In the turbulence of every day, the fire whispers faint;
As wind and chill bear down on me, my pain tests my restraint.
Every thought is burning in a mind both weak and sore,
Erasing ancient memory of my mind’s own fire’s roar,
And as I fall into a pit of terror, I cannot withhold—
I still my mind, I ease my thoughts; my very limbs go cold.
I throw all thoughts of pain aside, an issue later to attend,
For instead I’ve found the crutch on which I shakily depend.
Blank and empty goes all perception and all inner sense,
Leaving but one last conviction, alone, precise, immense:
The others fell before me because they could not proceed,
They yielded to their body’s cries of misery and aching need—
But still there flew ahead a highest order, pained,
Tormented for trying when the weaker souls remained.
This order is my guidance as I crawl through the rotten pit;
For the highest of all honors, I will not waver or submit.
The damage of my falling pains my limbs and scars my face
And the fires feasting there diminish not a trace,
But now the searing anguish that pain wreaks in my soul—
Against the inferno of my courage—is a coal.
Author notes
This is a way I often feel about life. When you are involved in lots of things at once, or even just one that you don't think you can handle, I find that it's good to just sit for a while, and ignore everything. Remove yourself from the issue and look at it from the outside, then objectively organize your thoughts. From there, it's easy to apply the goals you have to the situation. Then, once I know what I have to do, I just think of the people who have already made decisions like the one I have to make, commitments like one in my future, or any other general issue. The knowledge that these people have strength and determination lets me look at the whole thing from another point of view: is the end result worth the pain? The knowledge of a purpose being served is most important. I know that this doesn't give a real "inspiration" meaning some sort of object that acts as a muse, but in this case it is my inspiration: my life. Challenges inspire me to think about the nature of reality and how my experiences fit into that reality. Obviously, pain and overcoming it are huge parts of life. One philosopher (whose name I can't remember at the moment) said that all human action is based on fear of pain. Even if someone chooses to experience pain, it is for the purpose of avoiding some other source of perceived pain--a greater source. He goes so far as to say that happiness is the absence of pain. This may seem like a pessimistic view, but think about this: isn't someone who is unaffected by all worldly sources of pain the happiest person possible? However, this doesn't mean that they don't feel pain: it means they feel it, overcome it, and are able to live happily despite it. That is the message that I want to get across in this poem. That is the goal of the narrator--not ceasing to feel pain, but removing oneself from its negative influence. When I consider the benefits of a challenge I pose to myself, becoming a stronger person and accomplishing my eventual goal, all of the great fires of pain I will have to endure are but a coal.
By the way, I noticed you said on one of your recent poems "I've fallen out of the habit of writing and I've got to fall back in" or something to that effect. If you've tried falling, and it's not working, consider dragging yourself in kicking and screaming. It's not always the easiest route but sometimes it ends up with better results than if you just waited for inspiration to come. Good luck!
A contest entry
- Inspiration - Celebrating my Fifth year on allpoetry by me alone.
700 points, ended January 7, 20 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
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So I'm not commenting about the poems on the poems because I don't like to drop hints before I award anything.
But I would like to say thanks for the note in the bottom, I really appreciated the support because I've had none and I think you are right.
I do need to drag myself back, I used to write several times a day, and now I do it maybe once a week.
Thanks again for the support.
Best of luck to you!
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