Poetry Kicks Ass 2

Note: If you haven't already, you may want to first read Poetry Kicks Ass, my first post on the ins and outs of writing poetry for the one you love.   

       Okay. How the hell do you write poetry for the one you love? Follow me.
       The first thing you need is some alone time. So create some. Just you and whatever you’re writing with. A computer is no less sensitive to your outpourings than a pen and paper. It’s not a sterile tool. Use whatever works best for you. I use both a computer as well as the pen and paper.
       If you go the pad and paper route, buy a journal dedicated strictly to poetry. Choose a journal that has some gravitas to it. Get one with a hard cover, or even a leather cover, maybe with a design on it that attracts you. It should have archival quality paper. Don’t go with a ninety-nine cent spiral wire job from Office Max. Those are for high school chemistry class. This is poetry, damn it. It’s far more important that learning the molecular formula for Chromium sulfate (which is CrSO4 by the way).
       If you’re into color, like I am, buy a set of colored pencils or pens. The point is, your tools should inspire and excite you. Whatever they are. Set yourself up like this and you’ll be more inclined to write, more inclined to create.
       Find a place where you can let yourself feel without being distracted. That could be some quite place in your house, outside in the woods, or anywhere you feel safe and at peace.    
       It’s important to be inspired when you write poetry. And inspiration can hit you at any time, anywhere, if you are open to it. In addition to your dedicated poetry journal, I recommend carrying a smaller journal and a pen with you everywhere, so you can write whenever anything hits you. That whatever could be a word, or a phrase, or an idea, a sentence, or an entire poem. Whatever it is, get it down immediately. And run with it as long as you can, given the circumstances. Use what’s in this little pad as the raw material for some of your poems.
       I’ve been at meetings with, of all people, lawyers, and had ideas for writing. I can’t flesh them out right then and there, because I need to pay attention to a person I’m paying $300 and hour for. So I just jot down the word or phrase and do the best I can.
       Getting to our feelings proves difficult for many. But again, feelings are essential in writing emotive poetry. That’s another reason why it’s crucial to be able to jot something down when it hits you. Because if something hits you, it’s moving something inside of you. And you have to grab those moments when you can.
       Here are some ideas on how you can drop into your heart.
       I recommend the following: music and pictures. Audio visual. Music is a fabulous trigger for our emotions. Put on some music that moves you. Then look at pictures of your lover that move you, or pictures of the two of you together, while you’re listening to music that touches you. And that music can be anything from AC/DC to Beethoven. We aren’t going for specific feelings. We’re just going for feelings.
       Another powerful suggestion is to use scent to evoke emotion. Smell, in fact, is the most evocative of all our senses. When we smell something we’ve smelled before, and that smell was associated with a powerful emotion, we are more likely to experience that emotion again. It doesn’t have to be associated with your lover, but it can be. Let’s say you like the smell of evergreen trees. Well if you like them, there is a happy feeling associated with that. So go out in the woods and smell the pines with your iPod and your pictures and see what happens. Or light a candle with a scent that speaks to you (Yankee Candles are, in my extensive olfactory experience, the strongest, best smelling candles out there).
       If you like the way your lover smells (and you better, or your relationship is probably not going to work), then use something......anything.....that smells like her or him and literally inhale their scent as you write. You can ask your lover to wear something all day, the day before you plan to write, and then have him or her let you use that. You can ask them to wear something that day, and have them give it to you, fresh off of their bodies, just before you write. Or you can just go through their laundry and sniff the clothes, finding something that smells like her. I’ve done all three. It’s fun. All of it.
       So you’re alone. You’ve got the music going. You’ve got the pictures in front of you. You’ve got the candle going. You’ve got the shirt she wore that smells like her. It’s all going on. Now what? That’s next.

©2012 Clint Piatelli & Red F Publishing.

