Pain
A brief prelude: pain, in truth, is a non-existent thing...and I suppose the fact that we feel it points either to our forgetting of our existence or to our obsession with affirming the unreal, or both...at any rate, sometimes it's good to just get it out there in one form or another...and this was my "getting it out there" poem when around my upper teens to early twenties, i think...but i send this now because i haven't really quite released my pain and it crops up here and there with a good enough strength to take me partially, if not fully, out of my day; to take me out of fully enjoying the joy in the day...and so i wrote and i write and i share of me, or at least who i perceive is me, or a part of me...honestly, if i were to let go of my pain this poem would probably be a non-issue and wouldn't have had to be written at all in the first place...but perhaps there's something to be said for creative expression, in all its forms...especially, if someone could relate on a similar level so that we both could ponder long enough not to dwell but to examine pains origin, our origin, so that we could be honest enough and then brave enough to let the pain go, so that we Know, that all that remains is freedom itself...in love with you all, mike:
Pain
How shall I speak of my pain?
It runs through my being as a great flood crushing all in its path
It is deeper than the deepest of oceans
Stronger than the strength of a thousand men
It deadens my senses to the day
Rendering me sightless before the light
Deaf before the song of a bird
Numb to the touch of my beloved
How shall I express in words that which makes me want to cry?
To know the secrets of my tears perchance one need question the day unto the secrets of the night
I would let you touch the pain in my tears but they have long since dried
Leaving my heart an empty well residing in an empty being
I am caught between facing reality and escaping in a dream
Between standing erect before my soul and losing my self in its shadow
And I would not even speak of love
For this is a creature I wish not understand
It holds me to the sun
Wiping me free of cares and fears
Only to laugh at my honesty and clothe my nakedness
And though it may not be pleasant on the ear
How shall I speak of that which makes my want to die?
Am I a river longing for its greater home, the sea?
A bird too fearful to learn how to fly?
Or mayhap just a boy who is tired and would rather laugh than cry?
Pain
Beautiful Poem,
It reminds me of the impetus behind much of my own
creative works, poetry as well as photography. Pain
and suffering. A recent study found that creative flow
comes usually from negative emotional states such as
constant depression. Van Gogh. I am beginning to think
that the emotional blankness of depression creates a
response in us that seeks to find its way out and back
into joy. Creativity flows, kind of like the seed of
happiness within the deadness of depression, pain and
suffering in a yin-yang cycle. When things go too far
in one direction then the seed of the opposite grows
in order to reverse that direction. I found at one
time as I was getting deep into my art that I hung on
to my suffering because of the creativity that it gave
to me. How stupid is that? But it seems to be a
universal condition. Then I found the spiritual path
with books like Autobiography of a Yogi by Yogananda
and Carlos Casteneda's books about his opening to the
world of shamanic reality. My understanding of reality
began to expand, and now I can more readily see that
creativity does not require pain. I only need to not
hang on to that as a platform for creative expression
within my own life.
Learning to Dance the Dance of Love,
Robert
Thank You, Robert :)
Eversomuch for your kind and gentle and profound response...It is taken in deeply and refreshes me as a cool, ocean blown breeze on a hot summers day...blessings my brother, unto you and all...michael:)
here's perhaps a relevant thought or two or a few...
re:our holding to pain as a "comfortable friend" instead of letting it go for fear of our self somehow coming to an end...thanks again, mike:)
I hold on to pain in fear that, if released, my fingers will become numb,
Afraid that I will be sightless, voiceless, deaf and dumb.
Pain becomes my "reality" when I transform it into a cold, dark cave for me to hide,
Pain becomes my illusion when I learn from it without calling it master.
Fear feeds on our resistance and denial,
Love feeds not,
It is already full.
Much of our pain comes because we reject our joy,
We're afraid it won't be such a "comforting" host.