Inspiration

Inspiration is a funny thing,

as it travels those roundabouts and swings,

those many doubts and little stings ,

the direct results of overthinking.

They say, I’m inspired! With a flash of the eye

and a knowing smile and a spirit that flies

but they don’t tell the lie behind this smile,

that if life is your throat, inspiration is bile.

You wonder why artists are angsty and sad?

You see only darkness, expressions of madness  

the stark reality behind this facade is directionless,

aggression’s the basis of art.

Inspiration comes from a broken soul,

from the cigarette burns that left little holes

in your shirt and your mind, that hurting defined

in a pulsing of energy, angry, resigned.

Inspiration is hate, covered in poetry

and though you sew it together you’ll see that the

flow you denote and the glow that you show

was grown from a tale not of friend but of foe.

Inspiration is a punch in the gut,

it’s the smut in your lover, not the virtue or otherwise misaligned idea of your life, inspiration does not smile, it cries.

It snaps you out of your illusory world,

the sting of the scorpion slowly uncurls

and you see the girl you’re hurling abuse at

as no more than recluse, no more than a rat.

Inspiration isn’t pretty and sweet,

it does not sit tamely at your dainty feet,

but rather it  jumps straight out of your chest

and greets you with your absolute worst, not your best.

Inspiration hits you like a bolt of lightning,

but it does not comfort you, it is frightening and wild

and sighting it clearly makes adult from child,

remember, inspiration aint mild.

It slaps you about and breaks open your heart,

to turn violence and fear and hurt into art

and though its the trigger, the step at the start,

never forget the truth of Descartes.

He says, raise your soul so high that offense cannot reach it,

and sure it may be one thing to preach it

but teach yourself to use courage and sense

every time that your mind perceives an offense.

Inspiration aint kind, that’s for damn sure,

it’s the seed in the mind that sits rotten and raw

but from it comes beauty and these little flaws

keep me in a state of near constant awe.

Thank you for your provocations today,

thank you for giving me the words to say,

that inspiration is torment, and torture and hate,

it’s this trigger that changes my daily fate.