Thursday, February 4, 2010

Frustration

I don't know if I like the title for this one. Please let me know if you have any ideas.


Ideas are lost in the abyss
Between my head and hands
Engulfed by darkness in the rift
My lack of books commands

Whilst in my head on eagle's wings
They soared above the clouds
But now their dirges I must sing
Before I write them down

Oh faithless page, you squire's boy
Why can't you catch these birds?
You guard the gates so stern, so coy
Till I can find good words

8 comments:

Elizabeth Kelley said...

I'm with you on the title, although I can't think of anything better at the moment (go figure.)

I'm not understanding the second stanza's relation to the subject. Am I missing something really obvious?

Jacki Siwel said...

Hello Wind Rider, and welcome!

I can definitely sympathise with the narrator here, being a writer. It's quite a nuisance when ideas refuse to flow from one's brain to one's keyboard.
You ahve a lot of imagery, which is a good thing. I'm not following all of it, though, which leads to confusion. For instance, I'm trying to determine whether this "page" to which you refer is a paper page, or a squire sort of page. I'm not catching the significance of the birds, et cetera.
I love the idea for this poem, though! The metre is steady (something that can actually be difficult to maintain. That's why I write poems most often in free-verse; I can express without worrying about form.)

Anonymous said...

Elizabeth, The "they" in the second stanza refers to the "ideas" in the first.

Jacki, The "page" is the "squire's boy" (sorry for the confusion). Although...it could in an abastract way refer to the page (of paper) itself because the paper doesn't catch the birds (or "ideas") either...

The imagry is basically a way of demonstrating all the ideas the writer has but can't put into words. (Does that make any sense?)

Jacki Siwel said...

Thanks for the clarification.
It does make sense if you explain it, but it was a bit confusing beforehand. I think it's because the reader doesn't understand what the page, the birds, the gates, are.
I also don't understand the dirges in the second stanza.

Anonymous said...

Dirges are funeral songs...so singing the ideas' dirges basically means they jumped/flew across the chasm between my head and hands and didn't quite make it.

Jacki Siwel said...

Again, I follow you if you explain it, but not so much within the poem itself.

Anonymous said...

Haha, yeah. Sorry...hence the need to find "good words" ;)

~E. Kelley said...

My dear Wind Rider - I'm so glad that you have words now. That you don't have to struggle with them, because you're not seeing those things worth writing about through the veil. But face to face. And I think words are easier to find there. I know Aramis and d'Artagnan said this before I did, but I whole-heartedly agree.