Tag Archives: self-awareness

Oliver Butterfield, ‘Self-reflection’

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Y’know — it ain’t a lot of fun
negotiating one-on-one
with the person in the mirror who
is staring blankly back at you
with hollow, soporific eyes —
but you penetrate his deep disguise,
and then it is you realize
that you’re in for loads of gloom and doom
cooped up within this little room
all by your empty, woeful self,
all, all alone, with no one else —
and the guileful guy you’re talking to
isn’t talking back at you —
’cause he knows there’s nothing left to say.
But the sonvabitch won’t go away.

*****

This poem was originally published in Better Than Starbucks. I have been unable to find Oliver Butterfield, I only know he retired and closed his law practice in Kelowna, British Columbia. I’d be interested in seeing more of his poetry.

Photo: “Man in the Mirror” by airguy1988 is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Short poem: Richard Fleming, ‘Now’

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The future’s inconceivable.
The past is irretrievable.
So all we have is now: that’s it,
yet half the time we miss that bit.

*****

Richard Fleming writes: “Four short lines, two rhyming couplets, succinct, hopefully not preachy, just something that we need to take to heart and not forget.”

Richard Fleming is an Irish-born poet (and humorist) currently living in Guernsey, a small island midway between Britain and France. His work has appeared in various magazines, most recently Snakeskin, Bewildering Stories, Lighten Up Online, the Taj Mahal Review and the Potcake Chapbook ‘Lost Love’, and has been broadcast on BBC radio. He has performed at several literary festivals and his latest collection of verse, Stone Witness, features the titular poem commissioned by the BBC for National Poetry Day. He writes in various genres and can be found at www.redhandwriter.blogspot.com or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/richard.fleming.92102564/

Photo from Richard Fleming

Short poem: RHL, ‘The Self-Aware’

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Most insecure are those, the self-aware:
for all their acts are pointless and they know it,
scurrying like ants on an eclair…
the universe, indifferent, looks askance.

This insecure mode breeds defensiveness
and therefore arrogance, not least in poets
who know their work especially valueless…
even to other ants.

*****

I think we poets, who can be so rude about other people, need to be rude about ourselves occasionally. Not that the universe cares one way or the other.

This poem was originally published in The Road Not Taken – A Journal of Formal Poetry – in Fall 2016. Thanks, Dr. Kathryn Jacobs!

Photo: “Ant picnic” by dmcneil is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Quincy R. Lehr, ‘As if by chance’

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When I looked at her, and when her lips
Pulled back to show her teeth, and when her voice
Broke into laughter, I could only think
Of moments that I’d pissed away, each choice
I’d left to others, and the careless slips
That landed me beside an empty drink.
That afternoon, I could have sworn I saw
A thinner, hopeful version of my face
Staring from behind her retinas–
Familiar, yes, the eyes, the skin, the jaw,
But in that instant somehow out of place.
It cast a knowing frown. The gravitas
Was overbearing. Nonetheless, we filled
The void with gossip, anecdotes and smut,
Comparing chatty journals–note by note.
Like poets, we dissembled in the rut
That each of us was in, our chances killed
By loss of nerve or failure to emote.
But still, a sneer could not have hurt me more
Than her clear laugh that sang of expectations
So long forgotten from a distant day
When youth still spread before me, and the poor
And pitiful attempts at explanations
Still lay in ambush, only years away.

*****

Quincy R. Lehr writes: “This poem was literally about running into a high school friend of mine by chance on the day I defended my doctoral dissertation (though that’s not in the poem). It’s funny how old I thought I was at twenty-nine.”

Born in Oklahoma, Quincy R. Lehr is the author of several books of poetry, and his poems and criticism appear widely in venues in North America, Europe, and Australia. His book-length poem ‘Heimat‘ was published in 2014. His most recent books are ‘The Dark Lord of the Tiki Bar‘ (2015) and ‘Near Hits and Lost Classics‘ (2021), a selection of early poems. He lives in Los Angeles.
https://www.amazon.com/Quincy-R.-Lehr/e/B003VMY9AG

Photo: “Young woman laughing” by Snapshooter46 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Poem, ‘Honesty’

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Honesty’s doing nothing you’re ashamed
to talk of; otherwise you’re being gamed
by a smooth angel with a cloven shoe.
Man, know thyself; to thine own self be true;
accept you’re not some other one’s ideal
from their religion or philosophy;
accept your thoughts are yours, impure and real
with lust, greed, envy, anger, vanity–
normal in that we’re powered by an ape’s drive
that needed those traits to survive and thrive.
Whether you act on them’s different again.
Do nothing that, if done, would make you lie–
but don’t be shamed you’ve had the thoughts within.
Don’t stifle, don’t suppress, and don’t deny.
Acknowledge, but don’t act. In that’s no sin.

*****

Published in Snakeskin, January 2018

Photo: “Here is contained ‘Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness,’ this being a Direct Introduction to the State of Intrinsic Awareness, From ‘The Profound Teaching of Self-Liberation in the Primordial State of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities.’” by Wonderlane is marked with CC0 1.0.

Calling the Poem: 2. ‘Awareness of the Mood’

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The possibility before the poem, the mood,
Is premonition more than vision: loath
To admit, like the repressed and skewed
Response on seeing god-like demon, or young witch…
Not even genitals’ light twitch,
But mere awareness of that energy, potential thrust,
That tightness in the chest,
A heart-tight feeling of both loss and lust.
Then don’t ignore that feeling, for you’re blessed:
A poem is lurking in your undergrowth.

*****

This series of poems, ‘Calling the Poem’, is about the process of writing poetry – an art for which some people appear to have an affinity, an intangible ability. My sense is that such creativity is available to all humans, but requires a certain mindset, an openness to the unconscious, an interest in unplanned internal upwellings and dreams and fortuitous images; in other words, it is not available to those who plan and schedule their lives rigorously, who meticulously follow the teachings imposed from the outside by others.

The process starts before the poem begins to appear. I find it starts with a mood that feels like… like a mixture of curiosity (whether filled with hope or despair), and of awareness of the vastness of the world (whether manifested in a sunset or an ant), and of some small but significant personal power even in the presence of the forces of the universe, and of that formless twitch of yearning desire when glimpsing an unconnected but desirable object for the first time.

My sense is that when you find yourself in this mood – and I trust you’re aware of having experienced it – you are entering a state of receptivity to the messages that your unconscious wishes to share with the conscious you; and those messages will come as creative images, or dreams, or ideas, or words and phrases. But they will only come if you are receptive to them. So honour the mood: relax, listen, observe, and be prepared to express in rough draft whatever occurs to you. The mood is not the creativity; but if you accept the mood, the creative communication of the unconscious can occur.

Photo: “14. Premonition of Concusia 2009” by Anne Marie Grgich is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.