May the insignia of the light they cast substantiate me,
driving my aim for words written to convey everything
I can glean, leaning on them, emulating those before me,
inspired to perform by them, my echo upon
to their building on the past,
booming their bridges across time to me,
their magic incantations mesmerizing,
their fleshing out imagination’s history,
books laid upon books, sound foundations
of blood and brain, their loved ones held up to their presents,
gifts passed on from furnaced minds burning toward the future,
the bonfire of knowledge and understanding
offered up with great affection,
at times through great affliction,
forged at the white heat of speech rising to its parabolic heights,
grasping at the apex for the just beyond that language cannot yet express,
visions soaring past words to the next dimension.
To strive for them, those who best record the awe of the out there,
grapple with the words they know can never fully express
what insight streaks and bolts, racing through their brains,
lightning flashes of glimpsed truths captured only ever approximately,
vaguely, knowing well they never can completely convey
that dimension beyond words,
unreachable without vocabulary no human
has yet divined, so they create
words that can only nearly crystalize that vision,
never actually capturing that indescribable something
beyond the tip of the tongue,
past the touch of the finger,
over the horizon of the range of the eye,
sound beyond sound,
thought beyond thought,
love beyond love,
the fullest beat of the teeming heart,
the perfection waiting just beyond this imperfect place,
the unwritable space surpassing the last syllable
they can possibly wring out.
I want to find those words.
I want to reach every time like them, for them,
beyond what I can say.
And in the end perhaps never say it,
but never give up saying it as best I can.
That is what I want to them from me.
* * * * *
Today’s #WritingPrompt is
write
Happy #WriterSunday. Use the prompt to inspire a piece of writing, and then post that piece as a comment below. I would love to read it : )
Wonderful writing Lanning!
Here is how I feel about it:
What poetry is all about
To be a poet is arduous
To be a good poet even tougher
Occasionally catching
Thoughts rising from
The sludge of our minds
In no particular order
Gutting them like fresh fish
Staring at the raw ideas
Adding salt and pepper
Dressing them up in
Fancy clothing
To show them off
In black on white
A new-born baby set free
Into a cruel and dangerous world
Forever uncertain but hoping
That critics who themselves
Never write anything original
Will understand eventually
What poetry is all about
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Make sure to post your poems on the Bamboo Shoots page over on the Bamboo Ridge Press site. The editors may select them for publication in a future issue of Bamboo Ridge: http://www.bambooridge.com/bambooshootlist.aspx
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Thanks Lanning, but I don’t think they are good enough yet. But who knows, with more practice….maybe. 🙂
I do like your writings and read as much as I can. Best Regards, Fred.
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I think they are good enough, but you be the judge.
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