Phoenix

       Writing. Like music, forever my perfect partner. They are both always there when I need them. And I am always there for them. I love them beyond measure, and they reciprocate. I will never leave them, and they will never leave me. No matter what. We both give each other to each other.
       Together, we experience something sacred; something bigger than ourselves yet so very personal. Together, we create our own very intimate magic.
       I’ve posted a lot about music (click on the orange word “music” and easily get to them all, including this one, which will appear at the top of the page). Everything I say about music, I can say about writing. And that realization just came to me, right now, as I’m writing this very post. I love it when that happens. When I can use the moment to comment on the moment.
       At times when I’m in a lot of pain, I often write poetry. Writing down what’s going on inside of me when I’m in those dark places is critical to getting me out of them. When I get away from my writing, or my music, I stay in those places longer. And I’m never doing that shit again.
       Some of the best poetry comes from a place of great hurt and sorrow. Just like music. It’s not the pain that creates the great song, or the great poem, but the depth of the emotion one accesses. That emotion can be anything from great joy to great pain to great lust to great love. But you must fully experience that emotion to create something big from it.
       Like a perfect form of renewable fuel, our feelings fuel the creative engine. And that engine is what moves people with our expressions.
       I wrote the following poem about fifteen years ago. Although I was in a very painful place, I created something beautiful. That’s the splendor of art. From the ashes rises the phoenix.    
    

 

IS MY LIFE JUST AN IMAGINARY TALE            

Is my life just an imaginary tale
Where I make up all the characters
Where I make up myself

Is my life just an imaginary tale
Where everyone and everything is real
Except me

Is my life just an imaginary tale
Where I make up all the everything
To keep myself real

Do I live inside this story
Or do I live outside of it
And exist simply to tell what I see

Is my life just an imaginary place
Where happiness only happens to other people
And which leaves me hurt and scared and alone

Is my life just an imaginary tale
That I tell to myself as I meander through the days
Do I exist just to narrate this meaningless story to myself

Is my life just someone else’s story
Seen through my eyes

©2012 Clint Piatelli & Red F Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

Poetry Kicks Ass

       “Poetry Kicks Ass”. Yes. Yes it does.
       That very phrase may sound contradictory, even absurd. Fine. For it underscores precisely the inherent vernacular dichotomy I propose.
       Poetry Kicks Ass because it has the potential to be extremely powerful while also being extremely concise. Like a helmet to helmet hit from a free safety, teeing up from zone coverage, on a slot receiver coming across the middle. Just like that devastating collision on a football field, poetry can send a game changing message very quickly, and with a force of communication far greater than you may realize.
       To all of you lovers out there, if you aren’t writing poems to each other, you’re like a defense that never blitzes. You’re just not taking enough chances. You’re just not risking enough of yourselves. You’re just not being vulnerable enough. And you’re letting opportunities pass you by.
       And here’s the killer: Anybody can write poetry. Because there aren’t any rules. Despite what you may have learned in high school, poems don’t have to rhyme. They don’t have to be grammatically correct. They don’t have to be spell checked. You can make up your own words. Poems don’t even have to make sense, at least not in strictly literal terms. As the poet, you have absolute freedom to say whatever you want, however you want to. And still have the potential to communicate effectively. How fuckin’ cool is that?
       As men, we must confront the fact that just writing poetry, even if nobody on earth ever reads it, carries a stigma so strong that it prevents most from simply writing down potentially poetic material. I’m not even talking about actually organizing and forming ideas into poetry. I’m talking about just writing stuff down.
       Both sexes must also confront the belief that only “poets” can write “poetry”. That goes hand in hand with the belief that many people believe that they are just not creative enough to write poetry. Or not creative, period.
       We are all creative. And we can all channel that creativity into some sort of poetry. Try this on for s moment....
       Remember when Rocky wrote Adrianne a poem in Rocky 2 ? Here’s this fighter, a person not at all thought of as creative; a guy who makes his living punching the snot out of other guys; and he wrote a poem. It was a simple poem. Because Rocky was a simple man. But it was.....FROM....HIS....HEART. And that is the whole point. The only point. So his message was conveyed with devastating effectiveness. Just like his left hook. Because it came from deep inside of him.
       I know it’s just a movie, but this is a great example of art imitating life. If Rocky can write a poem and make it move his lover, then so can you.
       Maybe writing poetry is about as important to you as blowing your nose. But I challenge you to accept the possibility that writing poetry can improve your relationship with your lover; that poetry can enhance communication between people who love each other; that poetry can stir up wondrous creative energies in you that have been latent, and make you feel more alive; and I maintain that poetry will steam things up in the bedroom. And even the best relationships can benefit from more of all that.
       In my next Poetry Kicks Ass post, I’ll help you write poetry. I’ll tell you what works for me. And I’ll give very practical, concrete advice on how to create poetry that will sing from your heart and touch the heart of your lover.

