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 |   All that remains: in afterlife as 'mainstream' blogger, with what little I know. 20k views |
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Obshchak Some torn to the ground Some burn to the ground Others removed brick by brick Redesign for the times When the lease comes up Or just fold up When you have a bad day and need a reason... Formerly: New Zenith To Hell…(all started with arc as writer here from the trials of Rising Stars to Preferred Author to WDC Quills Best Poetry Collection... "Whoever fights monsters should see to it…he does not become a monster.” - Some guy, I guess. Look it up? I’ve been to the abyss and back. Not so bad. The loneliest happy person you'd ever meet, when not the saddest person who needs to be alone. In an ever-changing world, we need to handle topics at the ready. If you roll over and give in to the narrative without lending a voice, might as well hand over your civil liberties. Voices could connect to true conscience and spirit for honest and open discourse. Why feel so redacted? Unify on issues or don't but put drama aside. Open minds require complete objectivity. Or, agree to disagree and have a beer. Just writing what I feel without the narrative-altering mind f---ing with my head. [MY Chorus] In your house, I long to be Room by room, patiently I'll wait for you there, like a stone I'll wait for you there, alone - Chris Cornell, RIP Some other stuff ▼ My recent poetry:
Sometimes epiphanies about my insights on writing and life and what goes on... Blah, blah, blah ▼ ![Merit Badge in Rare
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I like your work!](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/general-Rare.gif) Thank you WakeUpAndLive️~Happiness  for honoring me with your kind words!Read here some old blog entries...  2018 Highlights ▼ More... 2018: The Quiet Ones ▼  Brian K Compton notes an echo~  |
| Something I wrote after watching a music video that I am not going to edit, just yet… Life, if not Love By BKCompton I reach to touch your hand but it's already gone I heard your song Another thud against our window Unmoved, I know it's another sparrow Couldn't pass through here And will it die? I don't even know Your song ended You were never near I love, I fear Merciless, death claims another Dead in our bushes or on the doorstep to be swept aside when I go out to search for you again Why do I fear I've lost without ever trying Somewhere you're crying Autumn came while you sang Clinging, tender leaves wet from rain want to remind me of loss and all the days you were alive Why don't I cry anymore? Somewhere you hide I'm dead inside I only hope the mindless sparrow lives If not for me, then for you. |
| Hindsight is great and all, but without do-overs what's the point? Learn from our mistakes? How about bound to repeat them? You can have a positive outlook on life, but if you don't find the right situation(s) and surround yourself with the most suitable cast of characters, you're delusional scenarios for a happy life will not come to fruition. I'm not sad about that. I'm becoming a pragmatist and putting focus on the things that give back to me. Family, sports, a few hobbies, but not much else these days. As I get older, I look back at what I missed out on...what is in the past can never be. The shadow of time has lapsed into darkness. I'm spending less time thinking about what I don't have and what I have left to give. I could take up drawing and painting again. But, I have been mostly about instant gratification. Writing is my passion. But work ethic is low on my list. I have lots of great ideas and a lot of dust crowding out that chalkboard. I don't have friends in my everyday life and can't get enough time or attention from my wife to give me the kind of input, motivation, cheerleading that I desire. I need too much. Probably why I feel abandoned by friends. I accept that. It doesn't bother me. I'm a lifelong confessional writer...too real for most. Yet, not honest enough with myself...until now. Haven't been able to tone down my emotions enough in casual conversion. I turn to clowning around, a penchant for word play and observational humor to feel a connection with those willing to offer a laugh or smile. So, I do need human contact like medicine. I desire it more from those who can be like a drug. Like always, I start these blog posts with one thought and follow it with more words to see where it leads. No conclusion seems apropos, though I believe all these open conversations with myself are leading me somewhere. Though, like a dog, I tend to chase my tail. But, I'll eventually tire or need to eat or something else will distract me and I'll be down the street after a car, digging up the neighbors bushes or trying to bite a kid on his bike, because it's all a game. I'm a dog. I seldom think about consequences until I've been snouted with a newspaper enough times to know where I shouldn't pee. Okay, then...(humor, again) |
| Fun new tool I found on the Internet to help me with redundancy. I used it to see what words I use the most and get more analytical with my writing. Maybe this link can help others looking for a different way to improve their writing: http://www.writewords.org.uk/word_count.asp Have fun! |
