Have you ever felt the hunger deep inside?
The monster with its insatiable cravings,
The claws that promise to tear you apart
That beast that calls itself inspiration,
The terror that says it is drive to create

Have you seen the ghost that lingers
Behind blue-tinted window-panes, in the breath
Of white vapor on a snowy day? Have you seen
‘It’, it that lives in heartbreak and mines it
For sepia-tinted photographs and
Confusing poems?

I’ve seen it on sunny days, in the way warmth
Lights me up inside - though even more than that,
It’s the memory-hued colors of California afternoons
It’s the way those colors look on print, even though
I can’t ever capture its feeling

And that’s what it is, isn’t it
The reach to put the unexplainable into words,
The unimaginable into pictures
The pain of it into being

Certainly, AI

isn't the future, it does not --


escape from what is.

Creativity is an opening,
A struggle fraught with doubt,
Unlikely to produce something
Beautiful, yet reverberations mount,
A gathering of half-ideas now
Open to others to make once
Yours, fully theirs, a bow
To the dimming pulse
Of an idea meant to endow

Flowing across the page.
Everything comes to me at once.
The colors dance upon the paper.
Like a performance on a stage.

The only one in the audience is me.
Observant and thinking about the next step.
I am voiceless.
So I let the dancers speak for me instead.

As a voice for the voiceless.
They understand my heart.

Colors flowing across the page.

The colors dance upon the paper.

The only one in the audience is me.

Watching as it becomes alive.

"Why poetry?" You asked

The answer was immediate, as a flood.

"Because words are my favourite method of creativity. As an artist, I learned there are over 16 million colours and no combination of any number of them will ever mean more than three short words. Of those sixteen million colours only one matters to me. The colour of your eyes; and no painting will ever mean more to me than 'I love you'." I said in reply.

When did children lose their love of learning?

When they were told to conform,
To forget their being,
To discard interests, agency, creativity

My own complicity
In the stifling of identity

Authenticity, a digression of the self,
A dissolution of swarming
Complexities

When did I gain my love of learning?

The burning crucible
Of curiosity

Set aflame by rejection of conformity

Constraints, curriculum, crushing expectations
and a world disintegrating
fires of digressions

When is conformity an expression of authenticity?

When is authenticity just another form of conformity?

I used to know how to draw.
When your mind is free,
creativity flows like water.

Imagination ran wild,
translating through my hand
to sketch what my mind saw.

No school taught me how to draw.
I just drew!
from imagination.

Imagination is precious.
It’s your brain
running a kind of creative program.

Now my brain only responds with solutions
because trouble,
trouble always comes first.

Suddenly,
I don’t know how to draw.
Because my mind
is focused on solving problems.

A perk? A burden?
Of being an adult
in an adult’s world.

But is this writing
a sign my creative program still runs?
Or just a way
to cope with crowded thoughts?

It's dark when I get up
To write poetry.

Who is awake too?

It feels so solitary,
But words are my comfort;
Or are they my tools?

We wangle together, wrapping each other up.
But I am no-one’s fool,
The ones that ain't got bite
Lie dormant in my mind's eye.

Potency propels prompting forth
And when I'm done, I sigh…


Relief.

Blank as snow,
my mind has resigned—
Not from frail nerves,
but from the loss of momentum.

My fingers wrestle with the pen,
my hand clings to the laptop.
Open the tap—
Let even a drop fall.

Inspire me,
that I might inspire others.

Little by little,
a mighty ocean will stir,
erupting—
Breaking every bound.

Tap the keys, O hand.
Sketch the thoughts, dear fingers.
Just let the mind ignite—
Rome will be built, for sure.

Not unaliving,
but ensuering,
a cure will be found.

what is our purpose, if not to help,
why do we say these things, when they're not felt,
so focused on our next big break,
we've forgotten everyone it takes.

not meant to sit alone, meant to stand & test,
for those who refuse, for those who can't,
our helping hands only help so much,
set up against social norms & Picassos,
left to bludgeon, burgeon & bargain,
still only to be second best,
what Einstein life is this,
not one we lose to win.