Replaced Thoughts

[Torkelburger]

Replaced Thoughts

There's something wrong with me that needs to be fixed.
For you cannot persuade me that
I can love myself despite other's opinions of me.
Because when all is said and done
Nobody loves me.
Therefore, it is pointless to think that
I will never give up on myself.
Because I always remember each day that
I have no friends.
And I will no longer deceive my own mind when I pretend that
The present moment is all that matters.
So, the simple fact remains that
I'll always be depressed.
What is more, I have trouble accepting the fact that
It is not the things I do that give me worth.
Hence, when I look deep inside, I wonder--
Is there something wrong with me?

(Now read the entire poem in reverse, from the bottom line towards the top).

[dukealien]

Very clever, maybe even therapeutic.  The shifted negations are very neat.

(I played around with it a little bit to see if capitalizations as well as periods could be made to fit both sentence structures, but no luck.  What you did, using traditional poetry typography, is probably optimal; going e e cummings would make the periods look odd .)

[rowens]

The only trip up, going back, is the word Hence. It's correct, if you take the time to consider.
You've thought about that.

I use hence all the time.
I wrote a reply to one of my poems that no one has commented on yet with the word Hence in it.

The act of the poem is orchestrated nicely.
You made the mistake of admitting your privy in orchestration.
(Your piano work is good and definitely not great. I found that the lingering hold on your greatest/greatness in those tracks you posted.) Far,
far superior than/to anything I've ever done in the music bizz, BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

I am, from this date, July 1st, 2022, interested in your plight, your art, in life.

You brought this on yourself, now.

---

I pressed play on your classical bits, on rhythmical sections of my heart, playing them at once. In My own order of coming in. And that was something.

I enjoyed it. Despite that drAMATic line/break in my talk. I promise
I would n't talk to you about it like this in voice.

All my critiques of things worthwhile are like this.

And I'm talking about your music, not this poem.

It messes too much up to fix this poem. Huh?

[Torkelburger]

Thank you both very much. Yeah I played around with it too and this is the best I could get. It took me hours. I even had that same thought about ‘hence’.

Thank you rowens for all the interest in my plight, art, life. Sharing it in art is a huge catharsis. I am also ears to anyone who wishes to share theirs as well. Without boring everyone with too many details, I’ve struggled with rapid cycling bipolar disorder my whole adult life. I’m 47 now. Cognitive behavioral therapy and Buddhism have helped, both alluded to in my poem.

You made an accurate assessment of my musical capabilities, rowens. I actually studied the tuba as my instrument in college. But I play the piano okay. My major in college was film scoring and composition so I had to use the piano for my theory courses, which at Berklee, includes tons of jazz. When I moved back to Texas, my brother in law asked me to play jazz with him. He has played bass in Houston professionally since 1979. I said ok. I had about 50 jazz tunes I wrote in college so we play those at gigs occasionally and recorded them. As you can tell, everyone else he plays with is a pro.

[busker]

I’ve sometimes thought of writing poems that can be read both ways. This is a good example of one. I like clever, which this is.

[rowens]

I don't know what depression is. I've never been manic or depressed. I am impatient. I've been diagnosed with things over the years, much of it based on jokes I made during sessions. Family wanted me to go to doctors. Everyone I know thinks I'm severely mentally ill. My only real problems are neurological, coordination, don't drive, can't swim, and I'm working on these things.

When I listen to jazz, I feel better. I don't think about jazz. I listened to jazz and read every book on it and watched documentaries and interviews and bought a trumpet with jammed keys, since I liked Miles Davis so much, and learned to play a few opening notes from his albums. The cheapness of the trumpet made it hard to play, besides me not knowing what I was doing. I refuse all help. I must educate myself or feel less than.

What I do understand about depression and other mental-emotional troubles is the gap in action. There's a gap in the reality of what you experience, experience, thought, emotion and physicality aren't on the same page.
Art comes out of those gaps. The need for art is generated in those gaps. Otherwise, life is enough.
People say I'm mentally ill, since I talk of demons and in language like that. Where do these God-worshipping Christians think I picked up that language. 
My favorite line in The Exorcist is: [She's] In here, with us. Democracy DEMOnic. And I say that demons are in the spaces between spaces. Demons are ever between. They neither exist or nonexist. Like the spider on the one dollar bill. 
And the human body is composed of organisms. Cells, bacteria. Imaginations, synapses, energy, the energy between synapses lighting up cells. Spooks in and out. Shadows and apparitions.

Culture is only useful for art. Culture is art. Cultural issues are mountains made of molehills. We're animals with delusions of traumatic grandeur. 
The existence of spirits and gods doesn't change that. 



Come down to The Sewer, and we can talk more crazy cosmic jive. 

I started subjects and let them float. I like talking in The Sewer. 

This is an invitation vampiric.