h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I cannot pretend to be a lover of poetry because those poets, our own Seamus Heaney among them, who are feted leave me scratching my head trying to figure out what they mean. Your poetry by contrast speaks to me, it speaks with feeling. Your hurt resonates in my soul and this is the purity of poetry, a purity that cannot be achieved by prose.In reply to your latest poem about pain I quote my favourite author and much loved personality Oscar Wilde.
Oscar,one hundred years ago in his work De Profundis written when he was undergoing physical and mental torture in that English jail wrote
"There is not a single wretched man in this wretched place along with me who does not stand in symbolic relation to the very secret of life. For the secret of life is suffering. It is what is hidden behind everything. When we begin to live, what is sweet is so sweet to us, and what is bitter is so bitter, that we inevitably direct all our desires towards pleasure, and seek for all our years to taste no other food, ignorant the while that we may be really starving the soul. Now it seems to me that Love of some kind is the only explanation for the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world. I cannot conceive any other explanation. I am convinced that there is no other, and that if the worlds have indeed been built out of sorrow, it has been by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man for whom the worlds are made reach the full stature of its perfection."
I always find it difficult to read this with dry eyes.
Lets have more of your work.
Regards,
Gaston

"if the worlds have indeed been built out of sorrow, it has been by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man for whom the worlds are made reach the full stature of its perfection" - blimey, the man was a Buddhist!

Thank you for your comments. As you know, writing can be like dropping pennies in a well. One longs to hear a sound come echoing back.

Someone assumed from my poetry that I was wracked in pain. Au contraire. For me a poem is like wind - painful while it is on the inside, distracting, and sometimes noisy, but once has come blurting out, it is gone. And then the only way I can re-touch the emotion is by reading the poem again.

I do want them to be lucid though. To express what I feel as deftly as possible. I wrote each of them in a single sitting, with very minor tweaks.

Except for Carbohydrates Cure the Blues (you can tell huh?) which didn't record real pain anyway, just shock. I decided to give up on some work I was doing at the time and leave the country I was in that day, and I was premenstrual to boot. Never trust oestrogen! The decisions were good ones, and should have been taken before, but that particular flood of emotion was just froth.

What I find desperately sad is that I only wrote two poems in the 15 years I was married, (I must find them, and write them up here), and I have written 6 - 7 including CCtB - in the year since the marriage ended.

Thank you again for your comments, and keep the short stories coming. I enjoy them very much.



Ben

Loved your peoms!

I am not looking forward to my first Christmas alone but I am with my Family who I can cry on if needs be!
I was with my other half for 7 years and never had a christmas on my own since I was a kid.
Things happen for a reason and I am happier now just Christmas morning might be a bit tough.

Will keep a look out for new peoms and might try writing some myself!

Take care
Luv Haz

Christmas is tough, but I like hanging out with the Buddhists. They take it all a bit seriously, but I am the only person I know who loses weight over Christmas!

Thanks for saying you liked the poems. I appreciate you taking the time to drop by and to comment.

How did you find my space in the bizzare world of hootoo?

B

PS - I find if I 'try' to write a poem it takes for ever. Most of these took me unawares!

B

I was giving " Ben the farmer" a friendly hug and you happened to mention your peoms so I thought I would take a look!

I am a happy bunny today as I moved into my new home yesterday.
A new chapter away from this depressing flat that I used to share with exhubbie (which was miles from anywhere in a rough neighbourhood.) Now I have a newish house that I am sharing with a friend and it's lovely.
Living off takeaway as the kitchen isn't sorted out but will get straight it a bit.

Take care
Luv Haz

Oh - that feeling of getting out of the 'marital home' is bliss, isn't it?

I hadn't realised how unhappy I was, until I moved out and got happy again.

Go for it gal! And have some lovely housewarming bubbly

B

Thanks sweetie will crack open a bottle or two!
lots to celebrate
cheers!