Muffin of Change (part 2)

       In my post, Muffin of Change Part 1, I described a watershed event that was made possible because of a series of shifts and openings that had occurred in my life. Openings and shifts continue to emerge for me, and the processes involved are worth sharing.  
       I love to share myself. I really do. it gives me a joy that I can’t completely describe. Equally as important as the buzz I get from sharing, is the possibility that my sharing gives something to you; to those who choose to participate in my life with me. My sharing, in all of its incarnations, is the manifestation of my deep need to do my life with others.
       And through that deep need, I realize my sincere desire to transform myself and to assist others in their transformation. But before I get way ahead of myself, which I’m really good at, let’s get back to the mission of this particular post; to share my journey with you.
       A few months before I reconnected with my older brother, I engaged in practices that were designed to create space in my life. Space for new things to emerge. For a while, all too often, my ways of being, my ways of thinking, my behavior, my attitude, and the way I was engaging in my life, was not working. Or more accurately, was not working enough. Nothing was broken. But my life wasn’t firing on all cylinders either.
       Far too often, I would get down on my life. I would get down on me. But what I came to realize was that my life was not the problem. And I was not the problem. The problem was how I was choosing to be in my life.
        I made a commitment to myself to transform what wasn’t working. Specifically, I committed to transforming how I brought myself to my life. Especially to areas that were causing me pain or not creating fulfillment. And then I followed that commitment with action. Lots of action.
       What occurred were a series of what I describe as “openings”. Put another way, opportunities manifested that, because of how I was previously being, were not possible.
       The mysterious magic is that we don’t know what those opportunities will be, or how they will manifest themselves, or when they will occur. Even if we think we do. Because, our minds being the wonderful, powerful, usually incredibly arrogant creations that they are, convince us that we can figure everything out simply by using what’s between our ears. We think we can simply out smart our life. But as hard as we try, we can’t. And believe me, I’ve tried. And I’m a smart fuckin’ guy.
       If instead we commit to free ourselves from that which is holding us back, and thus create openings, then when those opportunities present themselves, we are ready to accept them. To choose them. Whereas before, either the opportunities would not present themselves because, as the adage goes, “when the student is ready the lesson will appear”; or, if the opportunities do present themselves, we are not ready to accept them. So we simply miss them altogether. Or we just say “No”.
       I had no idea if or when I would ever reconnect with my brother. And even if I had, I never would have conceived of it the way it happened. But because of the openings I created, I was ready. And I didn’t even know it. And the possibility presented itself. And I said yes. And my life is now quite different.
       Now to the nuts and bolts of what I did to create the openings necessary for my life to expand.
       The first thing I did was some unique body work out in Phoenix with a woman named Laurie Handlers. Her company is called Butterfly Workshops, and she is a remarkable woman. I won’t go into specifics, but I will tell you that the work helped me. If you’re interested in learning more, check out her website at www.butterflyworkshops.com.    
       The Master Cleanse came next (www.mastercleanse.org). It had a greater impact on me than I could have possibly imagined. Ridding myself of toxins created space. That’s just metaphysical math; toxins take up space, and with them gone, now there’s room for more of the good stuff. And by toxins, I’m referring not only to chemicals that physically resided in my body, but metaphysical emotional, mental, and spiritual toxins that poisoned my ability to function at a higher level on all those planes.
