Words that sing

Life’s music may set our arms mourning or our feet dancing
And yet whatever its melody, we are always dancing

A bright lightning flashes between the minds and hearts
Of a man and the desirable woman he espies dancing

Some may baulk, finding dancing too spontaneous or sensuous
Yet who can live freely who is hesitant when he tries dancing?

Revelling in compatibility and caressed with compliments,
Lovers smile at each other, their bright eyes dancing.

Some spin webs to trap their lovers and bind them close
Yet love is starved by conversations that are merely lies dancing.

Love has a power to give our fleeting lives
The brilliant beauty of butterflies dancing

Some walk the journey of their life, others run or crawl.
Happiest those whose words sing, who spend their lives dancing.

This is my first attempt at a ghazal, prompted by totallyoptionalprompts, on whose site you can find links to guidance on this form, and will soon be able to find examples by other poets. It’s a challenging form and I’ve not quite got the hang of it yet!

Edit - I’ve just been reading more about the Ghazal (HT to Brad) and have changed the last line, which used to be: “But the wise and happy travel through their lives, dancing”.

Someone, somewhere is playing a tune
his fingers strumming in the gloom
on the trembling strings. And my heart
echoes the pulse of his subtle art.
Someone, somewhere is playing a tune,
calling to me through the rainswept dark.
In the unknown distance, under the moon
someone, somewhere is playing a tune
on the trembling strings of my heart.

This is a response to the picture above, by newjack at photobucket, the Monday mural at poefusion.  My response came to me as a very complete visual and aural image, though it’s nothing I’ve ever experienced! It started as a triolet but I modified it because I didn’t want the refrain lines to appear together until the final couplet, and because the repetition just seemed to work better this way.

Some days walk slowly past.

Limping,
or dawdling,
or just plain tired.

On the flat path,
yesterday’s pebbles become
daunting obstacles
(remember -
it’s much, much easier
to trip over a molehill
than a mountain.)

Nowness is diluted.
Vividness muted.

Nothing is wrong and yet
each moment is heavy
with the absence of 
the active joy 
of everything going just right.

Muscles miss the effort of climbing
as much as the easy swing of descending.

Time dawdles from day to day
wrapped around bright flashes of
things that insist on being noticed.

But these slow times
are just as much a part of life
as the roaring torrent of ecstasy and heartbreak that is love,
or the surge of adrenaline in a body facing times of stress and change.

Patience is as necessary as courage.
And the flat path is also
part of the journey.

So I walk on
through the ambling days. Certain
that interesting times are ahead.

I’d forgotten that this week’s Totally Optional Prompt was to write about tempo… but maybe it was working away in the back of my mind, because I wrote this, and only after writing it realised that this was very appropriate to the prompt!

I thought I saw your inner light, burning valiant, sweet and true
And I loved and cherished the brillant flame which I thought was you.

I noticed the flickerings of your fire as it struggled to burn old, bitter fuel
But still you shone with such integrity I was sure you would never be cruel

And then I saw that light turn cold as ice, suddenly lashing out at me
With the cruelty of desperate fear - the shock almost worse than the misery.

Later still, I saw that light half-choked in a mound of jagged metal rubble
I cut my hands trying to set you free, but my efforts only worsened your trouble

And now I wonder if that inner light was ever truly there at all
Or just an illusion I wanted to believe, now vanished beyond recall.

…
…

This was partly inspired by a prompt at read write poem to write about light - check out what other poets have produced here.

The threads that bound our love were tangled like a strangling fishing line,
For we were drawn together and driven apart by our insecurities and fears.
Now all that remains is one pure strand reaching out to your heart from mine

Sailing high and proud like triumphant kites, it was our joy to intertwine
But though we dreamed of soaring united beyond life’s prosaic frontiers,
The threads that bound our love were tangled like a strangling fishing line.

We had barely begun to enjoy the richness of our love’s intoxicating wine,
Before the drink was tainted by arguments where love is reduced to sneers.
Now all that remains is one pure strand reaching out to your heart from mine.

Love cannot flourish when entwined in fear like a tree by a suffocating vine,
And though we tried to be honest, dispensing with insecurity’s masking veneers,
The threads that bound our love were tangled like a strangling fishing line.

Some threads were cruelly ripped away, others faded with the passing of time.
Mine were starved by your cruel silence, yours drowned by my unbearable tears
Now all that remains is one pure strand reaching out to your heart from mine.

So now, I walk on, strong and alone, choosing not to be angry or to pine.
My heart still sends out compassion and love, even if your heart never hears.
The threads that bound our love were tangled like a strangling fishing line;
Now all that remains is one pure strand reaching out to your heart from mine.

