dannyboy

My Mad Monk and me:

Sometimes I sit with knife
and whetstone sharpening,
watching through a window -
the glass keeping me removed
as only liquid can -
my children playing and my joy
turns sour as the artist,
a hunchback miser in my soul,
wants the best for himself,
demands pain and misery
to eke out the words he wants to use.


He thinks I dare not be happy.
He thinks happiness is the end
of him.

Sometimes I sit before the fire
staring into the red coals,
pondering the killing of everything I love
just to please him
and his itchy fingers
and his seedy desire to write.

He thinks madness might release him.
He thinks if I let loose
artistry will embrace him.

Sometimes I wonder
if he converses with a Muse
or whether she has abandoned him
and left to his own devices
he goes sadly mad.

journyman161

You could try killing him off, then you'd have the bemoaning of his loss to use as a creative spur. Again. you captured a moment & set it up for us to view.

Without a mention of a narrators mood, you get us to identify with the feeling of frustration that some of our best stuff is done when either the world hates us or we hate it.

I think you better not listen to those suggestions, though a life behind bars would be a permanent source of misery & keep the mad monk fired up for ages.

__________________
*He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
*Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
*Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it - Moses Hadas
*He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know - Abraham Lincoln

dannyboy

ta again J.

ms. vodka

a little wordy for you, dannyboy, could maybe do with an edit.

but the subject matter is ssssooooooo goood.

is this one of those you just write to get it the hell out of you?

do tell,
vodka

dannyboy

Hi MsV I agree with the wordiness, don't think this is anywhere near finished but the computer at work wouldn't let me save it so I posted it here to make sure it wasn't lost.

actually its sort of an ode to mate of mine, lovely man twisted so tight I keep waiting for an explosion, he has this habit of living his life as if he is waiting for a dramatic change and I just wonder sometimes, I just wonder how that change will come about.

and also, of course, my mind is a shambles. Or its a lovely town but it does of Those streets one shouldn;t wander down .

Finally (and this poem faiuls) I am determined to capture the essence of staring out through glass - cos it does something to my mind and to reality. I'll get it yet!