All the time
Mind travels far.
Conversations
With my same self.
Tumbling the world,
All that I perceive,
Into smooth
Manageable pieces.
Press them on to paper
And sell em in a book,
Little bits of me.


I opened an old book of poetry the other day. Poetry composed and compiled by me that I hadn't read in a long time. The 'little bits of me' book. There were words written that I had forgotten about. Other passages felt familiar yet enough time had passed that even these read as new. They hardly seemed my words and I enjoyed reading them.

The poems in 'little bits of me' are a reflection of a period in my life when I was looking at the world through eyes set on a spirit quest. To be certain, I was aware of the larger world around me and I wrote about it in my journal. These were the matters of the state and of society as a whole. But my primary filter then was my soul and it dominates the musings in my poetry.

Alternatively, a half dozen or so poems that also hardly seem to be my words are sketched out in the back pages of my journal, the most recent entry composed over five months ago. Unlike many of the poems found in 'little bits of me', these latest writings don't take me to the moment of their composition. The words are empty and contrived like I was forcing myself to write them, which I probably was. It seems my spirit quest has been put on hold.

There used to be balance in my writing. A little bit of poetry, a little bit of prose. I would focus on one for a period and then shift to the other. The two genres alternated often enough that I didn't have to relearn any skills. I wrote prose with my head and poetry with my heart. Somewhere, I stopped paying attention to my heart.

Some times I would try to address political issues in my poetry, but it rarely translated. The ideas when presented as verse always seemed awkward. These thoughts are better left for prose. However, my spirit writing prose was an easier crossover, though even then it was an intellectual exercise, not an artistic one.

My thoughts now have less to do with my soul than they have to do with a world I cannot control. I think I'm in the process of learning how it all fits together - what an expectation. Years of writing essays and examining the world have guided me away from simple creative output. Now I have forgotten how to write poetry. It's a skill I must relearn.

The heart and the mind are connected and I would like to think that their connection is through the soul. Without these two working together in exploring the world my understanding of it is incomplete. The words may ring true, but their message carries less weight. It is the soul that drives conviction and my words require a balance of heart and mind if they are to be without misunderstanding. It is time I brought that balance back.


  posted by jmd ¶ Sunday, May 02, 2004