| "...a not-so-accurate reality that is skewed toward butterflies and roses can actually be a solution to life stress and adversity...Optimism is not merely some kind of fantastical happiness bubble to hide within as reality crumbles all around. It can actually have concrete advantageous effects on reality. Optimism leads to hopefulness and engagement, which leads to greater social success and confidence, which, in turn, leads to happiness - real or perceived..." https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reel-therapy/200909/the-office-the-secret-m... On the other side of the coin, there are people who will get in your ear and tell you everything you long to hear. If you lack admiration from others because you lack it in yourself, you troll for anything that will help with affirmation. You need it like a drug. If you get too much of it, and doses aren't coming enough, daily, you start to act out. Maybe, feel you were lied to. Perhaps, you assume people of good intention were just snowing you. Maybe, they just drank the same koolaid as you. It has a bitter taste. You're running out of metaphors and examples. It's late and you're reaching. A person might be compelled into restraint and compliance when they long to hear a word or two to help keep the delusion going. But reality has stayed too long. This is an unedited look into the mind. |
| I want my head in a musty old tent on an Indian summer day reading old comic books until I have absorbed the last ray of light. I don't know how to say it better. I will keep trying, as long as I have a pen in my hand and a muse in my heart. This late in the year, the blooms don't need my help. I watch them grow with anticipation, each day hoping for some new, brilliant surprise. I planted those seeds and I moved the soil, supplied hydration and whatever else before letting the sun's rays direct it's energy to what I fathered. In my early years as a gardener, I was neglectful. Either I was ignorant of what I needed to do or too stubborn to try the proven methods. With the light dimming and briefer each day, I hope God will shed extra light and rain to extend this final season. I've seen the ravaged leaves from blight and pests that I must protect against. What could be perfect and beautiful becomes a marred and mangled mass with unruly vines and half covered blooms. The dedication and talent it took to spawn my creations from fertile soil makes this shameful gardener fence himself from the world, allowing a peek here and there of what will impress. I don't brag anymore. I don't boast of my potential. What I could have done is in the past. What I have left is only what little time and God's grace will give me. Some days, when I rise, I don't even venture out to see. I've become too distracted with the musings instead of appreciating what I have sown. Then something helps me remember and I take a gander. Usually I'm surprised. Sometimes disappointed. But it's always an adventure. So, when I see the fragmented sentences and the untended words, I realize I could've done more. When I see an unedited poem that could've used more inspection, I realize I could've done more. And that doesn't mean they're still isn't time for me. But I have wasted most of it. I have mused about what I could do and what I could be more than putting those talents to use. I am still happy with me. I don't have to be filled with regret. They say we are supposed to look beyond our own horizons and see what we can find for ourselves beyond where we stand. I have looked for a long time without ever moving. I know there could have been more for me but I do not have the tools to achieve and become accustomed to only seeing my shortcomings. There have been my cheerleaders along the way. I disappointed most, if not all of them. When I look around I feel as though I standalone. That was my own choosing. Does not mean that people abandoned me, but rather I abandoned my dreams. Or ran around aimlessly trying to figure out how to find them until I had to give up and noticed no one else was around. People have written books on how to be successful as a writer among other things. If I have to live by other people's books, then I am not living truly to my own needs. Who should I be like? I should be myself. There are role models that inspire us to try new things, but after the testing we should know who we want to be. I could set goals for another year and say that this is going to be the year. But I would be fooling myself. I think as long as I am seeking what I truly desire to be, I am on a path. If I take myself off the path, I fail. I will go round and round trying to figure out what it is I should be doing instead of just doing. Do I digress now from my rambling? Or should I continue to search in my heart and head where these thoughts take me? More later... |
I don't want to overthink a poem while editing to make it more meaningful. This poem wound up in this week's spiritual newsletter and got me to revisit the phrasing and form of the poem. It lacks little structure, has its symmetry, but used the word 'pass' twice I noticed. I gave it a more themed spin, referencing faith and the rapture. I don't consider myself deeply religious, but find some poems want to send a message as this....
