wrath of overwrought

sometimes i have to avoid the poetry cramming my inbox because i am not in the right frame of mind to approach it.

beware the critique given in the wrong frame of mind.

some people can divorce themselves from exhaustion or whatever, i cannot. i'm one giant amoebic ambulatory emotion and i try to spare those i love the wrath of overwrought i sometimes feel.

it is just better for me to keep it shut until i can construct a linear thought. many don't get the circular.

straight lines, straight lines, i feel that is what school is about.

don't go there, come here, straight lines.

but with horses, straight lines are predatory. which is striking. never came to that conclusion before, and i try to amend my point a to b mentality with them because i don't like to waste steps, but if i can regain my external curvature around them, so much the better.

i just have to check it when i clock in for school.

i'm reading some zen poetry right now and it's the kind of stuff you have to take short shots of. like whiskey (though i tend not do that, so probably not the best analogy personally, let's try another), like the yammering company of women at my gym. i can only handle it in small doses. (yes. now that's closer to it).

though i'm meeting many more of those women in their going out clothes, instead of their workout clothes, at my job, banging out the caffine (we do provide a service after all).

but i've completely lost my thought, so perhaps straight is better in some instances. ah yes, inboxes.

so, i wade through a delightful and surprising set of poems, total crap the author practically calls them, and i'm thinking, that is not crap. but we are our own worst critics, and i offer my praise.

but i think, sometimes, those we praise come to expect it in some ways, and it does not have the weight of the negation.

this is a peculiar thought. again, the wisdom of pretty woman (why i have to go there when i'm making some linear progression, is just the way i'm wired).

the bad stuff is easier to believe.

and it is. i've believed it for years, and only now am not badgering myself into submission. not bludgeoning myself with criticism and shame.

i cannot part the personal critic from my friend. even from those i love most, and who tend to "listen" best to what i have to say.

we alone choose who we will believe, listen to, trust. even if it is the traumatic union of the abused child to the abuser, we inadvertently make that choice.

i would like to see my friends move to a place of better choices and treat their creative child, their artistic creations, with the awe and wonder they deserve.

too many dungeons and dark closets, anemic neglected creative children starved and lost. but i'm not in any position to convince them otherwise.

they alone must begin to believe.

how does that happen?

i don't really know.

time, perhaps. gentleness, most certainly. trust, absolutetly.

if they can find a group of readers and writers whom they trust, whom they will brave their shittiest works (all works have merit, none are shitty, in my mind), then, things can change.

i had a thought yesterday which i've now forgotten (darn! it was so good too, about this very thing. i guess i'm not supposed to share it here. so be it. it will hopefully congeal by essay time at the end of the semester).

but if we do not write for publication (the thought is coming back to me now), then for whom do we write?

here it is:
the works you've created have value, because you have value.
that issue settled, do you want to move your works toward having merit?

now, my solution/encouragement/ideas about how to make this happen are not the next guy's, but they are, write very bad poetry. all you can. the worst you can.

for in that purging, the gems will begin to appear.

and it will all be worthwhile.

i do not see art as commerce.

the question, can you make a living at it, is not the pivotal quesiton for me.

the pivotal quesiton is, can you live without making your art?

whatever form that takes.

it is the answer to that question that makes the others fall into place. i've always said, it's not about publication and i think i am surprised to find how desperately i believe it.

it's not about finding approval, i would go so far as to say.

but i promise you this, it is about doing the necessary work, whatever that is. however long it takes, however hard it is.

for this is your soul work. this is your liberating david from the marble work. it's not about concern for the things you could have done differently, it's about focusing on the curve of his chest, and the strength of his nose. of drawing him out of your psyche.

create. it is all up to you what comes out of the marble.
or if it sits a solid block, untouched in your life.

peace.