on waking up each morning i climb the rock overlooking the valley and sit light with the gun resting on my knees for the poem to step into the clearing.
when it does, i hold my breath, take a good aim, and pull the trigger.
the thing is to be totally at rest on the rock, the gun lying on your lap. a rabbit or a tiger will step into the clearing some time or the other. then take aim and shoot. on some days, nothing will come, not even a rat. so you put the gun on your shoulder and go home in the evening, have a nice bath and go to sleep. until next morning. :) simple, isn't it?
There is an element of waiting involved.it cannot be forced.sometimes it takes months to write one, though the theme keeps at you asking to be put into words.nothing like it when you find the words finally. you do not even know if anyone has read it but you know if it has come out well or not. but you have to put it behind you and move on. suddenly the next one pops into your head mostly as an image or sequence of images or a phrase. the poet writes mostly out of compassion for the fellow traveller. he tells you what he has seen. he tells you we are all the same. he tells you we are not alone.
We have different ways, don't we? I started this blog as a record of the things happening to me after I suddenly, with a shock, realised that there was something wrong with me. I had all along been trying to become someone I am not; I was getting mixed in the madness of the maddest people around. Sometimes it requires a severe jolt to the ego to wake up. Reading JK and Osho helped and is still helping; they show the way, don't they? I am watching the way my mind works; each move the mind makes I am watching; my every response to outside stimuli I am watching, without approval or condemnation, without taking sides, as though I am someone else. Poetry has never been the intention of this blog. But when you fall silent and are alert, you start seeing, your antenna starts working. You see poetry walking into the clearing. Skill with the gun is the issue.
JK's 'stay with reality' mantra has helped me in several crunch situations. Osho too. Coelho gives a tweak to Shakespeare's line by saying "Life is a journey from which there is no return." How true if we see what he means. you are right. poetry is not the goal or the objective or the ambition. it is a byproduct.if it helps people along then it is a bonus.
very true, prabhakar. it is all about seeing what they mean. seeing from within. not the word, but what is beyond the word. this is an area in which there had been tremendous research and development from ages past, especially in the east. the path they had laid is there for all of us. but we are afraid. we are terribly afraid.
9 comments:
Wao! Amazing...I am awe struck :-)
But one thing, does it need so much of effort or this whole process also is a natural one like the flow of poetry from your pen :-)
the thing is to be totally at rest on the rock, the gun lying on your lap.
a rabbit or a tiger will step into the clearing some time or the other.
then take aim and shoot.
on some days, nothing will come, not even a rat.
so you put the gun on your shoulder and go home in the evening, have a nice bath and go to sleep.
until next morning.
:) simple, isn't it?
and do you manage to hit the target? strange. muse has different ways for different people.
There is an element of waiting involved.it cannot be forced.sometimes it takes months to write one, though the theme keeps at you asking to be put into words.nothing like it when you find the words finally. you do not even know if anyone has read it but you know if it has come out well or not. but you have to put it behind you and move on. suddenly the next one pops into your head mostly as an image or sequence of images or a phrase. the poet writes mostly out of compassion for the fellow traveller. he tells you what he has seen. he tells you we are all the same. he tells you we are not alone.
We have different ways, don't we? I started this blog as a record of the things happening to me after I suddenly, with a shock, realised that there was something wrong with me. I had all along been trying to become someone I am not; I was getting mixed in the madness of the maddest people around. Sometimes it requires a severe jolt to the ego to wake up. Reading JK and Osho helped and is still helping; they show the way, don't they? I am watching the way my mind works; each move the mind makes I am watching; my every response to outside stimuli I am watching, without approval or condemnation, without taking sides, as though I am someone else. Poetry has never been the intention of this blog. But when you fall silent and are alert, you start seeing, your antenna starts working. You see poetry walking into the clearing. Skill with the gun is the issue.
JK's 'stay with reality' mantra has helped me in several crunch situations. Osho too. Coelho gives a tweak to Shakespeare's line by saying "Life is a journey from which there is no return." How true if we see what he means. you are right. poetry is not the goal or the objective or the ambition. it is a byproduct.if it helps people along then it is a bonus.
very true, prabhakar. it is all about seeing what they mean. seeing from within. not the word, but what is beyond the word. this is an area in which there had been tremendous research and development from ages past, especially in the east. the path they had laid is there for all of us. but we are afraid. we are terribly afraid.
keep your fingers on trigger and keep pulling it often.
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