Thanks to those that recently took time to read and point out I had another featured poem. I would have to read each newsletter in anticipation, surprised that my offerings are so frequently noticed. Very humbling and pleasant that others would take the time to make my writing known to others here. Brian |
| Cracked upon the watery rock, brilliant, clear, glinting in virtuous light, spread out and cast beyond with immortal waves of time, each word growing, further apart, from the impact. I've never seen this place in my mind but I know it's there. One image, one memory, fractured, fading into the recesses; I cannot coax it out anymore to love, cherish, radiance lacking warmth, without someone to help me remember. |
| The only thing I ever wanted from anyone was their love and admiration and I would give wholly the same. I have felt rejection, the denial, the scorn and more all my life for my mistakes, failures and misunderstandings. Too ashamed and hurt to own up to my human condition or try navigate uncertain conversations, I've sealed myself off from a lot of the world instead of seeking kindness or forgiveness. I do not come equipped with the ability to open doors to the past, but live in the present and look to the future holding dearly to the loves I have now and hope that I do not fail again. That doesn't mean I don't waste time wondering what would have been if I had been a more fully functional being in my past. |
I imagined being challenged by someone to get their attention because they didn't want to go by a name. How would you talk to someone who didn't want a moniker? At first, a college professor or some accomplished writer might choose not to acknowledge me unless I was descriptive enough to say something that would hold their attention like a professor who would get me to talk about the weather without using the standard terms or the word 'nice'. The poem immediately took a turn as I started out by trying to address someone (completely fictional) using senses like smell. I googled fragrances and got ideas for future odes that use methods of identifying fragrances like wine and how scents are described like music. I enjoyed this fifteen minute effort. I think I could write fifty poems a day. Where is my novel? So easily distracted with notions like a child, leaving projects out before picking up another and another until the room inside my head is cluttered and I have no desire to clean and go out to play. Hmm. 😒 |
| I struggle because I am not a good person. I'm told many are not, but I cannot tell who they are. I am humble in your presence, but carry a knife behind my back just in case. Not the kind of words you want to hear from someone, but it's honest. Over time, we all seem to lower our guard to others. I've seen some people who can just open up and talk without a care and I envy them. I question why I am not brave and can find many examples from my past where I have been hurt. I lie and say I feel no pain, know no shame, because I do not want to seem weak, even to myself. I know fear. But, I need love. I want to share it, guarded as I may be. But, when the words tumble out: restrained, tentative. I don't make a good first impression. So, I lie. I create a personality, a honed wit that doesn't have to get too personal. I leave rooms quick and seldom show up when the pressure to perform returns. This makes me a bad person. My intention is to get you to like a shallow, hollow man. To leave the impression I'm knowledgeable, competent. I'll take a laugh, dominate a conversation and leave on top. I win? I'm fooling myself. I know I have no friends, I just pretend. I want to love and can, but am afraid of rejection. I know it's because I never got past those days in high school and what happened to me as a teen. Yet, I have a loving wife and kids. I feel like I created this little community of four and dread each day that goes by that I might let one or all of them down. I don't want to wear a veil, conceal weapons. I want the relief of knowing I can walk around warts and all and either give love or accept there is none to receive. It might be brave to post this, but I'll just go back in my shell and hide until my imposter has the nerve to come out. Know that I love you all. Now I shall lurk and fade out.
