THE POET IN A MAD MAD WORLD

I woke up this morning and pushed the pile of scrunched up papers into the corner of the room .
Had I really fallen asleep with the pen in my hand again ?

I vaguely remember being surrounded by a mist of poetry before I found my way through the dark night of the soul to where a door had been opened and inspiration walked in .

There in the fragile twilight I found another poem hanging by a thread and saved it with some of the rest .

Totally frustrated by poverty I found words came to me easier than if I had not been as poor as I was .

Even the poor people on the street had pity for me .
Somehow I had found some sense to it all .

I had made a bed of roses from the brambles and the weeds .
I had plucked out the thorns from my skin .
I had planted more seeds in my fertile soil and the fruit in my garden was plentiful .

It had been a long drought before the fruit had grown .
I had to persevere for years toiling away steadily with the scorn in my ear and the wolf at my door until after three years of labour I had a rich harvest of poetry .

For three years I had locked myself away from life in a tiny room opposite a railway station .
With freight trains running through my head night and day I became as a hermit sheltered from the world .

During this time there was constant struggles with the mad world outside the window .

Now and then a bird arrived at the window sill and chirped as if the song had just been created for me in that moment like a unwritten lyric put to music .

The birds and my poetry were my only companions .

It had been a a hard road for three years . Burt the book was finished .
Two hundred and fifty poems about everyday life .
I felt happy with myself and the work and now it was almost time to come
out of the cave .

Three years living as a hermit did have an effect on me .
It was almost Easter season and ten years since my sister was killed in a car crash .
That’s when I started to write seriously about life and how I felt .

Tragedy brought my pen alive .
My thoughts escaped from a prison .l
Free from guilt and fear they found a page .
Now after many years the pages had become a book .
Even though life would never be the same again I had documented many things in this book of poetry .
My face had changed .
I was pale and unshaven as if derelict of feeling and squeezed dry of emotion .
The reality of death had propelled me into an uncontrollable writer .
Sometimes I would write until I fell asleep without taking a break .
I often woke with a pen in my hand .
During these years I measured out my creativity not by the page but by the kilo . My room littered with a sea of scrunched up paper . Relics from another poem in the making .

I made a promise to myself that the world would know what I had to say . I wanted the world to know that I as a poet had existed .

I was someone and I had something to say .

I wanted to make sure that if I where to die that there would be something of me left behind that made a mark . That something I did or said made a difference .

I was shattered by my sister s death and felt devastated and hurt .
I moved back for a while from life into this cave where I could go through the hurt that broke my heart .
Then as my life was turned upside down I wrote with no rest , with no food , and became the slave to my talent .
My life was consumed by poetry and nobody could understand what I was doing , except me .
I was going through my own personal grief .

Years passed as I sat on the edge of this mountain with poetry swimming around in my mind . I threw myself head first into writing .
During this period I had not surfaced once and almost drowned .
I had to surfaced for air now and then for sanities sake but after glimpsing the mad world from a distance I returned back to the cave .

There was so much I wanted to get out from the very depths of my being . A great reservoir within me had opened up and the living waters of my existence where pouring out .

My life turned into a nightmare during these years .
I wandered deeper into the caves of despair and discovered in my subconscious skeletons and ghosts better left behind .
Like a jockey on a wild horse I dismounted from each nightmare and stood for the first time in the cave feeling safe and comfortable with solid thinking on shaky but firm ground .
At times I was half round the bend with it all and those ghosts in the cave tried hard to pull me back in there but my galloping mind raced me away to another place that seemed to be filled with inspiration and light .

Some days I found there where not enough hours to run with my thoughts . They would take over me and jump barriers .
Now it was time for me to take control of the reins .
I had to escape from being a slave to the talent and become its master . It was difficult , but I had to somehow get back to
life and reality .

The essence of my existence had been stirred up and I had chased away the guilt’s and fears with my poetry .

I had found harmony with the world around me .
I started to look at things around me in a different way and
noticed there where so many things in life that where passing me by and I had never noticed them before .

I climbed the ladder to touch the sky .
The sun had burned my fingers .
The clouds had filled my head and my thoughts were like birds on a misty mountain top .

I heard a bird chirping on the window sill and realised it was morning .
I was an occupant of life being called for breakfast .

I felt like a bowl of cereal and tea and toast .
After breakfast I picked up my finished manuscript and flicked through the pages .

Poetry from the heart .
I packed it into my old worn out briefcase and opened the door and walked out into the mad world .
I made my way along the street to the railway and caught a train to the station .
In a half hour I was in a life going to the top floor to hand over my manuscript to my agent . It had taken me completely by surprise when I was informed my agent had died two years previous .

I took my manuscript to the streets before making my way to the park .

I spend a lot of time walking around the Park and found the space I needed . My agent who had promised me publication of the book had died .

Then I hit me .

Nobody will ever be bothered with my poetry anyway .

So when I returned back to my home I threw two litres of petrol over the manuscript and watched three years of work go up in smoke .

The End

By Paul McCann