behind.
Come and see where all words become useful swords.
My mind produces powerful words like some light beams...
Courageous and powerful words for extra motivation.
Spoken Words that will light up people's faded dreams.
Now you know that up in my mind are no limitation,
There exists an enormous capacity of time and space.
Welcome one, welcome all to the darkroom of my mind
Take a seat and be calm, be quiet this is my place
For this here is my personal creative post of command.
www.poemhunter.com/IvanBrookssr
#Vanguard-poetry23
#IvanBrookspoetry
twitter @ivanclappers
@Bassapoet
Time to let ya'll into the darkroom of my mind,
A place where I'm the referee of a poetic world cup.
This is where I am creative even though I'm blind
Don't get me wrong I am not leaving from town.
No more radio or TV saturated with all the sad news,
I have got enough breaking news of my very own...
Breaking to me each and every moment as it brews.
Come and meet the hard drive of my creative doom,
That contains my beautiful and liberated mind.
Welcome to my one bright side I call my darkroom,
It's a place that's so special, I reckon it's one of a kind.
You have to know that I always act blind but I see.
In my mind, I can walk stack naked and levitate.
My mind is where I remain totally black and free.
Come join me set my poetic dial and help me activate,
The code that will outshine any power on this earth.
My mind is where I live and where nobody has access,
Here I can run a poetic marathon without taking a breath,
Call it my playground and intellectual fortress.
My mind is deep, a place of absolute calm and refuge,
Somewhere I will always see as the final frontier.
It is dangerous and toxic like a nuclear centrifuge.
In there, I am all alert and vigilant like a soldier.
My mind is a darkroom where I give birth to new ideas.
It is a vessel and place in which I do magic with letters.
It is my holy land of thoughts, my own creative Judea,
Where each idea is sacred and light as bird feathers.
Welcome to the epicenter of my creative mind.
This is where I turn letters into spoken words
A front line of creativity where no one leaves behind.
Come and see where all words become useful swords.
My mind produces powerful words like some light beams...
Courageous and powerful words for extra motivation.
Spoken Words that will light up people's faded dreams.
Now you know that up in my mind are no limitation,
There exists an enormous capacity of time and space.
Welcome one, welcome all to the darkroom of my mind
Take a seat and be calm, be quiet this is my place
For this here is my personal creative post of command.
www.poemhunter.com/IvanBrookssr
#Vanguard-poetry23
#IvanBrookspoetry
twitter @ivanclappers
@Bassapoet
My mind is the final frontier..the bright side I call my darkroom where I process loose letters into spoken words.