Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Poets United Mid week Motif ~ Boredom





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Midweek Motif ~ Boredom


"Sir, you have two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both."-- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

"But her life was as cold as an attic facing north; and boredom, like a silent spider, was weaving its web in the shadows, in every corner of her heart"-- Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary"

"Society is now one polished horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored"-- Lord Byron, Don Juan

"Boredom: the desire for the desires-- Leo Tolstoy"


Imagine sitting with a long face before the dreaded blank page and looking all around to lift the uninspired soul in vain. 

There is no one to give a push to kick start a writing session while all the poetry sites are urging to link up a poem of your own choice.

All on a sudden life seems to stand still turning everything utterly uninteresting. For wordsmiths this is a most unwelcome state.

What is the way out to make this phase sound exciting? 

I have chosen two poems of Charles Bukowski for today's topic Boredom.


These Things

by Charles Bukowski

these things that we support most well
have nothing to do with up,
and we do with them
out of boredom or fear or money
or cracked intelligence;
our circle and our candle of light
being small,
so small we cannot bear it,
we heave out with Idea
and lose the Center:
all wax without the wick,
and we see names that once meant
wisdom,
like signs into ghost towns,
and only the graves are real.



The American Writer

by Charles Bukowski

gone abroad
I sit under the tv lights
and am interviewed again
i am asked questions
I give answers
I make no attempt to be
brilliant.
to be truthful
I feel bored
and I almost never feel
bored.
"do you?..." they ask.
"oh, yeah, well I..."
"and what do you think of..."
"I don't think of it much. I
don't think too much..."
somehow it ends.

that evening somebody tells me
I'm on the news
we turn the set on.
there I am. I look pissed.
I wave people off.
I am bored.

how marvelous to be me without
trying.
it looks on tv
as if I knew exactly what I
was doing.

fooled them
again.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.

(Next week Rosemary Nissen Wade will be prompting with the topic "Let your song be delicate.")

26 comments:

  1. Hello everyone,

    Wooo hooooo its time once again for Midweek Motif :D sharing a sonnet on boredom.. hope you guys like it :D

    Lots of love,
    Sanaa

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for making today less boring - and always good to read Bukowski!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good morning.
    This was an interesting exercise. I must say I am seldom bored. Usually it is only when I feel trapped somewhere and cant go.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes - trapped physically or in your head = boredom!

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    2. On Saturday, we travelled to one of my son's football games @ 9.
      The coach had gotten the time wrong so we were in the middle of nowhere for 2 hours, While the coach did a long practice before the game. Yeah, felt it then.

      I totally should have just hiked out into the woods.

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    3. We would have been there with you chuckling as we laid out a trail of candy...

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    4. Never would have worked,
      I would have eaten the candy and we surely would have gotten lost.
      Lol.

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  4. Hope you won't get bored with my post :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Like that could ever be possible with your vibrant pictures.
      Ha.

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  5. Same here, i say the same thing as Totomai

    much love...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Replies
    1. Sumana, I love every line in this prompt. You got me thinking and writing, something I haven't been doing much! Reading, Catching up on my reading . . . but I loved stopping to write this poem and to read the rest!

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    2. Thanks Susan, so nice to have you today with such a wonderful write...your voice is always inspiring...hope you are recovering well :)

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  7. Wonderful writing, thanks for sharing!

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  8. Hello friends, lots of good lines today..thank you...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ha ha, I love Bukowski's "fooled them again". Some days, it's all smoke and mirrors. I am home today at my desk and looking forward to catching up.

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  10. I have just finished mine! I really am very seldom bored, but I can imagine! I am sure what I will be read here today will NOT be boring. Smiles.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks, Sumana, I had fun with this. And thanks Sanaa, too, for putting into my mind the idea of a sonnet. But mine is a curtail sonnet, just to be different.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now it is VERY late in my part of the world, so I must make myself go to bed and read the rest of you tomorrow.

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  12. This was very interesting. Though boredom reminds of the quote- "Bored of being bored because being bored is boring!!"

    ReplyDelete
  13. "I'm bored" reminds me of pre-teens who want to be entertained rather than challenged. In a world, with so many needs, who has time to be bored?
    A fine prompt today, Sumana

    ReplyDelete
  14. As someone said, "When you pay attention to boredom it gets unbelievably interesting.." That's exactly what happened as I was writing this! Thanks Sumana for the nice prompt...couldn't help writing ;D
    Shall come back tomorrow morning to read the other poems..am sleepy. G'nite all.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hmmm, this theme had me thinking longer than others... I don't do "bored"! And I found Bukowski's poems a little grating. Still, I wrote a poem...
    Look forward to reading all of the other poems this week. Should prove interesting.

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  16. Replies
    1. Hi Marco, I am hoping you will make visits this week.

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  17. Good morning. Catching up with those that are reading

    ReplyDelete

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