Yet Untitled 134 - Broken Spring
Another Poem. I guess it's now a thing!
Dearest Yet Untitler,
Another poem. For good reason.
Ever since the last installment, I’ve been wanting to come back here to write more verse. I’ve not felt this sort of urge for awhile - such excitement to write. It’s a really amazing feeling. I think one of the main draws for me is the fact that I have no idea what will emerge. Perhaps I’m not conversant enough with the form to be able to foresee the outcome as early as I can while writing prose.
This mystery, this intrigue. It’s both delicious and precarious. It’s like standing at the edge of a precipice looking down at a gushing river below, feeling every bit of the vertigo. That rhymed 😆.
Poems are also helping me tap deeper into myself. Going in as a poet, I’m meeting all kinds of bubbling, lava-like feelings - the ones that’ve been feeding YU all along; but in this guise, my response to them is more…unfiltered? Maybe because I’m not as confident with the craft, the only way I can keep the output honest is by not losing myself in trying to write it ‘better’ than I know. It’s making me go in like a diver with a radio set, relaying what I see.
If I’m now diving to the source that’s been feeding YU, then suppose that I’m now gazing at the very magma that becomes the lava that you see. Would it not be an awesome sight - to gaze at the fiery heart of our planet miles below its surface? Is it even fathomable? It feels indescribable in the same way it feels impossible to tell you what my soul looks like. But I think that’s what’s happening, via this craft - these little submersible orbs of poems that I’m thoroughly enjoying piloting.
I’m peeking deep. And what I’m seeing surprises me. It’s my privilege to have the ability to be able to share some of what I see with you.
P.S. Some of the past instalments have worried some of you. I can’t tell you how grateful I feel to have you looking out for me. Don’t be concerned. There’s fire I’m seeing down below - flying sparks that were always there, but I’m seeing in sharper focus now. I’ll tell you this - while it’s scary to step down that long ladder looking for that fire - a lot of sifting through the dark in the search of sparks - it’s totally worth it.
Here’s what I can back with after this past week’s dive.
Broken Spring
Spring’s come early.
Too early
Is spring even there?
Instead of spring,
Does something else hang in the air?
Broken spring.
What flowers will this shattered season bring?
What do I do with such an age?
When my pens and paintbrushes break on the page,
Too brittle to express these ferocious days.
Spring’s come too early.
There are fires far away.
So far.
Yet, still runs the winter.
Yet, spring isn’t here.
I feel its absence.
I can’t find my way.
Pen on an empty page.
Outside, the rain.
An absence of words.
Their absence: a stain.
A Rorschach image:
Twin howling heads. Pain.
But I read of poets who made pens of bones,
Whose ink didn’t come from blackened stones
But from the black wood of burning homes.
They tell me: “Listen, you:
It’s that time again - of Bones and Blood,
For blackening wet paper salvaged from the flood.
Say your name! Your name means “Spring”
You’re made of that same, invisible thing.”
A pen on an empty page.
Absence and Chaos set the stage.
What a season! What an age!
Burning footlights setting
Fire to a stage.
What a life. What an age!
All I can do is return to the page.
Keep coming back. Keep coming back
There is no other stage. There is no other age.
Just this one. My empty page.
A breeze blows.
Paper rustles.
The sun rages,
My skin blisters. But
Spring...it's not gone!
It speaks to me.
In whispers.
Thanks for listening.
Love you lots,
V
P.S. For those of you who don’t know - the name ‘Vasant’ means ‘Spring’:) Also, I want to keep working on these poems as I go along. The more sandpapering they get, the more they seem to reveal!
What do you feel?
Are you enjoying these poem-type instalments?
