Parchment and Pen

For all of us who write.

Taking comfort in the parchment of my life,

I push limits toward better things.

 

What power beyond our lives

decides if our smiles outnumber our tears?

It’s not for you or me to know. Our guesses are only guesses,

but we write,

learning from mistakes,

taking knowledge through the next door

with us as we go.

 

Take life’s credit card from me, please.

Don’t let me see the total I’ve spent

in minutes  

sighing against my lover’s ear,

staring at the sea to dream

or philosophize…

to love who I’ve loved and to remember that love…

Then to write of it…

 

 

 

“What a futile fool

To write of such things…to think…to dream…

            Peck-peck-pecking out words,

making chicken scratches on empty pages

like so many others.”

 

 

 

 

Fool I may be

That I’ve failed to learn the game, I suppose…

Did I not make a difference to anyone, you think?

Not skeptic, not stoic, not epicurean?

Does everything have to be bathed in obscurity

to be thought clever enough to earn your gold star?

 

My eyes must be blind

and my art a cage that must surely be a small one:

I learned its maze one inch at a time                  

by the feel of its edges that were once clean, and smooth,

and as sharp as any razor’s edge.

 

 

 

Suddenly,

unexpectedly,

the edges mocked me with flaked and uneven boundaries.

The new instructions you gave me were in a language I never learned.

I promise,

I felt each ridge

before I threw your list of foregone conclusions away.

 

I won’t bloody my fingers redefining myself or my writing

because in the end, writing is not an equation.

There is no cage.

There are no boundaries beyond the imagination and the page.

And we write…

Reviews

[Emily B]

So true. Is it about shiny gold stars or friendships and love of words?

Looking around the cafe lately I see a lot of sadness and frustration, I see turmoil and agitation. I don't think it is caused by the actual runnings of the cafe. We need to support one another now. Lend a hand to someone who needs one. The way your words, here, do.

[Girl Friday (Sarah W.)]

My eyes must be blind
and my art a cage that must surely be a small one:
I learned its maze one inch at a time
by the feel of its edges that were once clean, and smooth,
and as sharp as any razor’s edge.

--love this bit...so powerful.

We all seem to be in search of those "gold stars", whether through our talents or through our personalities (i.e. in relationships with people). The truth of it is that we never know who we touch or what effect we have on most people, and the only answer is to keep muddying through those waters toward the inevitable end. It's not tragic, really, it just "is". I think that karma has a way of giving in to those who are deserving...eventually.

[emmajoy]

To read the start of someone's work - poetry or prose, then, read on and on and on and... regret the moment you come to the end and wish you could start the adventure again, is the best way i can comment. This is wonderful. It says what so many writers feel, think... there is no boundary except the boundary we create for ourselves.

[R J Askew]

Great job. Loved the credit card and 'chicken scratches on empty pages'. And who cares about gold stars? The line about writing not being an equation fascinates me because I find myself swinging from free form to writing in little caged forms counting syllables and sweating over rhymes. Then the glorious break out when you smash the cage and screw the grammar up ... and indulge in a bit of liguistic sweatyness. So the best line for me here is 'writing is not an equation'. So this poem definitely has a beating heart.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

Yes, my dear friend! Writing is an extension of ourselves. And how can we be taught to be more us than we are? If we pour out our hearts and souls onto the page for the whole world to see; whether we are met with praise or ridicule, the world can not call us cowards. And we may proudly say as Emily Bronte' in the last lines she ever wrote, "No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere: I see heaven's glories shine, And faith shines equal, arming me from fear." I loved this!

