Category: Poetry

This Guy

ThisGuy

I used to write poetry all the time. It started in high school with these long surrealist poems that I don’t think even I understood and moved on to short and to-the-point thoughts on God and life but then I picked up a book of poems by Charles Bukowski and what I read on the first page rocketed my desire to write far beyond where it had ever been before.

There is a minuscule difference between inspiration and imitation. You can get inspiration from a variety of places to create your unique voice in whatever it is that you do but those poems that I wrote right after reading that first Bukowski were more imitation than anything. Many of them I have since tossed out but a few remain as a reminder of how not to go about writing. I did something similar after seeing Moulin Rouge for the first time. I wrote these short and overly-whimsical pieces that I’m embarrassed had even existed.

The poetry slowed once I started writing songs. I was growing sick of going over every word I wrote trying to make what I wanted to say fit with the music. I was also nervous being around whenever someone read something that I wrote and being in front of a room of twenty plus strangers reciting words that I had actually written always put me on edge. But every now and again something will come to mind that I just need to get out and a poem will be birthed and every now and again I’ll post it here but the ferocity in which I used turn out poems has been scaled back. And while I no longer agree with every part of Charles Bukowski’s writing advice I do think of this poem in the times when words are bursting out of me “in spite of everything.”

So You Want To Be A Writer by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

By Charles Bukowski, © -1, All rights reserved.

Just a Bunch of Words That I Think Look Really Good Together

In high school I used to write these odd little stories that wouldn’t make much sense. Part of the reason why I did this was because I strongly disliked assigned writings. I never could write something worthwhile on command as my on again off again posts on this site has demonstrated quite regularly. So the nonsense I put to paper was some sort of … what’s a nicer way to say punishment? I also liked taking stories in directions that even I couldn’t see coming. Now, I will never say that anything that I wrote then is something that I’m proud of because, honestly, it was all garbage but one story came to mind tonight as I was trying to think of a clever title for a poem that described its content as a lie. It was about a boy lost in an office building but instead of asking people to help him find his parents he was simply asking where the end of the story was because he knew that in the end he would be reunited with them because that’s what happens in these kinds of stories. Of course once he found it it was just him and the words The End alone in a room. His pursuit got him just what he was looking for but not what he wanted. I also wrote alot of stories about aliens, secret agent penguins, and leprechauns that turned people to stone. Luckily, nothing from those days survived. So here is my sad little poem that holds no truth and also no title because I could not think of one that explained that this is not what I truly believe but just a bunch of words that I think look really good together.

So much has already been said
About life, love, and death;
Saying any more
Just isn’t worth the breath.

There’s a Fire

If being at a loss for words is a sign of being in awe
Then I am not in awe of You enough.
Forgive my lack of focus
And breathe in my praises,
Unheard until now,
Of how the fire and flames
Can lick at the air
Yet be contained
By your glory.
And let the flame in my heart
Mirror the fire of the Earth
And consume all it touches,
Feeding itself on my body and bones,
Flesh and soul,
all of which belong to You.