Creativity is always a mystery, seems the closer you get to a vision the more you learn about creating and the more you learn about yourself. I read somewhere that we write to learn, not just because we love writing or seem to be driven to it, even more important, we are constantly rediscovering the obvious and reinventing how we see and experience our lives. I have recently had a huge creative block in general and aside from small drips of creative activity, it has been an uncomfortable dry spell.

The other day I finally had the beginning of a break through-the problem with having a break is there is no beginning or end-it just happens and almost like a dream disappears as quickly as it appears. My first obvious sign is a strong feeling toward music or atmospheric weather-I start remembering things, it’s like a film strip that suddenly starts running. If I am lucky enough to have the time and solitude enough to capture it, it’s quite an exciting experience.

Words begin and stream without logic, they connect and capture the sounds and meter on their own without my being cognizant of any attempt. For a brief moment I am not even present as the words flow from the keyboard or the pen without any control or censoring-this is when I know I have made the break from the conscious state.

The first poem in this series began from driving through the country on a cold winter morning-it just simply captures a drive but it also speaks to the way I felt and the feeling that attaches itself to a cold gray winter day. The first bit of words are more atmospheric than introspective.

The winter sky is pale and white

Not the slightest inference

Of any kind of light

Sleep among the cold stones

In grass tall enough to hold up the sky

Winter infects the rooms

All of the darkness is tainted

Winter evenings are different from the rainy

Doldrums of spring

Or the stagnant green shadows of summer

The darkness is grey

You can taste it

Feel it like a second skin

And we wake among the ruins

Of the summer harvest

The guardian still stands

Tall enough to ignore the weight of clouds

On its shoulder

Even the interruption of the process is recorded as the disruption of the writing process brings about more words about the act of being interrupted, again this is more about what is happening at the moment rather than the process that is more connected to the subconscious feeling

An interruption, words from a dangerous stream

I’m tired of keeping them in

They feel like acid under the skin

Quiet moments

The edge of heat and sweat

Frustrated shadows

You walked in while the words were making themselves

Brave structures against the wind

I’ve been dying to begin

Just as I heard myself writing

A figure walks by

And the interruption

Deletes the flow

But opens up a dam on the other side

Where other thoughts and feelings

Cryptic images

Hide

Out across the winter field

The crow is full but starving

Blackbirds in fits of flight

Back and forth blending in with

The edges of a field

In turmoil

I could just reach out and you might be there

If you were not a shadow

And if I were not a ghost

But I urge myself another breath

And I clamor to exist in this hollow realm

Where I am the one that runs the Rutter

While there’s no one at the helm

With winter comes the feeling of mortality, the realization of change and we watch the seasons turn-all the thoughts and fears that keep themselves hidden in the subconscious now become more available. Winter becomes a metaphor and the outside atmosphere and the physical presence of winter becomes less than the feeling or the thoughts that winter evokes.

I feel the twinge in the chest

Could this be the final moment

And I wait for the absence of breath

And the hollowed ground

Insists it will find me

Just as the cars were lining up

Long black cars

Under a winter sky

How cold and frozen you feel

Afraid to die

And that earth

How solid and unmoving it can be

It stares out of the darkness

And fixes its gaze

On you and me…

Perched on the edge of the steel fence

A  black bird reminds me

Its still there

Walk in the sunshine

Or its absence

It lingers across a field

And a ghost holds my hand

The empty hole to fill

No one understands

How deeply cold can etch the spine

How winter skies can rob us blind

Not the slightest glimmer

Not even a breath of precious light

But this is what you were waiting for

To be embraced in the icy fingers

Of a season

Sadness, melancholia

For no reason

You reached over the edge of the grave

Looking for just a glimpse

Just a remnant to save

But this life

How strange the story

Fails to comply

With the image that jumped and reached for the heavens

In the blindness of a childs’ innocent mind

This section was actually from strange recent dreams I had-everything that is recorded over a period of weeks or months are played out as the words flow-it is a quick process-if I have any idea of what I’m writing I know the flow has stopped. If I have to think about what rhymes or the next word that needs to fit or the consonant count-it’s time to stop writing.

I saw my coffin in a dream but it did not contain me

It did not keep me

I was wild like the wind and violent like the evening

Across the skies

A storm I can barely describe

And the box

Aligned in its space under concrete

In the selfish ground

Silence of dark evenings

The summer rain and the complicated evenings

Autumn

Where the stone that stares indifferently back

Says nothing

And I was above clouds

And I felt the magnetism of the universe

As I passed by

I saw my coffin in a dream

And it did no longer hold me

Did not contain, any remnant of me.

Much of the words are not necessarily about anything that happened or anything specific-its more the subtle nuances of a feeling-the feeling can have many symbols and processes to describe it but there is often no specific point or actual event that is being described.

You saw my lack of confidence

I shared it like a secret

I woke to  your face and I was more alone than before

The open room

That quiet cold space

The fading fragrance of some familiar perfume

The sheets like waves of some ugly ocean

A tide that never compromised

Found my legs outstretched

The empty space beyond the edge of the bed

Is an empty room where we barely lay our heads

And sleep alone in this forest

Where no one would dare mention the child

Asleep at the bough of a tree

Whose roots quake and bend with the earth

As it shifts

The tiny figure that escaped the autumn sky

Deep into the angry earth

A dream as we awoke

And you passed silently by….

The last two are the remnants of the flow and I almost didn’t include them but it seems I would be better off showing the process in which the flow of words abruptly stops and than words and connections become forced and awkward. Another process is when thoughts end abruptly as in these last two.

Sleep as if nothing could be more innocent

Than dreaming

Precocious child

We have shoes to fill

You often saw us as kids

But all remnants of our follies

Hide in attics

And storage

Out in sheds with the rats

And I can barely remember the ghost

Of myself

But I know it was happy once

Do you remember your heart

You were a child in my arms

You had photos of us

So where did all of our innocence go

I can’t remember your face

I don’t remember your voice

But I remember I was happy than

As the title explains-the creative inspiration is a very subtle quiet place-it is only induced by introspection, time and the ability to allow the words and feelings to flow through whatever tool is available. I used to write more with a pen but these days it seems I can write faster and more legible with the use of the keyboard which seems to interfere less with the creative flow. The drawback to this is that I enjoy writing on location-somewhere outdoors and in nature but no devices such as laptops have become as comfortable to me as the trusty keyboard-maybe that’s the next evolution in my process. I would love for any of the creative readers to share their story of that creative moment and where happened before during and after that process.