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| I was going to add more to this, set it up better. Maybe, another time... If my life were fiction, my name would be Alice. I watch my daughter day after day begin an adventure only to be led down the rabbit hole and leave her half-finished projects everywhere like her dad. She has us to make her clean up after herself, but I can't help wonder what she's meant for if she has a daydreaming father who still can't get his act together to this day. There are too many distractions on our cul-de-sac, with an adjacent pond and park where she returns with her turtles, toads, frogs, and an occasional grass snake. She will pull up every rock looking for bugs, try to trap butterflies, birds, and yes, the little bunnies that eat our plants. She leaves her gear, toys, half-eaten food everywhere. I admit, I help her. I admire her catch of the day before we make her set them free, because we cannot raise a baby bird, especially hatch the ones that were tossed from the high nest. There are lessons to learn, growing up to do, but do people like Maddie and I ever grow up? When is it time to be practical and do what's right and stop fawning at nature and all of its distractions and find a balance in our life that will allow us to be more functional, dependable human beings? There are so many things to awe at. Shouldn't I have learned by now about the trappings of chasing the white rabbit? I have learned a lot in my life but routinely get trapped into notions of what I can ideate without putting in the effort to create at least my Frankenstein, a flawed but complete novel. I am the inventor/creator of musings that I alone can understand but cannot relate, even in context. I dialogue conversations real and fictional in my head, never to see them put to use other than to impose my fiction or version of the truth on another. I'll admit, existentialism confuses me, yet I'm in that mix even now as I write. I want to be grounded. I want to be free. What gravitational forces force me from floating beyond my mind? Fear? The unknown? Don't we already know the harsh realities of failure without trying to explore some place dark and mysterious? Perhaps, if we had that one spirit/life guide. I would guide Maddie anywhere she fears to go, but I am afraid. I don't want to fail her as a parent, like the day-dreaming child in me who never found a true career path. Time to climb back to the surface before I am trapped. I will explore these notions another day, though I may tire of trying. I'm overthinking it, I know. Can't I have a little drama before I rest?
...and no  , I'm not on drugs! I said I was Alice, not Lewis Carrol...(read more)http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Rabbit+Hole |
| That guy at work who has better things to do, but... ...causes me to write... Just as there are humble braggers, there are innocent alertists--people who draw attention to someone or something as if they don't know what they're saying could cause doubt or raise concern. An attempt to illicit conclusions that can cause possible outcomes that are designed to distract from real issues (subterfuge) or instigates actions against something that is either something or nothing. |
"At The Hands Of My Creator"  [E] We aim for perfection and fall short in life. Everything is incompletion until we die, though we keep trying. Without aspirations, what would life be? To me, the beauty of this poem is that I don't force a rhyme in the final verse.
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| It started with some words in my head that I had to jot down. For no one in particular, especially me... Don't Kid Yourself (Honestly) Where winds strafe the skies, you hunker down to die. Bunkered, fearing invisible, aimless forces dictating your destiny, like you had one, you suddenly realize you weren't meant for anything. You can begin to live, appreciate even the smallest creatures you've taken comfort amid; rise above them all. Soar into the unknown and die with some dignity. Fulfilled, you have ascended into nothing. |
| Perhaps, I write because I need an alibi... https://twitter.com/glaedrfly/status/589848688018731012 https://twitter.com/glaedrfly/status/589714445171064832 Am I in your head, yet? Let me know when you get inside, because I'm locked in here. Brian K Compton notes an echo~ |
| I hear a lonesome sound when the wind rustles the trees, And it's in me. I sense the giant pines unrest where birds hunker down; quiet for more than an hour now. The snowy owl hunts. I buried the rabbit's fur in the dark, silent bed; spared from my her innocence She'd hate the feathered visitor, if she knew of his lust to live. Why do we have to grow up? Can we just have our rain; get it over with? I could tend to my garden. I don't like the pines anymore. They stir something within me that I cannot silence. REWRITE I hear a lonesome sound wind rustling the trees, and it's in me. I sense the giant's unrest birds hunker down; quiet for too long now. The snowy owl still hunts. I buried the rabbit's fur in the dark, silent bed. I spared her innocence. She'd hate the feathered visitor, if she knew of his lust. Why do we have to grow up? Can we just have our rain; get it over with? I could tend to my garden. I don't like the pines anymore. They stir something within me that I cannot silence. STILL needs work. |
