The story so far

Sunday 11 October 2009

Hatred. A Practice Poem

I read up a bit on poetry and learned a couple of things.  Firstly, it doesn't have to rhyme and even could be viewed more highly if it does not rhyme.  Secondly, poetry is often most moving when written in a state of heightened emotion.

I wondered about this.  A lot of poetry is written by men in frilly cuffs and curly wigs and delivered up to ivy clad balconies or in clearings in the woods.

What I mean is that a lot of poetry is driven by love, or more likely lust and you have to be a bit airy-fairy to write it.  I wasn't keen to get into that.

I did remember reading some poetry by soldiers in the trenches in the first world war.  This poetry, fuelled by fear, was really good stuff.  Clearly situations like this are to be avoided, but it's interesting to note that fear could probably inspire even better poetry than love.

I don't love Australia, I don't hate Australia and I'm not too scared of it either.  Maybe writing a decent poem about it would be difficult?

Then, at lunchtime today, I learned something that made me angry.  I don't mean angry, I mean totally irate, furious and fairly confrontational.  After I had calmed down sufficiently to reach the conclusion that violence was not the answer, despite its initial appeal, I decided that it might be a good way to start me writing poetry. I thought I'd write a poem about it.  This would be a warm up for my Australia poem and would be slightly more challenging because due to the sensitive nature of the incident, I cant really reveal any details.

One thing I can reveal is that this is not about Hannah!

Poem#0
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My thoughts are focussed by anger, they pierce the fog of my life.
Why did she do it, the destruction inflicted, she's evil, she's nasty, vindictive, insane.
To me she was nothing, but now there is something, a reason to see her once more.
I wasn't her target but still took the pain, my hatred is burning, my fury aflame.
Her lies were effective, flawless in fact, but what was it that drove her to this?
What pleasure is found from causing this hurt, when all I can see is her shame?
My logical mind will not find an answer.  This much I know as I struggle to sleep
What motivates her is foreign to me, perhaps not so much as I imagine her weep.
But really I think, she is driven by greed.  One man for the money, one for her need.
She's a user, a leach, she's the worst kind of scum. That's why I don't get the things that she's done
But one thing I'm sure of, what motivates me, can not be the hatred that she'd like to see.
As sleep starts to win, my thoughts turn to pity.  She's nothing, she's failed, her life: it is shitty.
She may think she's won but she hasn't I see.  She's taken from us, but she's lost more than me.
We still have each other, our family and friends, but love is something which she just pretends.

5 comments:

  1. my god nick, you continue to amaze. nothing quite like passion to stir the thoughts into poetry, you could not write the book 'the complete electrical engineer'.

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  2. It would have been better if it didn't rhyme! Why don't you try an e e cummings (google him) version!

    John Slinger

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  3. I just read "hate blows a bubble of despair into" It is fantastic, it really is. Clearly it doesn't matter whether or not what you write makes perfect sense to the reader. He is writing what he thinks as he thinks it, not what he would say as he would make others understand. That is perfect. The reader then gets to apply their own thoughts and meaning to it. This is the kind of Bulls"$%t I would love to emulate in my next version.

    What I struggled with this time round was that what I was writing didn't make sense to anyone apart from myself. Now I know that that doesn't matter and may not be true!

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  4. NIck i meant you could NOW write the complete electrical engineer. It was not not. YOu could even do it in French.

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  5. I think you were right first time David!

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