wow, this is just, something else. i don't know what to say! im speechless! I cant tell you how much this means to me, becouse i am forced to stand and smile while my real feelings for someone and my real hurt inside can never be told. i do it because if i didn't friendships would be torn. i do it become i have to.
'Memories turn into reality,
Reality into future,
Future into promise…' I LOVED those lines, so treu, so wise.
Posted: Sep 11, 2008
Author Comment:
It is always a pleasure to hear that someone has enough humility to relate something with their own life, even though this piece has a darker side than you seem to see.
I will re-state; Love is as close an enemy as it is a friend.
Cheers.
... (not registered user)
This poem is one of the best I have read. Wonderful. Truly magnificent.
Shells. The title intrigued me.
Turning around corners is daring,
Bumping into outspoken anxieties,
Tripping over our own shadows…
This is a great exemplification of a haunting. A grave danger that was left behind. A mere relation to others or to one's self discarded with bitter reasons. Reasons that may perhaps tell why it is so.
I look out my window to grey soil,
In hopes of something different,
Something fulfilling,
Something meaningful…
Ah yes, a longing. A want for something. A desire that keeps us going... but all we see is grey soil.
Finding your way is harder than getting lost,
But what waits at the end of your search is amazing,
Memories turn into reality,
Reality into future,
Future into promise…
Favorite stanza right here. What is at the end of this search? Something best known once all is finally well. It is what we long for when we look out that window- memories. Memories that will keep the future bright and promising.
Self hate is aggressive,
It holds no mercy,
And it holds no tears…
Ah yes, self hate. Truly a dangerous act. It is the most painful of all pain and the most angry of all angst. No tears you say...perhaps apathy has taken over. Finally feeling numb with all the pain.
Tell me a secret,
Tell me why you smile,
Tell me why it hurts inside,
Tell me why you feel this way.
A song's lyrics once said, " Will the last words that wrote for you enough to tell you that in my death, the light that shone through my painful darkness was the blinding vision of your eternal smile." Your poem is a great comparison of this. Even the smiles hurt. Even after the darkness, the smile still resists. The pain is still there, lingering...
A question never has a single answer,
So that we may find our own answers,
So tell me…
Why do you stand with bleeding eyes and a pocket full of shells?
A question never has a single answer. Yes, yes. True. Ad to add to this, a question DOESN'T NEED AN ANSWER. What comes, comes. And and all we have to do is accept the fate, never questioning why or how. True we wonder, but all things happen for a reason. And the reason always makes sense.
Shells. Yes, truly intriguing.
I recall the ocean... how it's tides come to the shores and gather sand and shells. After that, it goes back to meet the sea... sooner or later it comes to the shore again, bringing back the same sand and shells that it took away...
Should a story end where it begins?
Should a shell stay in the ocean
or on the shore? :)
You are a master poet. Do good always because you have a lot ahead of you. Thank you for writing this poem. Really. Thank you.
^^
Posted: Sep 16, 2008
Author Comment:
Thank you for taking the time to write such an uplifting comment.
May I ask which song you speak of?
There is a darker side to this piece that no one has managed to see yet. But I am over joyed at how people have responded.
Much appreciation nameless reader.
Cheers.
Excellent! I especially like the part about us each finding our own answers -- so true.
I envy your ability to carry such meaning in short lines that do not rhyme. All my stuff seems to rhyme.
Check out my latest: "Judge Knot" to see what i mean. I would be very intersted in your opinion.
craaig
Posted: Sep 20, 2008
Author Comment:
As I said to another who commented on my lack of rhyming; humans find themselves following different rhythms in life. I exercise my right not to.
I take your words to heart.
Cheers.
Into the grey soil you sow your hopes. Out of the quagmire and stench grows a 7 petaled Magnolia. Reality turns to future, Future into promise... Self hate can only carry you, it's presence alone can cripple.
All I can think of when I read this, is watching someone feel the greatest hurt and pain in their life, yet seeing them stand still, not moving while they feel it. Willing acceptance of what they feel, what they're doing to themselves. It's that feeling in your throat like you can't breath or swallow, the feeling that makes you want to double over in pain and wretch. I liked it. :)
Posted: Oct 1, 2008
Author Comment:
You literally brought a tear to my eye. Much to my own embarrassment you really took in the feel. When we are in pain though, we must stay calm and take deep controlled breaths, otherwise it becomes a tragic mess.
I appreciate you taking the time to read my work.
Cheers.
