idea

Imaginary Muse

What to do when my muse has fled?
Why, I could sit here on my bed
And I could then begin to dread
That she has forever left my head.

My muse is a fickle thing,
She doesn’t call, she doesn’t ring.
On a whim she’ll come and bring
Me an idea of car or king.

But then she leaves and I’m bereft,
My hands- with keyboard deft,
Almost willing to commit literary theft,
For without my muse, what have I left?

But then again, there is no muse,
It’s all a sham, it’s all a ruse,
‘O Mind, you’re cruel!’ I accuse,
‘To give me an idea, you refuse!’

And so it goes once in a while,
And thus these poems, so infantile,
Are born of frustration and denial
With a brain, just now infertile!

Anna Again

Anna is the voice in her head. Anna is the demon who has fixed her claws deep in her heart and even deeper in her mind, brimming with intelligence and yet unable to distance itself from those cruel, sharp, gold tinted claws. Anna is the angel face smiling down at her when life seems out of control. Anna is a constant companion, forever nagging and soothing, lifting spirits only to crush them back down again with a stiletto heel.

Anna promises never to leave, in a tantalizing whisper that sends shivers down her back – whether of fear or delight, it’s impossible to tell. Anna is the one behind the scenes, directing her life, damaging her soul, compromising her very personality and changing it. Anna is the fairy giving her a smile, a pat on the back, a motherly grin, all while hiding her pointed teeth that forever drip with malice and contempt.

Anna is a horror. Anna is a savior. Anna cannot be banished. Anna craves to leave.

Anna.

In Love With A Voice

Interviews, photographs, different costumes and looks, different words and ideas… None of those seem to matter. Rather, they matter, but they’re not the most important thing. It doesn’t matter what she looks like. It doesn’t matter what she wears, really. Her words and ideas and opinions matter, if only because I agree with them – though more so because they come to light in her lyrics. But even if those ideas didn’t sit well with my view on life, I still don’t think I could help it.

The first time I heard her, I didn’t appreciate her. I truly, honestly think that I was too young. I couldn’t yet hear the beauty, the emotion, the sheer and utter strength that was in her voice. A few years later, and a need for something different, brought me back to her. One song was all it took. Her voice, without instruments, without accompaniment – she drew me in, and I was in love.

I am speaking of Tori Amos. Many don’t like her. I can understand why. I didn’t like her, once upon a time. Now, though? Her voice sends shivers down my spine and makes my vocal chords quiver with jealousy. Her lyrics, filled with emotion and spirit, make me smile or laugh or want to hug something or need to cry. She is an enchantress, and as her tenth studio album comes nearer to being released, I feel the call of her music to me, and I respond.

It may be insane, it may be silly, it may simply be typical-teenager-stuff, but I can’t help it. I’m in love with a voice.

Inspiration

Inspiration can come from anywhere. It can come from the way a cloud moves across the sky, reminding you of  a puppy chasing it’s mother through the sky, trying to catch up with her. It can come from the way your morning cup of coffee smells, the rich and heady aroma of it rising into your nose and awakening your senses. It can come from the old man you saw on the street who was struggling with his shopping bags and grumbling under his breath about the youth of today.

Inspiration can come from your favorite books, movies, radio-shows and music. You can copy and steal from every written word ever published without anyone being the wiser, because on the way to your finished work you changed everything you meant to steal. Your inspiration can carry you past plain copy-and-paste into the land of borrowing from lyrics, ideas, symbols, and generalized characters. You can decide to copy the tale of Aladdin’s Lamp and end up writing about fog in San-Francisco – and even then you might be positive you stole the whole thing.

Inspiration can be slippery. It can hit you when you’re in the middle of a conversation, when you’re driving, when you’re about to fall asleep – as a result, you’ll lose the ideas, and kick yourself for it. It can also strike you just when the pen is in your hand or your hands are hovering over the keyboard.

Inspiration can be a bitch, and desert you for days at a time.

Distraction

A buzzing drone in my ear, I struggled to open my mouth in anything other than a pointless flapping and ranting of facts and figures. As my mind struggled to stay with the task of solving problems, complaints and mistakes, my fingers itched to be of use, and dragged my mind elsewhere, time after time.
It was hard to believe that the despair that had overtaken my mind and emotion just hours earlier seemed to have dissipated and dissolved under those same itching fingers, those same thoughts that were causing my mind to wander and my mouth to smile more often than not. The feeling of my fingers flying across the small pages in those precious few minutes between the chattering of voices in my ear – ah! The best feeling in the world, to be for once creating instead of venting, making up instead of putting down facts.
The ink flowing from the pen seemed to give birth to new ideas and characters with every twitch of my fingers, clutching the pen so tightly that my arm began to ache before long. My mind flowed with names, situations, ideas, friendships, worlds – all so far and free from my own that they made me dizzy just to think about them and the control and power my make-believing mind would have on them.
The hours passed quicker than they ever had before – even when I could not write for an hour or two at a time, my brain never ceased to create and invent and add flourishes to the characters and their unique traits and situations. It was the best distraction, and I’m not minded to forget it any time soon.

Good Idea. Bad Idea.

What show is that from?! I’m going insane. There was a TV show that my brother and I used to love when we were younger. One of my strongest memories of being in Los Angeles with my family was how different, and superior, so much of the television programs I watched were. Not only does there seem to always be an episode of “Law and Order: SVU” on, but also the children’s programs were varied and so much better in the US when I was little.

So there was this show that I adored. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it now. It had all sorts of sections to it – it was animated – and one of the sections was this part called “Good Idea. Bad Idea.” The good idea would be, for instance, someone changing a light-bulb with shoes on his feet and the bad idea would be someone changing a light-bulb with wet hands and getting electrocuted in an exceptionally amusing manner [at least to young children it seemed amusing]. Also, I don’t think I’m giving a very good example, because it was usually less crudely amusing and less educational, just very silly and funny.

There was also a section in this show of these weird crosses between animals and how they’d look while running a race.

Does anyone have any clue what I’m talking about or have I gone insane and imagined a whole TV show?