I seem to be on a poetry bender this week. Here’s today’s effort:

Why For Art Thou?

By Melanie Anne Phillips

I don’t create for fortune,
If I did I’ve surely failed,
I don’t create for fame,
If I have , I’ve been derailed

Not for recognition,
On the vast historic shelf.
Others have oft told me
I should art just for myself.

Yet that is not from whence
My Muse arises – no!
Not from what I want to draw:
But that which draws me so.

I see a scene, I hear a thought,
That beckons to be known.
It chooses me to tell its tale,
“Right now, do not postpone!”

I have no choice, I have no voice
But that which I’ve been given.
I cannot rest a moment,
When I have so been driven.

The scene will set, the concept fade,
If not protected now.
It’s singular existence,
Depends upon my brow.

Furled in concentration,
Twisted in despair,
I squeeze the vice upon my mind,
And flail about midair.

The hour-glass runs empty,
The spirit sputters out.
But in that tragic moment,
My psyche wheels about.

And just before the vision
And the spirit it contains
Have vanished from the earth,
They transform within my brains.

I become an avatar,
A spokesman for the dead.
A poor and tawdry medium
Dim eyes and tongue of lead.

Yet through my swollen faculties,
Bruised and battered all,
A dark, imperfect image,
As I quietly recall,

The thing that once revealed itself,
Though now it is no more,
It lives again in oil or sound,
A window or a door.

Its fleeting spark departed,
But captured in its prime,
It’s meaning not forgotten,
Shining bright in prose or rhyme.

I don’t create for fortune,
If I did, I’ve surely failed,
I don’t create for fame,
If I have, I’ve been derailed.

I don’t create for others,
And never for my heart,
I do it for the spirits,
So they live on in art.

I must be in a poetic mood. Here is another short (two-stanza) poem I penned yesterday:

Brother’s Keeper

My mouth bespeaks my silent voice,
Muffled in my mind:
An unrelinquished insight
Strangled, choked, and left behind.

So help not spoken was not heard,
Hidden by my fears:
You’ve done it now, you sinner.
Quoth the ringing in my ears.

Phantasia

(Latin definition: imagination ; Greek: apparition)

By Melanie Anne Phillips

I saw a shadow in my house
And then it disappeared.
But in that moment, manifest,
Was that which I most feared.

For reaching deep within the folds
That house my spectral mind,
The shadow cast a ghastly light,
On self-awareness, blind.

And suddenly before myself,
I played the role I lived.
As to this captive audience,
My inner self was sieved.

My real motivations now,
Stepped forth to center stage:
The false pretense of kind concern,
The hidden selfish rage.

This horrid confrontation play,
Scorched blisters on my soul,
The ashes are my true estate,
My spirit dark as coal.

And smothered by the smoldering,
A Phoenix without wings.
It formed an embryonic id:
Most innocent of beings.

Flightless, as it lays there writhing,
Beneath the angry sky,
Yet through rejuvenation,
It cannot hope to die.

A miracle, a manacle,
A never-forming shape.
My life behind; my life ahead
The common noble ape.

At risk of all eternity,
In fear of none at all,
I saw the shadow reappear,
And heard its plaintiff call:

“The choice is yours; the choice is ours
To change or stay the same.”
Hearing now between its words,
I knew its Holy name.

Familiar spirit, that was it,
A near and distant elf,
A sprite I seldom see full on:
My inner shadow self.

Our lives are long, our time is short,
The end is always nigh.
May you be blessed, as I was blessed,
To live before you die.