       Through The Master Cleanse, I not only created room, I became lighter. I lost weight. Lots of it. Physical weight. Psychic weight. Emotional weight. There is now a levity about me. Which has nothing to do with being shallow. I go deep. Really deep. But I don’t go there from a heavy place.
       Back in June, I began meditating in earnest. Usually just emptying my mind. Though sometimes, depending on the meditation, filling it with the energy of love, strength, abundance, possibility. What I had been told by everyone who meditated, but remained a concept I could not grasp until I actually did it consistently, was that the practice of meditation is what matters. Unlike say, engaging in a workout routine, where doing it “properly” or “right” is important, with meditation, there is no “right” or “wrong” way of doing it. Doing it is the way.
       I started writing again, posting what I wrote in my blog, and thus sharing what is in my heart and in my mind. I was publicly exploring myself. Exposing myself. Being vulnerable and risking greatly. Taking the chances necessary that are leading me to fulfill  my vision of taking my message to the world. Boldly, Courageously. Lovingly. Powerfully.  
       To that end, I’m in the process of turning this blog into the centerpiece of my brand. The Muscleheart brand. I’m terribly excited about that. I can’t get very specific yet, because I’m still working on the vision, and I don’t want to dilute the product before I unveil it. But I can tell you that through my brand, my objective, beyond that of full self expression, is that I want to impact you. I want to move you. I want to evoke an emotional response from you. I want to connect to you. And, through all of that, I want to assist you in the opening of your heart, the fuller expression of your self, and the deepening of your capacity to give and receive love. Through doing what I do, I want to inspire you to expand the emotional capacity of your life.
       Continuing my Genius Coaching has also been critical to my expansion. I’ve been working with a man named Otto Siegel since January. But we’ve taken it to a whole new level now. His coaching is about creating a literal “Life Upgrade”. Check out his website at www.geniuscoaching.com.
        Recently, I participated in The Landmark Forum (www.landmarkeducation.com). The Forum is s hard thing to describe, but if I had to boil it down, I would tell you that, not so coincidentally, it created space in my life for possibilities. That is what I’ve been doing, in one form or another, for the last five months. I was having difficulty seeing how my attitudes, my behaviors, my very words, were preventing me from creating room and opportunity in certain areas of my life.
       In effect, I’m creating a new paradigm for myself. I’m manifesting a new plane of being that before was unavailable to me because of an invisible ceiling that I unconsciously put over myself. I lived inside a house that, although felt pretty big, and in some ways was (for example, in the area of self expression), it was not nearly big enough. Not big enough for who I really was and who I was becoming. Not big enough for who I wanted to be. Not big enough for where my life could go. And, I could not see how big my life already was. Nor could I see how much bigger it could become. I didn’t see the size of what I was in nor all the room for expansion. Because I wasn’t looking out the windows. There were plenty of them in the house, because I love windows, and I create them naturally because it’s who I am. I just wasn’t using them.
       In part three of what I’ve affectionately deemed my “Muffin Posts”, I’ll tell you about another realm of expansion. Possibilities have shown up in yet another area of my life that, I have to say, have completely shocked me. An area of my life that years ago was a source of great pleasure, but eventually became a source of some of my greatest distress.
       I’m talking about The Purple House.