| Everything starts with good intention, but we lose ourselves along the way... set private 4.2015, from late 2014 re-opened 2020 |
| Hashing out poems with little potential here... Insulated, numb Can't feel you Can't feel My arrogance Full, yet I need I need you Across this desert Dead Can't drink life Can't drink Dry Bones ache, cold Yet, sweat Visions, delusions Are all I have An empty gut needs meat Needs to eat Yet, no hunger Can't feel Numb Another... My heart is a metronome Steady Beating Always repeating Echoing It's unrelenting Love OR somehow haiku? My heart is a metronome Steady, beating Echoing unrelenting love More... Just Love Me Back You feel the laughter Hot on your ears veins thick With the humility Hands forming Defeated fists While concealing eyes Wanton intent burning for a lifetime Because of one moment innocence, ignorance Can't take back publicly professed love Poor Juliet Had no intention Was in no position To echo back Or Was it not love? Infatuation put you in that square On the empty soap box Where a part of you still remains. Who am I trying to convince here? Just love me back. Maybe, I'll know. One more, even more depressing...hashing out still and may never finish these... Let me inhale the sweet gas Fill these hungering lungs Savor a (black, vile) mixture (that rolls down) Beneath the gums Then, send your (harsh, brutal) lips So it will numb Every fear of losing you When we're done My fantasy is your suicide For one so young To send sweet greetings From your tongue Deeper down I will go Before I'm hung On this poisoned remedy I'm that dumb. Why does rhyme either punctuate or kill the mood, message? So hard to know when to run to or from the desire to create these appetizing sounds that beg to be heard, implore an answer. |
| Though I love them, feel like telling my family as I walk out the door, "I feel my work here is done." Feels like they don't need me unless it is to have someone to dump on. I feel like I would be more productive as a writer if I had more than five minutes alone at a time in my head when inspiration to pick up a pen or keyboard strikes me again. So much negativity. Glad there's a break in weather. Couldn't come sooner. Of course, I say, 'I feel like' because I cannot grasp this situation. Too many details to dissect but it is the same old stories about parenting growing children with a spouse who does not think like me, not on same page. And I don't rule in my roost without her final say. Mix in my idiosyncrasies that put me at a disadvantage and you've got the makings for another run-of-the-mill unfunny sitcom. Blah. Don't feel like blogging more. Want 2014 back when I was full of hope like the plough horse after that dangled carrot. Field plowed, nothing sown. What could have gone wrong begs the reaper? Is there a magic bag of seeds somewhere with the label, 'Never plant these' ?? |
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![Merit Badge in Second Time Around Contest
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Congratulations on winning the Grand Overall Prize in [Link To Item #2164876] with your beautiful poem, [Link to Book Entry #933358]. This poem really moved me. Great writing!
Rachel *^*Heartv*^*](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/group-Second_Time_Around_Contest-2164963_14.gif)
In the Falkland Islands, internet is very limited and very expensive. The place I'm currently staying only lets me use it in the middle of the night, so when I have to get up at 3 am to check my texts (no cell service to the US here unless I'm on the internet) or WdC, I don't do nearly as much as I used to. 
I currently have 2 very long emails I still need to get to from several days ago. Anyway, I miss everyone, but I also miss sleep, so there's that. 
Have you spoken to the doctor about your vision problems lately? I know there are special glasses for it because I have to wear them to read much ever since the brain injury. It's part of why I now only listen to audiobooks instead of reading regular books. It took 8 years for anyone to diagnose it because I have a brain injury and while one might think it would be obvious to me that I see double, it wasn't. Partly, my brain does a fair job of compensating. But also, partly, you use your brain to realize and understand that the 2 images you constantly see are double vision and something you should mention to your eye doctor. Since my brain was damaged, even basic things like that can escape me. 
I never once thought to mention it, even with annual eye exams in the Army and an exam every 2 years at the VA. Though, in my defense, since it happens in something like 41% of people with a brain injury, it should have been discovered by an eye doctor much sooner. 
I know doing that activity is a CRAP TON of work. But you made a difference in lives, not just his, but for all the people he's reviewed since. 
Well done! 