…

…

I’ve been wanting to write a villanelle for some time, but it’s such a difficult form that I never seemed to get beyond the first verse. But then this morning I wrote a free verse poem whose subject seemed a suitable candidate for this tangled repetitive form.

It was quite a struggle to fit the repeated refrains into the verses in a way that made sense both in the immediate context and in the overall story of the poem, particularly when allowed to use only two rhymes throughout the entirel poem! There are still a few corners that would benefit from polishing, but I’m still very proud of myself for having produced my first functioning villanelle!

I’d be interested to know what people think about these two different poems based around the same idea and imagery. Does the repetition and convolution of the villanelle form make a better poem, or is the original’s greater freshness more effective?

Sometimes I wonder - “Just how we will meet?”
In the elegantly intimate embrace of tango?
Clumsily colliding on some unfamiliar street?
Or both reaching out for the same plump mango?

Voices finding harmony in spontaneous duet?
Or a very civil handshake in an office’s formality?
Wrestling with each other in a martial artist’s sweat?
Arguing about the state of affairs bizarrely called normality?

Defying fear of strangers on the underground at night?
Or comfy on a friend’s introductory settee?
Surfing in the tangled web of true and false bytes?
But there’s no point guessing where and when it will be!

One day it will seem that our souls were born to merge.
But only by chance will our paths at last converge.

A sonnet inspired by Sunday Scribblings’ prompt to write about a chance encounter. It’s both serious and light-hearted, which is very much the way I’m taking my search for a new partner!

Strand by strand
the tangled threads that
(once upon a dream)
bound us tightly together
were pulled apart.

Like kites we soared
until our confused lines
limited our flight
brought us down
to earth and the sad work
of disentanglement.

Some threads ripped out violently
By our sudden, painful fall.
Some that starved for lack
of even the simplest interaction.
Some simply faded with time.

And so there is no pain any more
for the confused tangle
that once bound my heart
like fishing line in a swan’s throat
is untangled. Gone.

The fears, the little dependencies,
The habits and insecurities
All stripped away.

And all that is left
is the single thread,
straight and pure
(uncorrupted by
any self interest)
of my love for you.

Now when I receive no benefit,
not even interaction,
now alone I can be sure
that no more self interest
is tangled in my love -
and that even among the tangles
that caused us both fear and pain
I truly loved you.

Stretching into the distance
towards the place where you vanished
I don’t know if that simple thread
of my love can reach you
in the distance you fled to.

But down it my heart freely pours
kind wishes and compassion
with no expectation of return.

Thread of life - tangled up, originally uploaded by ♥ up the faraway tree ♥.

I’ve been reading Daniel Gilbert’s book Stumbling on Happiness (for some of the key arguments, see this TED.com video), and thinking about the idea that our level of satisfaction depends on our expectations. 

Gilbert quotes a startling experiment that shows how important our expectations can be. One group of participants was promised a reward (e.g. £3) for their participation, but then told that there was a mistake and they would receive less (say £2). The second group were promised a lower amount (e.g. £1) and received exactly what they were promised. A rational argument would say that those receiving £2 were still better off and so should be happier than those receiving £1. But in practice the first group were more unhappy than the second - because they didn’t receive what they had expected to receive. One group thought themselves £1 better off than nothing, the others felt they were £1 worse off than £3.

It’s one of those ideas that starts to apply itself to all sorts of areas of my life and thinking.

One of the most difficult aspects of my current work situation is that people feel that they were promised more (by my predecessor) than I am able to give them. So unfortunately what I am able to offer, although generous if considered objectively, is deeply unsatisfying to them because it’s less than they were expecting.

It’s also relevant to relationships. Before my last relationship, I was mooching along fairly happily as a single person, having been single for several years. Yes, I wanted a partner, but my life was interesting and fulfilling and overall I was happy. During the relationship I became used to all sorts of things that were better than in my single situation - having my self-image reinforced by compliments and attention, opportunities to discover new things, someone who was always there (by mobile if not in person) when I wanted to talk, and all sorts of other benefits. I didn’t need all those things - I’d got on perfectly happily without them. But their sudden withdrawal was a shock. And while I knew that I could be happy as a single person, it took me some time to get back to that state of mind, because I had expected that the relationship level of comfort would continue. Again, it was harder to cope with the withdrawal of something than it was to cope with its absence.

