Hello again Steemit!

The 2nd poem from The Colour Grey is the first in need of a rewrite. There are a couple words used incorrectly, a ton of cliches, and a host of other issues with this poem. While I don't think it's the worst, the quatrain structure with simple, repeated end rhymes also fails to effectively convey the feeling motivating it.

That is, it doesn't help get across the sense of alienation I felt at the time (and sometimes still do). This was the first poem written specifically for The Colour Grey (about half were written in the years prior) and so it does encapsulate the idea behind the book as a whole.

As I say in the book's introduction (a whole other level of awful, so...you know, just skip it), I collected the poems together really just for me. But I also envisioned the book as a (probably too) challenging "user's guide" to me for anyone up to the task. Like an Ikea instruction manual with only written directions--no pictures or diagrams.

From childhood all the way up to today, I sometimes have had trouble expressing my deepest, most obsessed-over thoughts in a clear, intelligible manner--even to myself. However, when I discovered poetry I found I could play with language, metaphor, and meaning to craft messages perhaps I alone could recognize, but that were at least capable of apprehension by others.

Over the years of sharing my poems with a lucky few, however, I've found that regardless of the poem, most people, even those with the best intentions and hopes for me, really didn't care all that much about examining them deeply. Or at least not to a level of understanding I fascistically deemed "getting it." For a long time, this discouraged me from putting forth the effort it takes to bear oneself on the page.

Then I realized that my efforts had been far from enough. Many poems in The Colour Grey, like this one, were written in hours-, sometimes days-long frenzies and then considered finished. No editing, no re-reading, nothing--just done. Indeed, I was so exhausted by the process of getting the words out that I focused little on making sure the words were the best I could find to fully express what I wanted.

And while this bad poem will be forever immortalized under a hastily purchased ISBN number (and now by the blockchain), its existence was a necessary precursor to the completely new poem born from it. Finally, here is To Sing the Cant upon my Mind. Check out my next post here for the new poem based on this one, entitled Cant.

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To Sing The Cant Upon My Mind

To sing the cant upon my mind
Would be a dreadful waste of time
For if my words my breath could chime
The world would treat them as a crime

So in attempt to lose my woes
In few, my thoughts I do repose
But anguish still persists and grows
And in my face it surely shows

So people say to fix my face
And watch my words and mind my place
As if they wish my self erased
And redrawn with what they’d replace

But as perverse as I remain
My truths will always stay the same
My truths I’ll keep from being slain
My truths will never lie in vain

Ensuring that these truths are found
Not set in lies or coldly drowned
Still, if they never are renowned
They keep me sane once written down

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Image: lessthan3aire
The Colour Grey available here as ePub and here in paperback. The original bad poetry.