Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

the sparklers of creativity
burn like infrequent visitors
that come to pay you a call
when you weren't expecting company

they are the guests you never send away
never hide from in the dark, lying quiet
when the chimes signal this is the night
no, despite the surprise you open the door

and you write when the proverbial iron is hot
and you brand your brand into the hides
of your flocks of stories, the herd you tend
in boxes, scattered yellow lined pads

the searing madness of fiery metal
replete with curious choices, all naked
and unashamed , the documentation
a stainless steel pinball in a box of memories

in a game of involuntary careening
smacked, some say, like a bitch,
concussions from plastic flippers made dents,
the human Tilt ....so damn human

and so it goes from birth
you spring into action, bounce around from side to side
pounded to the top and back down, lost
at times down the chute, all lined up

to be struck again and again....
in the caroms we squeal with delight
or shiver in terror, life is simple that way
forget about all the planning, be flexible

in the end, it's always less painful

changed this poem around a bit with some new editing....

"....So we don't get fooled again" Pinball is still a good metaphor, I played a lot of pinball when I was about fourteen, fifteen, it was when I was fifteen that I had the realization that things in this country were going in a scary direction. I did not get along too well with the education system, that was just before the cultural shift of the late sixties. There was those years of 67' 68' when everything was going through change, which could be seen very much so in the music. We have come a long way from pinball to computer games, so far that most people hardly even know what is hitting them. I liked pinball because you could win free games, if you knew how to play. It felt like the machine was not rigged against you. But we cannot say that today, the powers that be and computer games are rigged to push us in a direction. That is what I picked up on when I was fifteen, I sensed it, but that was way before all this advanced technology that is taking us in a direction of virtual reality. I find it odd that people don't realize how different is was being a poet before computers, or being a person for that matter. Nice poem.

thanx rabbit for the personal-ization and thoughtful comments

lovely word caroms, I had to search it in the Merriam-Webster! gracias for the poem, saw!!