Problems

Introduction

I want to write a poem but it is inspired by a wonderful song. One of the problems with this situation is that I look at the lyrics and think "I cannot do better than that"

So What Do I Do? How Do I Deal With It?

The image I have chosen for this article is almost a reflection of what my mind feels like, a total tangle of threads and shapes. I know what the end product is going to be, and I know that people will read it and tell me how wonderful and beautiful it is, but I am not even on the starting line yet.

I can see the elements of what I am going to create, and I have to pick out the right ones and put them together. I am probably making this sound more complicated than it is, but it does require a lot of effort and planning to put together.

I prefer to use a defined poetic format I seldom use free form, because I believe that at least makes me feel as though I am putting in some effort to create it.

I often feel that I am being lazy when I write poetry, although I do put a lot of work into it. Writing this piece probably takes me less effort than my poetry although when I publish this, I will feel that I have written something worthwhile.

My preferred poetic formats are sonnet and villanelle and when I start to write I feel comfortable because I know how each line should sound, and how it should start and end.

Ironically I find villanelles quite easy because of the repeated lines to emphasise the point of the poem. When you write your first verse you have finishing lines for four verses and the last two lines of your final verse, but they have to make sense wherever they appear in the villanelle.

The song that has inspired me is Elton John's "Your Song" which is beautiful and I will be competing with Bernie Taupin's excellent lyrics when I write my poem, and I won't have Elton John's voice and music to deliver it, it will just be words on a page, that may one day appear in a book, but you can see I don't make it easy for myself.

As I write this I am listening to another beautiful song Jack Bruce and Pete Brown's "Theme From An Imaginary Western" performed by Greenslade although the original version was released by Mountain. I can share this with you now and this is helping me unravel the words of my poem.

I also use other things to stimulate my little grey cells, I believe my Himalayan Salt Lamp actually helps my creativity. I have a number of friends who have them and they do, in my opinion, enhance the ambience of the room that you are in, and mine is close to where I write.

I also go for long walks to unravel and put the words together to create my poetry.

I know this seems to jump all over the place but that is also how my mind works when I put together a poem, a piece of fiction or an article like this.

Conclusion

I will start on the poem once this is published and will tack the link to it at the end of this article once the poem is complete.

I do not have a title for it yet but expect it to be complete tomorrow and I hope it lives up to what I have promised.

Thank you for reading.

This is the poem that I was trying to write