Menolyrical - with a touch of the menoflectives

The little black book seems to have set out on its own little bit of Mac History; a journey of me through 'poetry'! Last week the subject of 'deconstruction' was touched upon. Triggered by a musical workshop wherein improvisation and 'riffing' were expected, but not necessarily managed. Musicians, perhaps most of all, but artists in general and in any medium, are inclined to 'grooves'; this has even become an accepted term. Needing to feel the groove, man.

As a Vedantin, I now understand that our life-time 'grooves' are called vaasanas; the talents, traits, habits, vices and so on which have been built up over the life of the soul and which dictate something of how we live this incarnation. The great injunction of Vedanta is "break out of those grooves!"

We all know how difficult that can be, though. The grooves are our comfort zones, our bolt-holes, our justifications for being stuck. When we try to redirect things, we are seen as being difficult, bolshy, rebelious, eccentric, downright crazy. Most of us have a desire to make the big changes, few of us can fund the stamina or the courage to do so.

I digress. This is supposed to be about poetry. The tendency to fall into rhythm and rhyme. Over the years I have made attempts to write outside the pentameter, anapestic, the trochaic. Mostly failing. Poetry by its very nature requires rhythm, no matter how haphazard. Even where no rhyme exists, it can appear to, simply by the flow. 'Free-styling' poetry, is not at all easy. ... no, take that back. It may well be easy; any number of words can flow onto a page. However, it can only prove itself as a poem if it can be read, or listened to, holding the reader or listener to its final syllable. If they are lost as it goes along, then it too is lost.

This, perhaps, is true of all artistic endeavour. Be it visual, verbal or musical, it must hold the participants to its conclusion and leave them pondering its effect upon them.

This was written some months before my 'dark night'. It has the form of a prayer-plea... and it was answered.