It also occurs to me that this may be why some religious people view the life of an atheist as necessarily miserable. If you have been promised, and come to believe, that you will meet your loved ones again, it must be difficult and painful to accept the idea that you will not. Whereas if you always felt that death was final, you simply don’t feel the same level of disappointment, because you never expected anything more. (Obviously the belief in heaven can help to make the initial grief easier to bear, and will continue to do so so long as you continue believing that. But if that belief ever falters, dealing with the withdrawal is more painful than it would have been to deal with the initial grief without this apparent consolation.)

My experience of having never believed in heaven is therefore vastly different from the experience of someone who has believed in heaven and has ceased to do so. The de-converted seem to get used to the disappointment, with time (Gilbert also argues strongly that we also tend to strongly underestimate how well we our coping mechanisms help us deal with future calamities). But a religious person who still believes in heaven will, if they try to imagine what it would be like not to believe in heaven, is likely to completely overestimate the misery this would cause a deconvert, let alone a life-long atheist like myself.

Somewhere in the blogosphere I came across someone describing how angry they felt with someone who told a child that there was no Santa Claus, feeling that shattering the child’s illusions was cruel. But I was mystified why they were angry at the person that shattered the illusion - rather than the person who set up the inevitable disappointment by telling that child the original lie that there was a Santa Claus. The experience of living in a world without Santa Claus is completely different depending on whether we were told that a world with Santa Claus was possible.

So what does this mean in practice? It should be reasonably straightforward to avoid making promises that can’t be kept in a work situation, and I’ve definitely had a very clear lesson in why this is so important. It’s harder in relationships - because the nature of a long-term relationship is the hope that it will continue, and the mutual commitment to trying to do so. But still, I think being aware of this will help in future relationships - to know that the horror with which the mind contemplates being single from within a relationship is not a realistic perception of the actual experience of being single.

The mind does work strangely at times - but it does help to get to know its peculiarities!

A lonely stretch of grey-damp shingle, roofed only by the endless night
Is altared and hallowed by the vestal flame of the guiding harbour lights
Secret and sacred, in each moon’s darkness, slipping sideways from the foam
The ancient mermaids gather to celebrate the endless world they roam.

There they lounge upon the shore, seductive, salt-scaled and single
Voices soft above the sound of the wave-shifted shingle.
Sharing quietly their tales and trophies from their scouring of the deep -
The wildness of the ocean surge, the softness of a man asleep.

Shedding their tails, they proudly arise, and in the guise of an innocent maid
Each shares her deepest nature’s gift with a sailor (who’ll boast of getting laid).
The sacred service duly completed, their hearts yearn for the ocean flows
Where each mermaid wanders, leaving a trail of beauty wherever she goes.

While the waves caress an empty beach, strewn with glinting scales
Where the hard stones lie in sensuous curves, hollowed out by mermaid tails.

…
… 

I came across the phrase “Church of the old mermaids” on Endicott Redux, and thought that it would be an interesting idea for a poem. And then I came across the picture above on Rick Mobb’s blog and decided that it was a poem I had to write.

You stare with visionary wonder at a sudden flash of insight
>>And a new light of knowledge starts to glitter in your eyes
>>Doorway to the quest that beckons you towards a mystic prize.
Your eyes are newly gifted with a special, higher sight,
>>Which can never be deceived by humans’ incessant lies.
From you their masks cannot conceal their weaknesses or fright
For in their auras their stories are written in patterns of rainbow light,
>YAnd you are gifted to cure the world with the truth you realise!

But humility and healthy doubt were banished by your insight
>>And obsessive is the light that glitters in your eyes.
>>To be a healer, not to heal, is what you truly prize. 
The brightness of the vision has overwhelmed your sight,
>>With radiant temptation to believe these flattering lies.
Leaving you so cruelly trapped between pride, hope and fright,
That you lash out at any attempt to question the vision’s light.
> Oh, how much more hurt will you do, before you realise?

This poem responds to a prompt at sundayscribblings - to write a poem about vision. For me one of the interesting things about a really powerful vision is what you don’t see - the brighter the light you stare at, the less you can see anything else. (There’s an interesting discussion about the links between egotism and mysticism at Cafe Philos.) 

Those who know my blog well will already be familiar with the experiences that are behind my response to this prompt - I used to go out with someone who believed his energy reading gave him special insight into me. But what he saw was utterly dominated by his fear and projection… and so his “vision” was deeply destructive. 

I am not denying outright that people can have powerful and meaningful personal insights… that would be to commit the reverse error myself. But I think there is a very real danger that insights that are taken too seriously can blind us to other people’s insights, causing us to close off from the questioning that opens the mind. And so, even if the original vision had an element of truth, its effect, in the end, is to block our minds to the truth.

(Photo by jhhwild at flickr.)