"mediates" poems - Hello Poetry

It’s possible to speak too much to remember what your words mean. And so is the two-fold danger faced by writers. Danger is to pace a hole in the floor. Danger is to stand until you can’t move anymore like when shallow waves **** your feet into the sand.  So I try not to stand when I write.  I keep a narrow tack without too many big words which pedants use to dig great holes in the ground –moats to keep others out– or make you think they think big. But anyone who reads knows about Icarus and anyone with aims must beware: to shoot directly upwards is to strike your own head when like fate the arrow returns to source. You’re only as good as your mind, your characters only as strong as you are. —at least, this is true in so far as you know. True in so far as they speak. For to test them you must torque them and twist at their cores, and make opposing forces meet– but only as hard as you can. This makes writing a hill slick with oil. Insecure. Potential energy. Potential failure seated in all of that grime that cakes your toes like grease that coats the teeth of great industrial gears. So I try not to stand when I write. But whether the better take comes when you plunge and you slide and dissolve like so much ice, I must say I don’t know, the thought seems nice. But the same It seems like those who let go Are the ones with the least to say. I can't decide either which way. All I know about writing is most sentences are punctuated wrongly. The period is certain, but writing is undecided. It is the figuring-out, a quest-bound troop that moves with all its own fanfare. Question marks curl up— invisible smoke on a summer coal fire: heat twisting the air like irons in stoke giving sign of the transformations there withheld. For fire mediates matter, so writing stands ever-between. But I’ve spoken too much and I don’t know what these words mean. And so I fold like there’s danger in writing, while danger is imagined like borders on a continent. Danger is thinking I'm dangerous enough to keep silent. Like shallow waves, given way to sand. So avoid letting voids form where the mind dismisses confrontation to more capable smiths. Writing is –at best– an attempt. Even with shallow structures in rhythmic din, the silent breaks by force of pen, and all because of the simple fact that quiet refuses to bend. All I can hope is my writing upholds these unknowns while I try not to stand. But you ask about writing?

0

Apr 29, 2018

Apr 29, 2018 at 4:28 PM UTC

John-PB-Miller

About Writing

It’s possible to speak too much to remember what your words mean. And so is the two-fold danger faced by writers. Danger is to pace a hole in the floor. Danger is to stand until you can’t move anymore like when shallow waves **** your feet into the sand.  So I try not to stand when I write.  I keep a narrow tack without too many big words which pedants use to dig great holes in the ground –moats to keep others out– or make you think they think big. But anyone who reads knows about Icarus and anyone with aims must beware: to shoot directly upwards is to strike your own head when like fate the arrow returns to source. You’re only as good as your mind, your characters only as strong as you are. —at least, this is true in so far as you know. True in so far as they speak. For to test them you must torque them and twist at their cores, and make opposing forces meet– but only as hard as you can. This makes writing a hill slick with oil. Insecure. Potential energy. Potential failure seated in all of that grime that cakes your toes like grease that coats the teeth of great industrial gears. So I try not to stand when I write. But whether the better take comes when you plunge and you slide and dissolve like so much ice, I must say I don’t know, the thought seems nice. But the same It seems like those who let go Are the ones with the least to say. I can't decide either which way. All I know about writing is most sentences are punctuated wrongly. The period is certain, but writing is undecided. It is the figuring-out, a quest-bound troop that moves with all its own fanfare. Question marks curl up— invisible smoke on a summer coal fire: heat twisting the air like irons in stoke giving sign of the transformations there withheld. For fire mediates matter, so writing stands ever-between. But I’ve spoken too much and I don’t know what these words mean. And so I fold like there’s danger in writing, while danger is imagined like borders on a continent. Danger is thinking I'm dangerous enough to keep silent. Like shallow waves, given way to sand. So avoid letting voids form where the mind dismisses confrontation to more capable smiths. Writing is –at best– an attempt. Even with shallow structures in rhythmic din, the silent breaks by force of pen, and all because of the simple fact that quiet refuses to bend. All I can hope is my writing upholds these unknowns while I try not to stand. But you ask about writing?