Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Inside//Outside my Head

This poem lives outside my head
It strikes at the edges & wallows
in unfinished business, cusps &
in between, backspaces & deleted words

It enjoys rowdy street crowds
and music blaring from the young man
tapping his fingers on keyboards as if
he's in a concert instead of subway stop

Sometimes it jogs early morning alone
in the beach or park, lost in its verses
unmindful of time, who comes nosing close
like an eager puppy waiting for a treat  

Some nights, it sips margarita & refuses
to rhyme, preferring to tango & sway to
hot salsa music & restless feet, until 
shoes & restraint are forgotten in the mix

It collects broken & forgotten things
as if they are treasures instead of junk 
During winter, it presses its cheeks
against my shivering bones, croaking  
'Here's the kerosene, light that fire!'




Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight - Thanks for the visit ~ 
picture credit:   here

77 comments:

  1. Inside and outside can collide and roam here of there, that is for sure. Hope all is warm at you8r lair.

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  2. this touched so many places I am familiar with... all the different aspects of what and why we write... the internal and the external.... so good... hope your warm Grace... :)

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    1. Trying to be Robert ~ I had to be very careful in my drive to work this morning ~

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  3. I LOVE this poem "Inside//Outside my Head"! and what a picture, lifting up and beyond your word images. You are a poem, happening.

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  4. ha. the poem has a mind of its own...this was fun, playful...at times a bit like a dating description...i like this poem...it has personality...and heart...collecting broken things....and says much of the writer as it does the poem...

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  5. I loved the whole poem except the first line. The phrase outside the box is so overused that it has become trite. Say outside: my head, my soul, life, anything except a box . . . Please don't take this comment as a negative though. I think the piece is too good (idea, rhythm, imagery etc.) otherwise.

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    1. Thank you for the suggestion ~ I will take it as I wrote this in the early hours of the cold morning ~

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  6. Great to have a poem to heat yourself with poem.. much better than kerosene :-) so many great images... actually I get an image from a children's song of a mischievous balloon .. made me smile.

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    1. Well, I can rewrite this and make it even funnier with a mischievous balloon, smiles ~ Thanks Bjorn ~

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  7. nice.. i love how you give the poem personality...and how it can be so many different things... my fav image is the guy playing music in the subway stops and does it like he's in a concert hall...that's how i want to write my poems as well.. no matter if just a few commuters or a whole concert hall listens...it should be played with the same passion... happy OLN...smiles

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    1. Have to keep the passion burning ~ Thanks for the lovely visit Claudia ~

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  8. I really like the idea of a poem being created in all these places and settings, having connections to so many of the experiences of life. I thought the conclusion was perfect. The idea of lighting a fire with your words-that's cool. Very original piece of work Grace :)

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  9. It almost has a dream quality that just drifts into the imagination. I like it

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  10. You have given the 'poem' a life of its own, a personality. Ha, it does seem to me too that sometimes it is the poem rather than myself that is calling the shots!! Nicely penned, Grace.

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  11. This poem takes on the guise of Everypoem, that lingers in the shadows & folds of each of us; love poems about poetry, like movies about making a movie; provides exciting insightful peeks into the process & the reality; thanks.

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  12. Wow, nice perspective on writing. Great piece!

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  13. Bravo! I couldn't have predicted how this poem was going to end. I love that it goes out on its own and comes back essentially challenging you to write it! Love love love this.

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  14. poetry is everywhere you want it to be... love how you take the reader on an activity-filled day and showing that poetry can be an action as well as a verse on a page... grand write :)

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  15. This is a wonderful piece, I see how you carry it with you all day and into the night. All last night I was trapped in a memory, I didn't quite remember, and really it wouldn't have matter if I did...and yet I would go round and round the wheel trying to remember. I was trying to remember the name of my friend's friend...they were always together...years ago my friend moved to the East, I have lost him, perhaps somewhere I thought if I could remember his friend's name, I would find him?

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  16. This is so true. I see poetry sometimes like I see a photograph. Or I should really say feel, as I then have to go search for the words… and they don't always behave the way I want them to!

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  17. What a fabulous description of the poets mind and the poetic process, spot on! And tonight, (at least where I live) we truly need that fire! :)

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  18. Great concept and some striking images here.. really enjoyed reading about your creative slalom. This especially:

    wallows
    in unfinished business,

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  19. Love this...sounds like my head :)

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  20. I do like this poem about a poem with a life of its own...so often we carry them around through days of living and suddenly they bloom like a crocus.

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  21. I can definitely identify with your poem, Grace. Not all poems have the same kind of impact on us as we think of them and write them!

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  22. I've met that poem before that jogs along side you. I ran faster trying to keep it with me all the way home, only to lose it before I could grab a pen and paper! It was going to be a good poem too!

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  23. I love your personification of the poem... love the idea that a poem could be "lost in its verses"

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  24. Oh, I like this one. Especially:
    "Some nights, it sips margarita & refuses
    to rhyme, preferring to tango & sway to
    hot salsa music & restless feet, until
    shoes & restraint are forgotten in the mix"
    So true of writing, sometimes we color in the lines and sometimes that "music" beats to a different drummer.
    Well done.

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  25. That first stanza really spoke to me . . .

    This poem lives outside my head
    It strikes at the edges & wallows
    in unfinished business, cusps &
    in between, backspaces & deleted words

    Such a cool image too. :)

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  26. It might not rhyme Grace - but it sure has rhythm when it tangos and sways to the salsa beat ... smiles.

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  27. Happy new year, and happy OLN!

