Now that I am face to face with nearly 30,000 words worth of short stories to review and correct. I do not have an exceptional grasp of high level grammar, syntax and the like. My writing style is pretty pulpy or plebeian. I did my university papers with the same layman’s appeal that I use today. I think I was accused of using purple prose once so I don’t try to get too flowery or “cerebral”. That’s not who I am. But I digress. Editing, and editors. You must have a fairly wide continuum in the quality of work you see. Although I couldn’t imagine there being too many commercially successful writers whom turn in work that requires too extensive a review. But I don’t know. I’m a graphic designer who also dabbles in sculpture, so my knowledge of the ins and outs of the world of paid writing is woefully underdeveloped. Looking at forty plus pages to go through a few times is more daunting to me than writing anything. Mind you, I write micro short stories, so if I keep it succinct I can probably write four hundred to one thousand words and be happier than a pig in shit. Creating something from nothing is simpler to me, than making sure what is written follows all the appropriate rules of the english language. Kudos to all you editors out there. And to any writer who takes on the task themselves. Brave souls, the lot of you.
Tag: Poor Early Writings
Very bad, no good, awful poetry : Series 3
The best part about doing this series of early poetry written by myself as a teen, is that it has garnered exactly zero attention, and thus has gained no traction online, so while I have the catharsis of sharing it, I know deep down it will remain just as hidden to the outside world as it would had I left it untouched in my note book, on the shelf in my office, where it has sat since late 2009. Oh the unbridled joy of on line anonymity. Plus I’m a straight, white male, so not a whole lot of flack comes at me, unless I were to go out of my way to be a huge asshole. And I save that sort of thing for snide remarks at a movies expense while at the theater. So Boo.
If you’re just joining us now, or me, now, a few things you’ll come to understand. I’m not a professional writer, though at one point in my formative years I had ambitions for becoming a comic book creator / writer. I did give serious thought to Journalism school at Sheridan College, but did art instead. Probably money well spent given the caliber of the work if you look across the length and breadth of my old written pieces. Yikes. So feel free to curl up and have a good chuckle at my expense. From what I’m seeing as I revisit these old works, is they aren’t terribly offensive, except in that they are just awful. Low grade, faux depth, pretentious gobbledegook. Another three hot, steaming turds for your viewing delight.
1.) The sky at night Circa 1999
A lone ball of flame. Gas from an unknown region. Source of light in an uncaring life. A wonder. All ablaze, separated by nothingness and the cold distance between us. I can see you there, hovering, seemingly still, yet you twinkle. Do I dare dream on you tonight, what a wish, what wish, my wish, my right.
What I think is going on here, is like a version of wish upon a star, but kind of mopey and murky. I don’t think I had started to work nights yet, as a high schooler. I did work one semester for a place called Norkim Distributions in Brampton, a job I got because of a former girlfriends parents. I was lucky enough that they drove me to work and picked me up for the 90% of the time I worked there for a semester out of high school. I remember not being able to talk to anyone for most of the day, then as I got home, tired, I’d just natter away until I made my parents angry and they told me to just shut up. I get it now. I’m not a big fan on inane nattering. It was more as a way of dealing with being virtually silent the whole day, and feeling like I might explode if I didn’t just get a days worth of talking out once I got home. It definitely felt solitary. Doesn’t make the poetry any better though now does it. And they say that pain and sorrow create great art, no!, Talent, talent creates great art. Not merely being a morose mother fucker.
2.) Gripe : Twice daily Circa 1999
Whatever I mean, whatever I’ve said, it won’t matter much if I can’t get out of bed. Whoever I am, whomsoever I was, it doesn’t mean anything, and it didn’t mean much. Wherever I was, wherever I go, I won’t do anything, if I go it alone. With, without, what can I say.
Some of these I remember writing, even if vaguely. But this one eludes me, almost completely. I think I am really absorbing a lot of Temple of the Dog at this point, and trying to skirt the notion of completely ripping of Chris Cornell and the Mother Love Bone guys. It doesn’t flow together at all. The rhythm is off, and it sort of just fades away. Like I was trying to be prophetic, and found pathetic instead. On a second reading I guess, I wanted to be told I had something to say, but there really is no “there” there. It’s just pure, unadulterated cheese, “Fromage” for the old school Much Music Ed the Sock crowd.
3.) The fix is in Circa 2000
Sure, I still feel miserable three months down that road. A long hard journey through the vast unknown. But what’s to worry, because when I’m dead and gone, all those years from then, what will it matter, if I was a little mixed up inside my head. Time off, time alone, time apart. It’s all a healing process taken for a broken heart.
