Week of June 13th, 2021: Widower of Dreams

Soundcloud link: https://soundcloud.com/wizardofwestmarch/widower-of-dreams

I’m actually writing this on Wednesday. After letting several weeks go by and not writing either poem or post until the last minute, I took time Monday and worked at finding the beginning of a poem. To steal the trick from Gaiman, I needed a confluence of ideas when, put together, created something surprising (I forget how he phrased it but that was the core idea as I recall). I hit upon one idea that started with perception and fun house mirrors, but while I have the first stanza and the start of a second, it didn’t satisfy me enough.

So I kept digging.

Around 11pm (normally I am in bed by this point) a stanza/chorus began to fall into place. A thought I knew all too well. Leaving ideas to die, unfulfilled. And, specifically being a widower, having married those ideas and then failed to nurture them until at last they fade from memory, lost to forever.

A sin I have committed with dark regularity.

And so I dove, worked, and after a time I had what became the chorus of the structure. A beginning. It spoke to what must be the skin upon those bones, but the bones needed their own attention.

Tuesday, most of the rest of the work happened. It began with the stanza/verse about novels. The thing I am by far the most familiar. I’ve completed six novels (seven?) but never submitted because I always wanted to be better. Held myself to a standard that might be unreasonable. I kept writing, but also more than a few ideas I should have worked on fell by the wayside. I even had “the book I’m scared to write.” A common trope among writers is you should tackle the project that most scares you.

I avoided mine.

And now the sense of urgency around it has gone, and for now the potential that novel held is buried, maybe forever. Only time can tell. Another grave among countless others tilled from the soil of my soul.

The second stanza explores dance and choreography. I myself am not one for dance, but someone I used to know, used to talk to regularly, did choreography among a plethora of other talents. And it felt a fitting tribute to her, despite the silence that now rules between us, bound to the bones of my grief and shame. And so it went in.

The third stanza speaks to music, something I’ve dabbled in in various forms. I tried to learn playing guitar as a way to pass the time after getting out of college with no job and few prospects. I dabble in code that plays music now, and I’ve tried various music making tools. I am not even a novice, but still the ideas come and then fall away. More tilled graves.

Next the proverbial bridge. The transition, with a new rhyme scheme (ABAB instead of XAXA) and a change in the message. A call to hope. No matter how many dreams, ideas, creations you’ve buried, there are always chances for more. More time to begin again, more time to take up the clay, the words, the movements. So long as breath remains, you can still create.

And then, the altered chorus. The call to not give up. To try. To trust. Because if you do not trust in yourself, the rest falls away and dies, pieces of yourself lost one by one in that raging inferno of fear and doubt that can so easily consume.

But there is no need to give up. Not yet. Not ever. Keep trying. Keep dreaming. Keep creating. Because we all need each other. The web of art that binds us and lifts us up is strongest when everyone is involved. We are all part of that web. So please, please. Don’t give up. I have faced my darkness more times than I can count. And still, still, I return to the page. To the darkest parts of my mind where the dreams fear to tread, but the ideas often roam. Regularly when I try to write, and this poem was certainly no exception, I find myself at a point of berating myself for being a fool to believe. And those moments are where I find what I am searching for. Whether it is the Muse, the Daemon, or simply myself staring back, I claim the idea or the words or the notes, and I return.

I go through this process hoping I might bring something back that can bring joy, or relief, or at least a sense of being seen for those who feel unnoticed. And so, each time, I return.

But only for a time. There are always more trips into the darkness.

I should note, I am not saying this is how everyone works or should work. For whatever reason my brain likes to go to dark places before it is willing to give me what I want. And it isn’t that I chose to go there. It is simply that, as I struggle to find ideas, my frustration boils over into uncertainty and doubt. And once I face that, if I push again, something comes out that often holds promise.

Widower of Dreams

A novel’s promising words
die on the premise vine
even while all the expectations
break before writing that very first line.

It’s easy to be a widower to
a thousand brilliant dreams.
Watching them die one by one
murdered by fears never even seen.

That dance routine is spinning
through the whirls and whorls inside
even as your feet are grounded
feeling as if your hopes were truly a lie.

It’s easy to be a widower to
a thousand brilliant dreams
watching them die one by one
murdered by fears never even seen.

Melodies shimmer and shine
as they waiver through the air.
Until doubt silences them
for you believe your song can never compare.

It’s easy to be a widower to
a thousand brilliant dreams,
watching them die one by one
murdered by fears never even seen.

Until at last amid a graveyard of sorrow,
a chance arises anew,
despite the fear and doubt you borrowed,
you cry and find your hope can still be renewed

Though it’s easy to be a widower to
a thousand brilliant dreams,
you don’t have to watch them all die
when your hands might still be cleaned