    I love how this poem interacts outside your head and then lights the kerosene of inspiration!

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  28. Nice reading you again Grace. And yes, may your poetry always light that fire. Enjoyed this one much - made me want to dance.

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  29. yes, our words are not really ours
    they have a life of their own

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  30. What a great word picture you painted of the poem's journey. Words often do have a mind of their own. I love how they fall together on the paper to form a poem. Lovely! Really enjoyed the fun in this one.

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  31. This is awesome! Very cool concept.

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  32. These words just seem mischievous and fun. I want to join in the adventure! Love it!

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  33. Beautiful imagery... only a poet's perspective could truly grasp. Very nice!

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  34. Inspiration comes from all places - you've done a great job expressing that.

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  35. This really made me Smile. A Truly Wonderful Poem!

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  36. Oh I love this. Your images are so crisp and inviting just like the poem.
    Cheers!

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  37. I absolutely love it. Poems really do like to take on a life of their own. :-)

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  38. What a perfect poem for the first d'verse open link night of the new year...thanks for lighting the fire, Grace!

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  39. I love how you have told this poem. We are very much the poetry that we write, so true. & I really like that puppy treat simile - spot on!

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  40. I had to smile over these lines as I have
    certainly been there with a margarita or two..

    Some nights, it sips margarita & refuses
    to rhyme, preferring to tango & sway

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  41. Some nights, it sips margarita & refuses
    to rhyme

    always carry a mind of its own....great write...bkm

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  42. You, a poem, personified...like that (it) jogs with you and is so versatile in it's ability to collect broken and forgotten things...to be with you wherever you go;)

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  43. Great poem Grace, you gave your poem a voice, excellent.

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  44. The poem lives outside my head. Yes, before we write it and after. Like your poem, Grace. Also like that picture of the hand. Wow!

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  45. You have beautifully brought out the true poetic self and identified it against reality. Very unique perspective to read about - I am saying this because after reading I realize how the words describe me as well.

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  46. Haunting indeed. Like a poetic conscience, it's trying to goad me to write.

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  47. Grace, I really enjoyed relating to this one: both playful and true.

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  48. Oh how I love this. I've never met you before, yet I feel that we have similar writing styles - stuff just niggles away, despite whatever life brings, until we can get it on the page. To be able to capture THAT PROCESS, in a work of art, is a true work of art. You have a new adoring fan.
    Tina @ Life is Good
    A to Z Team @ Blogging From A to Z Challenge 2014

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  49. .. lives outside my head.. that's just great.. and then you go on to tell us how, as if we go on a walk with the poem. Wonderful portrait of the process.

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  50. From embryo to poem of sorts, be it polished or rough, finally it is finished. Not necessarily complete, but finished. I am a visual person who has trouble visualizing. So my birthing process involves a computer and word processing. Hardly ever running along in the rain though an idea for a brother or sister may appear.

    Haha, you wrote this one so very nicely, I loved following you along.
    ..

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  51. well spun, Grace. damn poem keeps giving me the slip :) ~

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  52. I love this! An eager puppy that sips margaritas no less!

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  53. I LOVE THIS and if caps means I am yelling then so be it. Wonderful Grace - really (and I think it relates to so many of us) x

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  54. Treating it well and making it seem easy. Cold mornings can then seem just as warm. Likes the easy flow on many things! Wonderful one Grace!

    Hank

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  55. The dance of the muse:)

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  56. As I started to read this piece, Grace, it immediately put me in mind of the William Stafford poem "Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing" (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/notice-what-this-poem-is-not-doing/). And while, as you know, I am an unrepentent Stafford fanboy, Yours warmed me during thiese cold days. Heavenly!

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  57. I love that pic! It fits so perfectly with your poem! Yes, light the fire!

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  58. A very tightly woven poem Grace. >KB

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  59. I love the personification of poetry and "Some nights, it sips margarita & refuses
    to rhyme"! Wonderful!

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  60. "It collects broken & forgotten things
    as if they are treasures instead of junk"…a poet's heart/mind finds the intrinsic value in surprising places… it is discernment that sifts through and weaves in and out into something meaningful… you are a master at this Grace.

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  61. oooh! no words to tell you how much i enjoyed reading this...
    my favorite line - unmindful of time, who comes nosing close

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  62. You really don't need my comment-- everyone has spoken my precise thoughts... It's timeless conversations that caught my attention ! Blessings Grace. Debbie

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  63. Oh no! Blogger is giving me a hard time to publish comments. It lost my earlier one.

    Anyway...

    How true it is that poem sometimes have a will of their own. Call them, beg them, cajole them, and many times, they resist the call and being captured in paper. :-) This is a fun way to greet everyone.

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  64. I love how the poem has al life of its own, yet needs you to express it, so it follows you. It made me think of the movie trope about the little angels and devils fighting for attention on our shoulders. But here it is a fully formed idea waiting to be born, slithering in and out of your head, and your life. I know that feeling.

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  65. What an acute observation with which you begin this poem, leading me to surmise that every act of creativity by a human might be born outside the head. I look at the sculptor, architect, musician/composer, writer, painter, poet, designer, programmer, etc., and see gifts from God in each, their inspirations, born in that seed (between backspaces and deletions.

    You are GoooD, as usual, Grace--but hardly "usual"--grin!
    PEACE and LIGHT!

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  66. I suppose Poetry sees all things..some things we cannot see...
    And others yet to dream..dreams of others yet dreamed...

    And speaking words that never talk..
    or sing..only feelings th@poetry brings...2

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  67. your thoughts are constant... hope you get some rest

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