What a haunting poem.... For some reason, reading it brought out some latent, unnamed fears in me. The line, 'Turning around corners is daring' sent chills down the spine - as if some unknown danger lurked, waiting to pounce upon the corner-turner and seep inside his mind, sucking his essence out, leaving only a dazed shell to carry on for life.... I don't know why it made me feel like that. Perhaps it is time for me to introspect, as you say,
'A question never has a single answer,
So that we may find our own answers'.
Also, I find the idea of memory turning into reality and reality into future quite intriguing - normally it is the other way round, whereas here it felt as if life was being lived in a flashback. I haven't read enough of your work yet to comment categorically, but I think you are a master of the dark, tortured genre, speaking eloquently of pain concealed. Hats off.
Posted: Oct 9, 2008
Author Comment:
How does YOUR thought process work? Mine works like an annoying over-commercialized song looping in my head. While I approached the computer to type out these thoughts the line "reliving the future" looped in my head.
The 'corner' line was intended to make the reader search in their own mind to find the most terrible thing they could imagine coming from around the corner. It pleases me to know it worked with you.
Memory, reality and future all mean different things depending on who you ask. They may say the same things, but words only show so much. I have an obsession with this idea of 'reliving the future'.
It is not humanly possible to hide what a person has in their heart. You can see when a person is trying to deceive people in their writing because it does not roll well together. When we write we bleed...
Okay, I'm back to this poem(for the hundredth time?)...
'Finding your way is harder than getting lost' - many times I feel that getting lost is harder than finding one's way - it is just so easy and so mechanical to do just the 'right thing', to follow the line of least resistance, to do what is expected.... whereas to get lost, really lost, in one's mind and its myriad channels requires some active effort.
On the other hand, perhaps 'finding one's way' is not what it conventionally sounds like; it is, in fact, finding one's own voice, one's own drummer to march to, whereas 'getting lost' is treading the much-trodden path, down to oblivion, with the rest of the masses.
As you keep saying, 'A question never has a single answer'; and so I find different things to mull over, different things to decipher, every time I visit this beauty. Onion Knight, I sincerely hope you pursue your writing - you have something that very, very few writers have, something way above the usual, and I KNOW it will take you far, if only you stick to it for long. I've never said this to anyone else on booksie, but I know I can safely say that here after reading what you write.
Posted: Oct 15, 2008
Author Comment:
What drives a person to insanity? That is what you have raised in my mind. I guess it all depends on who you ask.
How do you do it? Keeping such an upbeat step in your manner of communicating... I envy what you have.
I have never pursued my writing. Little flickers have sparked in my head, but not enough confidence to actually take that step. This idea of false promise, or, 'The Promised Land' has me a little frightened of the idea of approaching someone with my thoughts. Because that is what it is, isn't it? It would depend on whether or not readers would give a damn about what the writer feels. Also I don't see writers that sound so low-key like this. This wouldn't sell. I have no writing qualifications or any certificates. I only have high school under my belt, not a high enough score to enter a course in Uni. No connections to any writers or publishers, no past experience in the writing industry. No writing published in a magazine and not even a small writing competition participation award. All I have ever had was a school report that said I wrote two years above my year and a film-making teacher that told me I had 'Good control of the written word'.
...In any case, appreciate the thought.
Unless I see something extraordinary I don't think the world is kind enough to allow me a chance. It owes me no favors.
Like I said before, you stimulate thoughts.
Cheers.
I was on the verge of one more emotional outburst and i don't know why i clicked on to this poem and it made me realise that i was going to do the wrong thing...Silence and thoughtful moves r not only wise but also great for all involved...but it seems so difficult most of the times...like the lull before a storm??
Posted: Oct 31, 2008
Author Comment:
Actually, I was trying to convey the idea that silence, in this case, is violent and dangerous if prolonged. People do not realize the power they have when they acknowledge another human being. Some live in the shadow of another.
No one has been able to decipher this and I hope you can share with others that have already read; Shells was not the remains of some kind of snail.
They are the shells that can be used in a firearm.
Oh my.
I think a little piece of my heart just withered up!
Onion!!! This is outstanding. The imagery is clever, especially looking out the window.
This is so heavy, may I take some of your weight off your shoulders? Mine are stacked, sure enough, but yours seem at a bit greater capacity than need be.
I enjoy how you question the universe. As if, you yell at the stars.... "Challenge me, damit! I said Give Me All you Got!" and it did! and now you are the ponderer of shells. just not sure if it's the good shells that come to fruition of the bad shells that lump under sand only to cut bare foot beachwalkers on the sly.
Sigh.
This is powerful, I might even love you!
Ok, kidding. But, you get my drift.
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