Manufactured Words

The arc word is 'embarrassing'. 

            Herein lies some of my attempts at poetry. True to my nature, the poems are followed by a brief contemplation on the nature of poetry and 'art' itself. 

Anvil

Man forged itself with fire,
Flesh, metal, soul, steel, blood,
In some script invite gods’ ire.
An answer with to the dark of day,
With which it light did flood.

And then iron did the world flood,
And the time to march upon the house of faye.
No need for divine flood,
And no reason to fear the night,
No need for dark clay.

The machine was away,
Unto to shine our might.
The night way nay,
Wherein lied the fire?
Perhaps the world might say…

Perhaps some might say,
The machine swallowed the fire.
Perhaps in our minds may
Lie an answer bold,
If inquisition grew dire.

Perhaps fire lies in world drier.
Perhaps fire lies in the words of men cold.
Perhaps fire lies in that which can fire.
Perhaps in the writer fire lies within a word.
Perhaps in caverns of another fire lies within gold.

With the paper’s fold,
Would that the world flutter like a bird,
And find faces that grew not old,
And find an anvil most impossible
And find the world might curd.

Drown the word,
Yet shine the impossible,
To find fire as a herd.
Perhaps the fire is gone,
And we chase the thing impossible.

We forged fire to survive the might.
With the anvil we forged ourselves the mighty.
Wherein lies purpose?

Parallel

A world where we need not say hello,
Where a chin hangs no anchor of ceremony,
A passive smile an arbitrary fellow,
Where words weigh for as money.

Wherein goodbye be not a word,
Nor farewell a truth,
Where personas be winged as a bird,
The departure of death bear no fruit.

Upon cold plains with swinging steel,
Might be a thawing of dread,
Forlorn heart and desolation keel,
Things so arbitrary freed.

Loneliness is but a wreath,
Mistaken for bramble.
It is moonlight upon a reef,
Scarcely worth a tremble.

Heed no sayonara,
A word ashen,
Encapsulate this -
Mata ashita. 

I don't know why, but images from SuperGiantGames' games seem oddly fitting.

                This is going to be a short because I just want to get something done on time because there isn’t a great deal to talk about something so darned potentially arbitrary.

                The idea of poetry always intrigued me – structured words written in such a manner that they roll off your tongue in a particular manner, be it smoothly, harshly or in a manner that ‘roll off’ would be the incorrect term to describe it. The nature of the craft is such that human pretentions are immediately going to come in the way, like a wall of burning tigers keeping you from reaching that whimsical cloud in your dreams. Additionally, if the above line has crossed your mind you need to either: a) get help, or b) get a pen and paper and then get help.

I for one believe it’s much easier to take a dead poet seriously, since death seems to add this odd degree of authenticity to poetry which might have to do with the fact that the words cannot be twisted and turned anymore because being dead means your body is a fertilizer and your soul is jiving with Hades. A living poet on the other hand is always there to change something, tweak something or, worst of all, explain something – being alive seems to add this barrier that keeps a poem from being a poem, it’s still a poem by virtue of being a constructed sequence of words but I suppose something cannot be immortal while its creator is still alive. Which means the greatest piece of advice I can give a budding artist is ‘go kill yourself’, which is, shockingly, terrible advice because the biggest crime an artist can commit is to be genuinely convinced that they are creating art and off her/himself with the hope that 59 years down the line students will be busy paraphrasing her/him.

                A writer writes. A filmmaker makes films. A director directs. A painter paints. An ideator ideates. An architect architects. An alcoholic alcohols. An artist’s actions create works, but it is up to their beholders to decide if what they create is ‘art’. There is always the conundrum of titles, since calling yourself an ‘artist’ is a fine way to encapsulate what you do – if we delve into labels then I suppose I am an ‘artist’ though I scarcely know if what I create is art and I find it rather healthy to not call it ‘art’ or to call myself an ‘artist’.

                Getting back to the tangent that was a tangent away from the prior tangent we had embarked upon – I always found it troubling to (attempt to) write poetry, call it a sense of pretentious self-awareness – an awareness of its constructed nature, of words being chosen to couple with other words, of contemplations ensuing after you trap yourself and have to rhyme something with ‘tuna’ and so on. That’s a part of the parcel of the reason as to why I put my (attempts at) poetry above, before this wall of text – because your restaurant is going to be less favourably received if a customer is bitten by a dog first and then eats there, but if he/she eats there and is later bitten by a dog then eating at your restaurant will be a comforting memory as he/she dies of rabies.