©2012 Clint Piatelli & Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Polarity Dispairity

“I know where the middle is. I pass it on my way to the extremes.”
                 - Anonymous

       Many years ago, I sowed the seeds of personal trauma by nourishing them with my own sick thinking. I thus inadvertently created a polarizing paradigm that I am shifting out of. Hooray for me, ‘Cuz this is big.
       My very real, but very childhood experience of abandonment created a paradigm that held the following as gospel: If I need and want someone bad enough, and if they want and need me bad enough, then we’ll never leave each other. We will be always be connected. I won’t ever again be......abandoned.
       Wanting to be needed and wanting to be wanted is not a bad thing. It’s a vital part of intimate relationships. It has to be there to some healthy degree, or there is little passion or vulnerability. Taken to the extreme however, as I have at times been guilty of, leads to codependency. Past the healthy dose and into the overdose.
       We all have one or more core wounds, core traumas, that bury themselves deep inside of us. They borough deep because they occur at a time in our lives, usually when we are quite young, when we simply do not have the tools to process them. So if we don’t have the tools to process, we stuff; hoping that if we can’t see it and can’t feel it, the pain will just go away. We become vigilantly protective of these tender places.
       That vigilant protection in action is commonly known as our defense mechanisms. And they can be incredibly formidable. And unconscious. Which makes them potentially very destructive blind spots in our intimate relationships.
        As is often the case when we polarize, we unconsciously create the other extreme. It’s a dysfunctional way to create a semblance of balance. Picture a seesaw. When functioning properly, both sides of that whimsical childhood device are free to teeter back and forth, finding itself in the middle more often than not as it strives for balance. But if you weigh one side of the seesaw with an oppressively heavy object, like a formidable defense mechanism such as codependency, an object so heavy that it may indeed crush the very seesaw it is part of, then one way to balance that is to weigh the other side with yet another oppressively heavy object. It would indeed be far more effective to just remove that first heavy object. But if we don’t know how to do that, or if we are not even aware that we have loaded one side, it’s relatively easy to just do what we know how to do on  the other side. Which is load it with something else just as heavy.
       So, in my case, the other side of the seesaw; the opposite extreme of my polarization; the opposite of codependency; the other heavy object, as it were, says that I can create a wall around myself strong enough that I can’t become too touched or moved or affected by the woman of my desire. And how that translates itself into the relationship is that I just don’t allow myself to need or to want her, or anybody else, that bad.
       Seeing this dynamic very clearly now, it’s the proverbial lose/lose. On one extreme, I need you so bad I can’t live without you. On the other extreme, I don’t need you, or anybody else for that matter, at all.
       I can say this from experience. Both extreme ends of that polarity totally suck.
       This phenomenon is not unique to me. There are many different manifestations of this polarity of needing and wanting people, of needing and wanting intimate relationships. Some people are petrified to need or want another person too much. I refer to them as emotionally hyper-independent. They reign in any healthy desire so much that they rarely experience that exquisite burning passion, that wonderful temporary surrender that screams, from every fibre of their being: “I WANT YOU SO BAD IN THIS MOMENT, I CAN’T DO ANYTHING BUT TASTE MY DESIRE!”.
       They also control any healthy need of their partner so much that they rarely allow themselves to be vulnerable. They want you and need you just enough to keep the relationship afloat, But hyper-vigilant emotional control remains paramount. Their guard is up, to some degree, virtually all of the time.
       For the emotionally hyper-independent, it’s a very safe place to be. But for the person on the other side, if he or she is at all emotionally available, it is, overall, an unpleasant experience. The emotionally hyper-independent one will probably often be experienced as somewhat cold, detached, disconnected from their heart, and not very expressive of how they feel. Closeness becomes the exception, and a certain distance is the norm. The emotionally hyper-independent will rarely be vulnerable. That way of being can put a big strain on a intimate relationship. Because what’s missing is the intimacy.
       Vulnerability is a scary thing for most. Some of that is cultural. The tools that serve us well in the business world do not translate well into intimate relationships. If you bring the boardroom into the bedroom, you’re intimate relationship is going to suffer. There is absolutely no way around that one.
       Emotional Availability means that you are available to your own emotions, and that you let your partner have availability to them as well. You share your emotions and feelings, as freely as you can, with him or her. That sharing promotes intimacy. That intense sharing, that exposure, that vulnerability is, in fact, critical to intimacy. To be intimate, you must be vulnerable. It simply does not work any other way.
       I know how important vulnerability is in relationships. I have been on all four sides of that fence. I’ve been unavailable and with someone unavailable. I’ve been unavailable and with someone available. I’ve been available and with someone unavailable. And I’ve been available and with someone available. If you want a deeply intimate relationship, the only way it’s ever going to work is the last way. Period. Semi-Colon. Exclamation Point.
       Intimacy is connection. Across the board, if you open up to people in your life, be it a lover or a good friend, you will build connection. And connection is sacred. It is in fact the most beautiful feeling I have ever experienced. Whether I have opened up to my lover and shared with her how her scent drives me crazy; how the touch of her skin against mine makes me weak; how the sounds of her moans are sweeter than any song I have ever heard....or if I’m just laughing so hard with a close friend that I experience our laughter as coming from one unique being that was just spontaneously created....it is all about connection. Beautiful. Sacred. Exquisite, Connection.
       The willingness to risk exposing that which lies deep inside you remains a quality of questionable value to many. As positively frightening as it may be to share our deep secrets with our partner, the act of intimate sharing brings growth and closeness to a relationship that is otherwise unattainable. The freedom experienced when you open up to the one you love, or when they open up to you, qualifies as euphoric. For both of you. A high without drugs.
       Without question, the most beautiful moments I have ever shared with a beloved women, or a close friend, were when one or both of us completely opened up. When we shared what was in our heart of hearts; when we shared something that maybe we were  afraid to admit even to ourselves. The openness of the one sharing, and the loving acceptance of the receptor, literally creates a tangible energy. Unconsciously harnessed, this energy drives you closer to one other. In those most tender moments, when one person shares something so difficult that tears flow freely, it’s Magic. I know I’ve used that word enough in my writings that it borders on over use, but fuck it. It’s my blog.
       I want that connection with as many people in my life as I can possibly handle. And here’s a secret. Come closer. Listen carefully. If you’re up for it, I want it from you.....


© 2012 Clint Piatelli & Red F Publishing. An Incalculably Intimate Amount of Rights Reserved.