Primrose Hill Contradiction, a poem

I see the sun peek through a cloud on Primrose Hill. (Rachel Poletick)

I did not feel my best today. But sometimes when we're at our worst, life gives us a moment to contemplate on our best. When I consider me at my best, most thoughtful self, I think of poetry.

So here is one I wrote a while back, in a moment of quiet observation. I don't consider it a masterpiece. I've never felt terribly eager to publish it before today. But in the vein of living in one's past, present and future with equanimity, I thought I might share.

Primrose Hill Contradiction

This hill is vibrant
Full of voices and cameras
Chatter and clicking interchangeably
It's a moment in time
That catches you and makes you
Perceptive, even if you didn't want to be.

The view pierces previous thought
Where iron and glass
Meet stone and brick
Which in turn meet leaves and bark
A line which seems impenetrable,
Yet almost so close as to reach it.

I'm not sure how I came to be here,
How I can be so close to life,
Yet miles away.

But somehow it feels perfect,
Unchangeable and unfathomable
All at once.

And I know I must come back.

Implications, a poem

Lately I've felt at a loss for what to write. Maybe it's because I'm feeling under the weather or maybe it's because I've just run out of good ideas. But today, I've decided to share (another) poem with the world since the only good writing material I have available to share is something I wrote a long time ago. Apparently I've lost all of my ability to write well along with my health, but at least I have written well in the past.

Unlike the previous poem I posted, this is one about love. And not about the pain of love, but about think I felt love and being afraid to express it.

I've never been in love, however I've definitely been under the delusion of being in love. There have been times in my life where I've almost risked telling people I've loved them simply because I didn't know what the word meant.

Sometimes I share my words all too freely. It makes sense, after all I write a blog every day and they are generally relatively lengthy.

But unlike a blog, which often just involves spewing your feelings onto paper, saying that you love someone involves trapping them as much as you trap yourself. You end up bringing expectations to the table, and putting yourself and the other person in a difficult situation where feelings have to be questioned.

I think in the beginning of my first relationship - and the whole experience basically consisted of a beginning since it never got past the first couple of weeks - I thought I was ready to tell him I loved him. I got so caught up in the feelings I had that the word almost burst from my lips.

And I don't think I understood what kind of ramifications a word like that could have.

That being said, this poem was not written for him. In fact, it was written years before him at a time when I definitely had no idea what love was (not that I do now either). I think some of my best poetry has been written out of somewhere imaginary. Just like poems can bear your soul, they can also help you create fiction that feels real.

Poetry is inherently emotional and even when it's not based in personal fact, it still resonates.

This poem, upon looking at it again, resonated with me in relation to my first relationship. Not because it was representative of the exact feelings I felt with my first boyfriend, but because it reminded me of the strength of my feelings as well as the confusion I felt.

The whole poem is about the jumbled emotions when considering whether or not you are actually in love. And, at least as of now, I don't know if I will ever be able to bring any clarity to this question. But at least I can provide some art with which anyone can commiserate. Because I'm sure many of us have found ourselves feeling what we think is love, but not being sure. And then almost risking declaring our emotions when we can never quite know how real they are.

Implications

I don't believe in telling
Words do not truth bear
Yet now I'm often dwelling
On how honestly I do care

Implications are my mind's expression
To say, but not to speak
When love is no longer a confession
It's far easier for the meek

For this I must explain to you
But hide it in a song
That you at last might see who
Does, in my heart, no wrong

I love but cannot state
By the fear that love's too much
While passion may be fate
To me it doesn't sound such

But in wanting to be frank
And trying to be true
At risk my heart will have later sank
I believe that I love you

To Nothingness, a poem

My poetry journal.

I started writing poetry in eighth grade. My English teacher at the time required us to learn different styles of poem writing, mainly based on meter and rhyme. He'd send us home with assignments. "Write a blank verse tonight." "Try your hand at a Shakespearean sonnet for your poetry journal."

I would sit, staring at my notebook and feeling hindered by the instructions. If I want to write about a certain topic, why should I have to care if it's in iambic pentameter? In my frustration I didn't realize what I was being afforded.

The problem was that I hated being prescribed certain structures. But in time I learned how magnificent I felt when I used them.

For the next four years after leaving that English class, I only wrote another couple of poems. My high school days were filled with academic and journalistic writing assignments and I rarely, if ever, made time to be creative with my work.

But once I got to college I started realizing the value in devoting my own heart to my writing, in letting my pen speak from my soul rather than just writing what was on my mind.

A lot of people truly enjoy writing in free verse. They see no use in structure because they feel that the purpose of poetry is to let the mind wander and produce an emotional outpouring that needs no beautification through rhyme.

But I've always felt differently. The poetry I write is not the product of my mind wandering. It's something farther from my reach. When I focus on the number of syllables, the rhyme scheme, the structure of a poem, I forget about trying to be eloquent and trying to send a message.

Instead of writing political allegories or telling stories that have been on my mind, I let my pen do the deciding. The words flow out to fit within the design I've concocted for my poem and as a result, the purest of my writing pours onto the page.

What comes out is a form of expression rather than impression. I don't let my work mean something greater than it is, instead I let it stand for exactly what it means. It's almost like I don't control it, but that it's handed to me by my unconscious mind.

One day I was out on a walk and I decided to just sit down and listen to my surroundings and put pen to paper. My decision on structure went as follows: ababcdcdefef rhyme pattern and whatever number of syllables I have in the first and second lines I will continue to copy for the rest of the poem. This is a common style for me and it works pretty well for my creative method.

These were the results:

To Nothingness

Abrupt noises in my ears
And a dull pain in my spine
The world is not quite here,
But for the thoughts in my mind.
My old world was full of pain
Of the heart, not the self
In the grave, those thoughts I've lain
Not with spite, but for my health.
I find brightness within me
When mel'ncholy shrouds all else
Exhuming my soul, I see
To nothingness, all else melts.