for an “assignment” from C.D.
Many years ago I felt when I wrote as if a geometric figure rotated slowly about three inches above and in front of my forehead: a green figure glowing red along the edges of each facet. I would trace lines (words) along the edges of this figure as I wrote, or thought about what words to place on the page.
That, however, is not a feeling, but an image. The image did create a trance like state – – a mandala, as it were, to focus my attention – – to not be distracted by the noise of the world, nor by the noise of the words. So in that sense I feel calm, centered and safe when I am working on a poem. I feel closer to myself, in a place I can speak with a brutal honesty, a space of stark self-evisceration, a space to hide beneath metaphor from myself and others; a place of enlightened obfuscation.
subtext 