Blank. And then a poem I wrote many years ago came to mind. It was borne of a writing exercise, in one of our regular weekly group sessions, using as many of the sentences we'd put into our collective hat. I was able to manage 6 of the 8 given....
CORRESPONDENT
I'm not sitting comfortably so how can I begin?
Perhaps if I choose a calm evening,
beyond screeching brakes of passing motorbikes,
draw the curtains in my sitting-room
(This does not represent unnecessary shyness)
I could take a moment to breathe in the dark,
until I'm finally ready to turn off the TV,
and sit back in my so-called easy chair.
I'll imagine my spine is a chute down which I'll tip -
the remnants of political debate I've just been watching
for the past half-hour, between a panel of invited guests
and studio audience - with all the usual nasty half-laughs,
jeers, and superior glances of contempt that pass
as media currency among sparkling young cretins.
It's hard to remain unaffected, but I'll just have to
kick out the pebble flipping in my hopscotch mind,
settle down, and down, to a quieter place - beyond
sniper fire, and thwarted peace talks in the Middle East,
and threats of train strikes in the capital at the weekend.
I'll tell myself I'm here - in a quiet road in deepest Hove,
geographically free of war zones, untouched, as yet,
by the disruption of communication breakdown.
Just an hour's drive from London, but
closer than I've ever been to
remembering.
Aye, Aye, Skipper
In the file I had just opened I found this next poem, which although was done years ago for an M.A. in Creative Writing & Personal Development, felt very pertinent to Now (what goes around comes around?) using Brion Gysin's 'Cut up' technique on a newspaper article.
DISPATCHES (A CUT-UP EXERCISE)
We do not have democracy.
How can you when your life will be found out?
We feel restricted, arrested -
far more being found out on torture.
Meanwhile, a journal to cover these stories.
Despite the dangers, she is eager
to borderline-communicate reality as she sees it.
Through gritted:
"I am a bad joke - a woman divided, discarded."
Rear up and blab - resist the force.
She describes the chaos war has brought to her intelligence,
longs to go on documenting the situation
despite its narrow limits.
Jump To It
Although I'd hoped to play on the theme of playing games I was feeing a little battle weary by this time, so I looked for a 3rd poem guided by the 'Power of Three' (think Goldilocks, Little Pigs, Wise Men etc). I wanted someone else to help carry the load of the day, and to introduce a new note of some kind. I found the following by Naomi Shihab Nye:
KINDNESS
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing,
you must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes any sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
(from Ten Poems To Open Your Heart).
When you don't know what you feel any more,
and don't know what to say -
there's poetry.
Thank God.
