When an idea meets the night [1]
Who would drag it into sight [2]
Or deny the call for slumber [3]
The one who has to scrawl [4]
Blindfold, to encumber [5]
Oft in the dark
To look, in the morning
Decipher words, sometimes honing [6]
Those riven in the silent hours [7]
On reflection, not such towers [8]
The need, greater than comfort kept [9]
Why, when we could have slept? [10]
Because, unwilling, we do not want to be a poet [11]
But necessity makes us so - we have to do it [12]
Else the words will evaporate [13A]
The loss, thereafter, much too great [13B]
Life would seem the emptier then [13C]
Instead, we hold the thought, when [14]
Flowing through mind’s eye
To capture, fix and tell
That fleeting moment before it fell [15]
With sleepless slumber caught [16]
Our own future [17]
In that way bought [18]
Who would be a poet voice?
It is, after all that’s said, my choice [19]
UDID: 9002-1004-1.0.0
Title: Poet
Date: 25 AUG 2020
Notes
1. At night when asleep; this first paragraph is read at a slow pace representing the state of sleep or just awakening;
2. To force oneself to make the effort to note the idea, word or concept down in writing;
3. Who would not want to stay or go back to sleep – the easier option?
4. To scrawl -the poet who has to make the effort and then write it down;
5. This poet wears a night mask to avoid the dim light available through the night or of a reading partner so opening up to the low light level requires the removal of the mask, another task, and to face the burden (encumber) of writing in the darkness;
6. The second paragraph is also read at a slow pace, reflecting on the night’s work. Decipher because I can’t read my own writing, especially if it is written in the darkness, honing because maybe it doesn’t read as well in the morning light;
7. The words written in the night when all I want is to sleep;
8. In the morning perhaps the effort doesn’t seem so good;
9. The need to document the thoughts is to deny the need to sleep;
10. “We”, why not write “I”? Because now I write about the family of poets, some, maybe many, will go through a similar experience, for example, how many go to bed every night with a notebook opened at a blank page and have a pen or pencil ready in case, just in case, an idea descends and must be noted, or lost forever; so many ideas have been lost that way which is why I will write in the darkness with at least a chance of capturing a moment, putting aside slumber;
11. We don’t chose this life of a poet, it forces itself upon us, we are just the instrument, the focal point of the spirit of the universe and its quantum life;
12. Compelled to write at unsociable times no matter how inconvenient, we HAVE TO do it (tengo que);
13. The words, unless captured in that fleeting moment, will just disappear, and for me, never to have that opportunity again to freeze that moment, that idea again, hence the loss of opportunity, but more, the loss akin to bereavement of the idea, the phrase, something that may have been ‘something’, not knowing any more except that it seemed good at the time, but now is gone, leaving a vacant space;
14. This is a speedier passage, the rhythm has increased and the lines connect more easily together, like a dove tailed joint; holding the thought is remembering it, as is mind’s eye, to tell is to write it contemporaneously, this latter is important to me, even though, when typed-up some, often many changes are made, but that grain of an idea always remains, I hope;
15. For me the jagged word is ‘fell’ since it is the precipice between the will to make the effort to capture the idea and the loss of it if the mind cannot compel the hand to write;
16. To do without the drag of sleep and to succeed to capture the thought is success at that time, to be reviewed, and re-reviewed later, of course;
17. Capture of the thought is (our, plural poets) future success because it can be mulled over and read and checked to see its worth, or not;
18. Doing the work buys that future opportunity;
19. So now the conclusion, nobody makes me write and sacrifice my sleep but me! Unable to speak for others it has to be me and not us. So, in the end I don’t complain, instead I capture something that, in the years ahead will mean something to me, as the writer, and maybe, just maybe, someone else may see that universal connection and it mean something to them as well?
So all should know, I write for me, it cannot be any other way, that way I can be honest to myself, and sleep at night, at least when I am not called to midnight action…
suffused: poured underneath or upon