Shovelling in the Words

The past week has been fascinating, as if the top of my head has been prised open and someone has been shovelling words and phrases in at a great rate of knots. After several weeks of The Artist’s Way course and sharing with my fellow travellers, and reading Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg in 24 hours, I’ve suddenly gone into this frenzy of writing.

But not what I was expecting.

I’m writing poetry, something I haven’t touched for nigh on forty years and a task I’ve never really wanted to pursue. My scribblings of decades ago have been culled on more than one occasion, for whenever you revisit old poems or short stories you wonder what on earth you were thinking at the time. They are often stilted, morbid or maudlin, self indulgent, images and metaphors piled on thick as custard. What prompted their outpouring is a distant memory, and the emotion dies in the words.

What I’m doing now might end up just the same. In a week’s time, in a month or more, I might look back and sneer at my feeble attempts, but as I commit to this journey and take it seriously I’m discovering something new, and coinciding with the Olympics may be no coincidence at all. No athlete goes out to run his race without training and routine practice, without warming up, stretching. It’s a no brainer really, something I already knew but have been resisting.

The very act of putting pen to paper on almost a daily basis is opening my eyes, my ears, my mind, opening me, opening up possibilities. ‘Helter Skelter meet me at the bottom’ came from nowhere the other day. Or rather, somewhere, spawning a poem yet to be finished. Words and phrases and images are fighting for space in my head right now, I’m wondering where they’re all coming from, and while they’re not leading me in the direction of the novel I thought I was heading towards, they’re leading me somewhere.

There’s no point waiting for the Road to Damascus moment when the heavens will open and the message will be loud and clear. Right now I’m on the dusty road though, practicing, stretching, warming up for the main event.

MIRROR IMAGE

When I look into the mirror

what reflection looks at me.

My right side here

is right, right there

my left where it should be.

But when you stand before me

you see a different me.

My right is on your left hand side

my left is on your right.

I’m back to front

In body

Am I back to front

in mind?

Do you understand my motives

can you see my latent dreams

Can you navigate

the fissures of my mind?

Do you see beyond the body

are you brave enough to try?

Do I dare to let you

see inside

in those moments you ask

Why?