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Saturday, December 20, 2025

Slicing into emotion- a layer beyond

sounds often have a hidden sharpness- combined or alone- as alliteration cuts to the core of an emotion. like a knife she slices open a surface glance, opening a wound, a vale, within. 

the word "sceal" (shkeel) in Irish implies a tale, a story. But "scian" (shkeeun), knife, cuts sharp like sceal. in one sight, those sounds work in conjunction, giving the American, or English-speaking, reader a sense of going deeper. And that is where most poets want to go...beneath the surface.

but it isn't so with much of what i read from other poets...when i do tunnel into that realm i generally avoid- other people's writings. these, too often, are populated by prosaic formulas that read like my failed college compositions and dark attempts at Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright.
Like a last-minute colonoscopy, these wet morsels of old soggy remnants come out, ejected from my system, rather than be internalized. The shock can be mildly nauseating. The verbiage in these wet morsels reminds me of speed dating...a terse word on one line, followed by two or three, followed by sequences not making a lick of sense. 

suffice to say, if you find yourself creating something not aligned with  fellow creatives in your field, you might want to avoid consuming much of their creations, lest you descend into post-modernism or pseduo-Nihilism. Rather, continue to write your own narrative, sing your own song, create as only you were gifted to create. 

I will, therefore, not compose senseless work of "art" lacking emotion and clarity...unless it is stream of consciousness or soundscript. Neither is in vogue, so I will spare you from such ventures. 

To end this chocolate-enriched dialogue just before midnight, I shall bid you adieu, leaving you with these dipping crumbs to add to your mental soup...if you are going to write poetry, for the sake of decency, please write something that cuts into the skin, rather than reads like the label on a GMO cereal box. 



 



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Slicing into emotion- a layer beyond

sounds often have a hidden sharpness- combined or alone- as alliteration cuts to the core of an emotion. like a knife she slices open a surf...