Whoo, that ones a bit of a floater. But I will say this, it follows a through line, and doesn’t get too heady. No major calling cards of a bloated sense of writing skill. Fairly layman in execution. No changing places with the man in the mirror. A break up poem if ever I wrote one. That’s it for this installment of terrible, awful poetry. If this does anything at all for you, feel free to post any of your own, miserable teen angst prone writing. Be free of your poor choice of prose! let the wicked underbelly of flatulent poetry free. Blast it into the ether! Fill the void with your own stinky mass of blind ambition.
The time is now for some terrible poetry
I’ll take the lead here and showcase various terrible poems that I’ve written since 1994. Expect some lazy tropes, teenage angst, lots of crossed analogies that don’t really add anything substantive to the narrative. I will do my best to publish them as is without any major edits. I will correct spelling if I stumble across anything really egregious. Prepare yourselves for a round of terrible poetry.
Actually now that I think of it, this could be a monthly serial of all of my needless poetry. I’m dead certain I have enough for a few lengthy entries here. I should place a caveat here, that in my hey day, my hand writing was minuscule and sort of atrocious. So I can not guarantee that the original thought or intent will remain intact. Might have to guess at a word or two, seeing as I’m now twenty five almost twenty six years older than when I wrote these “poems“.
Buckle up folks, an auteur I am not:
1.) Soulless Man Circa 1994
Standing all alone, sits a man on his throne, gazing at a town he once called his home. Never to return to his village of peace, destined to roam, for fear this soul shall cease. Once he was a boy of paradise and joy. Gone, stripped of his city of love. He is led to destroy on the wings of a dove. Cold windy nights spent with heavenly lights, teary eyed fights with only blood in sight, stood he, all alone. Frozen tears are his throne, his old home, now ashes and blackened stone. Shadows cast down, pale whispers, no sound. An empty man, blood of a boy, stains of a memory torn, a life destroyed. Cold and barren is this man, as he stands all alone.
Oh boy, that is some dog shit right there. This is tough. May not have been as good an idea for a writing prompt as I originally thought. This is well before Game of Thrones, or anything of that sort coming into my life, so I guess I was trying to be brooding and moody? On to the next few then, with haste my friends…
2.) None too clear Circa 1994
I looked into the mirror the other day and what I saw shocked me. My reflection pointed to me and said ” You’re skinny, weak and would be better off dead.” I didn’t take too well to my reflection so I pulled the mirror down off the wall, broke off all of the pieces of frame, and shattered the silver backed glass. The next morning I awoke to find the old mirror back upon the wall as if nothing had happened. I stood before my mirror, and starred deeply into my reflection. Our eyes met, but I noticed something strange, for the world was turned around and it wasn’t me but my reflection starring back.
I get what I was going for here, like the old switch aroo, between the real me and the reflection all of a sudden passing through into this plane, and me drawn into the other, but it’s kind of hazy, and not well executed. I have a feeling with the more of these I read, the more certain it will become that I was depressed, or at least morose as an early teen. let’s dig in for another one or two, and then we’ll call it a day for the first of what could be many trips into terrible poetry territory. And no, I am not posting all of them, same are just too awful to share. So think about how bad these are and imagine something either too bizarre, saccharine or melancholy even for me to post twenty fives years later.
3.) Shattered Circa 1994
Shatter the mirrors that look back with distaste. Close up their shutters, so they no longer expose our inner horrors. Nail shut the eyes that glisten, wet and painful. Feel these fragments scatter, lost to the wind, mixed with the clouds, and buried by the dust. See your faces gazing back, held between the mirrors cracks, the glass will shower your soul with tiny pieces of memory, like sand kicked up by a storm. I’m not ready for you to expose me as only a shattered mirror could.
Looks as though I had a thing going regarding mirrors at this point. May’haps it was due to being six feet tall and something like one hundred and ten pounds. Lank greasy hair, and sore limbs. Could be an educated guess, but I’d have to see some photos from that time to really know. Oh, we had also moved that year from a medium town to a small village in rural Ontario, and I’d lost all of my friends to distance and lack of mobility between destinations.
Good God there are a whole lot more terrible poems waiting in my archives, so I can always revisit this again another time sooner or later. I don’t have a schedule for writing topics, I’m just trying to keep things fresh and interesting, and to stay off Facebook® more and more.
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