Jan 2014
Tinderbox pt.1—Magic
At first,
I caught its eye
In the rolling smoke of fire
I ****** my hands
To pull it out
And speak with lighted words,
In light of brilliance,
A vital warmth,
But in the end just ashes.
And then,
The curve of silk waters
Which rushed upon and through the rocks
Wrote to me
A rich and liquid poetry
Not in bursts but subtle waves
I cupped my hands to catch its words,
But even then,
I could only hold so much
And only for so long.
Tinderbox pt. 2—the Artist
Entranced in the world
Here and beneath the moment,
In the spaces and each letter
I saw the fire, the waves of silk
Each play in their environs,
I’d grieve
At their perfection,
Running my eyes over their hilly peaks
And dreaming mine had been there.
My worlds were ugly, incomplete
Extinguished at very moment
That the two would meet
The tinderbox was fire to my hands,
My cup was rife with holes
And there, I’d thought the artist dead
Or never even alive.
In my sleep I’d hear a voice
Like Milton, Coleridge, or Shelley
A babble arresting and forcing pity
From its infantile lucidity...
I knew this thing, but killed it.
Perhaps even now, I believe in magic
Though, to pluck rain from a furied storm
Or converse with tiny sparks
That become
Something of brilliance and solemn silk
That groves were wrought from tiny seeds
Long after mere chaos
That, from it, comes a universe
and white paper is all it needs.
What awoke me was not
That there was art
But that the words had tried to say something,
Something the heart could not speak
Nor the mind would dare to reason;
It was not as much the words that made it up
But the worlds in between them.
At first,
I caught its eye
In the rolling smoke of fire
I ****** my hands
To pull it out
And speak with lighted words,
In light of brilliance,
A vital warmth,
But in the end just ashes.
And then,
The curve of silk waters
Which rushed upon and through the rocks
Wrote to me
A rich and liquid poetry
Not in bursts but subtle waves
I cupped my hands to catch its words,
But even then,
I could only hold so much
And only for so long.
Tinderbox pt. 2—the Artist
Entranced in the world
Here and beneath the moment,
In the spaces and each letter
I saw the fire, the waves of silk
Each play in their environs,
I’d grieve
At their perfection,
Running my eyes over their hilly peaks
And dreaming mine had been there.
My worlds were ugly, incomplete
Extinguished at very moment
That the two would meet
The tinderbox was fire to my hands,
My cup was rife with holes
And there, I’d thought the artist dead
Or never even alive.
In my sleep I’d hear a voice
Like Milton, Coleridge, or Shelley
A babble arresting and forcing pity
From its infantile lucidity...
I knew this thing, but killed it.
Perhaps even now, I believe in magic
Though, to pluck rain from a furied storm
Or converse with tiny sparks
That become
Something of brilliance and solemn silk
That groves were wrought from tiny seeds
Long after mere chaos
That, from it, comes a universe
and white paper is all it needs.
What awoke me was not
That there was art
But that the words had tried to say something,
Something the heart could not speak
Nor the mind would dare to reason;
It was not as much the words that made it up
But the worlds in between them.
Art is not the presentation, but the meaning that hides beneath it--what it says both with words and without--in both author and audience. Art is not magic, it's a voice, an articulation of one's inner world which springs from a single inspiration. Perhaps, one should not begin trying to craft worlds right away or bring the world to word; it's hard enough solidifying one'd own, inner tumult of thought and scene. Don't be discouraged if your art is not pretty; you've created something, a world, a universe, and that's worth more, more aesthetic than any pretty string of words. Art is art, it's subjective, and creators are worth more to us than anything else.