[jeRRy.whaLLey]

write on C. -- especially appropriate for the writers who are mourning the loss of thier writes in the recent crash --

A writer writes and never stops writing
and rewrites and writes again and again ...
and he never stops writing except to Dream,
perhaps to reach for that Star in that Star crowded Sky
and bring that Star to the end of his Pen
and write like plasma all over again ...

often these set backs are assisting devices designed to shake us from our wretched contentment and move onto the next phase in our evolution as writers -- writing is never about praise its about discovery and wonder -- like watching a simple stream bubbling and meandering, glimmering many Suns is more of a synergy of connectivity wile the dead forms and rituals like 'praise' of our werks cannot keep pace with Truth as its revelations are always roiling and writhing Beauties for eyes that see and change for Hearts with wings of why that fly in rhythms rising on thermals of wonder to that farther sky -- that is why the Poet is ever creating destroying sleeping and dreaming himHERself anew -- a neverending process with reality as a placeholder 'til sHe can engender a new universe out of the bits and pieces of the old one -- in hisHER image

When you make your babies inside the actual biological process the Heart is created as the first organ and the brain comes much later -- we create from our organ of Awe, the Heart which makes our mind to Wonder -- we ought to be Heart centered and mind aware -- how does that Sufi saying go, Trust in Allah but tie up your camel (I backup my crits as well as my werks and if you want the crits that change your view from others can be backed up) -- you are the Truth and the C. -- shine on and on

[Celtic Cat]

This is so beautiful, and having penned the "petition to bring back the tree" I was of course, immediately drawn to this piece due to the title. I loved this little trip I feel I just went on, it seemed somber in places and hopeful in others, quite the roller coaster ride, at least for me. I for one am grateful for WC becuase it has renewed my writing bug and I am eternally grateful for all the caring souls who share this site. Excellent tribute to all writers everywhere... yes, we write, and we always should. I'm not one for playing the game, which is why I feel like a bit of a fly on the wall somedays, but if I'm going to be a fly on anyone's wall.... it's definitely the WC for me.
This write is fully loaded, and I've enjoyed every chamber. Superb.

[My Name is Brenda and I..]

It is so nice to be reminded of what it is to be a writer - to be able to put the experiences onto parchment. I can almost hear a foot stomping when I read:

I won't bloody my fingers redefining myself or my writing
because in the end, writing is not an equation.

Here - let me give you your "gold star". You have earned it.

[jeRRy.whaLLey]

MiMi -- I've read this again and echo my original review; this Poem is a wise plaint of the marginalized and dispossessed. It's ironic and a well made Poetic plaint. The impermanence of relationship as being a touch stone, a reminder that our lives are often clad in wearisome miseries making the 'every beautiful day' an empty statement. Yet, it is not so, at least not always so; the dust and ashes of the wastelands is also a temporary trip. A verity of Human struggle where we wend our way to some surety, some safe haven, a paradise. Poetry often plumbs these miseries. Whether the forces are without or within it's time to begin -- As the mysteries of our own Hearts unfold, showing us how connected we are to all that is, that we are never 'alone' but always growing, becoming, being!

... and we are each, a miracle ... a song of Love, where sorrow and Joy, laughter and tears, are but each a note in it ...

Beauty echoes through all things, like Natures laughter in a flower... and a communion of the 'Eternal Present' exists, as if no past ever compelled, nor future beckoned.

Your Poem ends with a positive realization that we are all in this together and as writers we somehow co-create our world in the Write!

I'm reminded of the Mythologies of the Nile Kings. On their journey through to the other side they must stop and be questioned and their Hearts weighed against a feather. They are asked two questions which assure their journey to a Heaven or a Hell world. The first question is, 'Have you ever experienced JOY?' The second and more profound with relevance to your Poetic realization is, ' Have you ever brought JOY to others?' -- there it is, the Secret to Immortality!

[Marie]

Amazing. Thanks for sharing.

[Blackbirdsong]

Mimi, we just "met" last night and what a great poem of yours to come to today. You write so brilliantly about what matters not only here on the site, but what really matters as human beings and creative people. Stars, badges...okay. But being a person who inspires and is loved by others, there aren't any badges for that nor could there be.

Thank you for sharing this one with us. Everyone on site should read this.