IN THE SHADOW OF SCRIBBLERS

Shakespeare covered
Every human emotion
In existence
Turned them inside out
Shook them over the
Straw-strewn floor
And we learned life from him

Woolf and Joyce revealed
The constant stream of consciousness
Speeding through our brain
Tunneling like a dark train
Finding form in summer fields
And we learned thought from them

Plath confessed it all
Words tinkling against
The cracked bell jar
Climbing the bars of poetry
Hearing Shakespeare’s
Be true to yourself
She was
And we learned about the fine line
Between fiction and reality
From her

Ginsberg and the Beats
Howled all over the world
Shoving ugliness down our throats
As they ushered in love and peace
Bleeding all over in City Lights books
Ideas never in print before
Overcoming obscenity trials
Changing the word itself
And we learned emotion from them

So what is left to teach?
What can we writers do
To make life easier for you?
To make you see
That we, like you
Suffer and love
Cry and sing
Hurtle through life
Slowly uncoiling
Writing:
A lifetime search
An outreach
To teach
And learn from you…

(c) 2018 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: My notebooks & guitar

FEEL IT TOO

 

Ah, Sylvia, Sylvia

You made the mistake

Of falling

For a fellow poet

 

Felt so good

At first

Flirting

Feeling fine

Flying high

 

Two egos

Soothing

Feeling

What fun

But then

Time to face the future

Forget each other

Or forage on to the next step

You chose the continuation option

 
Marriage, children

No option

For children of the fifties

Except all or nothing

You chose all

 

But as the years mounted

And your best work produced

Nothing felt good

He was still flying

Tossing his laurel leaves

Like a boomerang

At the women

Who flung themselves

Against his soaring arrogance

Did you become

A refurbished virgin

That only the deep breaths

Of oven fumes

Could arrest

When family

Friends

Flirting

Was no longer enough

 

Sylvia, I feel it too…

 

© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Sylvia Plath