literature – Anton Martin Smith Writer

by Anton martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

Do I have it?

I think that maybe I do.

This kind of thing is a kind of virus.

Hidden deeply in the psyche – like so many unrealized things.

It’s a bit like the common Cold Sore ailment.

A cold sore is of course a garden variety version of the ‘Herpes Virus’

And I am sorry to have to write that in a poem –

But then again I am a fan of the ‘San Pedro Poet of the Gutters’ – so I’ll allow it.

The Cold Sore hides behind the nerve in your jaw – so your immune system can’t kill it,

Unless it wants to risk killing the nerve and your food-chewing too.

So not being insane – the immune system lets it survive.

With the (literary version?) of the Anti-Success Virus lodged in your brain’s recesses,

You can’t kill it unless you are willing to ‘crack open your mind’.

This risks total psychic collapse as the ‘demons’ are let loose to run amok.

So your conscious mind refuses to mount a resistance to this A.S.V.

Instead it tells unhelpful (but not always fake) little stories to itself –

“Oh you’re not ready yet”

“Wait but your work is too unpolished”

“You need to wait another two years yet”

“That industry is too corrupt & facile for you”.

“Those people are nothing like you”

So you stay in the shadows year after year.

If you are lucky you allow a pinpoint of light,

To peek through the slit-closed curtains,

And it arcs across your writing room,

Just enough that one in a hundred million people walking past the window,

Kinda see half a poem in a scrunched up piece of paper by your desk.

In other words, your work ‘barely breaths on life support’ in some backwater of the internet.

Some might say to this ” But Perhaps this is just the ‘hero’s journey’ ” .

After all all those that ‘make it’ tell a similar story of struggle while being a ‘total unknown’.

But I’m not so sure these types are representative of the writers of ‘the real great stuff’.

I mean for every one of them the ones that are actually good and ‘don’t make it’ are multiplicitous.

The unseen ones ‘but for a miracle’ are truly the literary ‘black swans’.

They are the ones that when they tell their ‘how I made’ it story – you sit there literally gripping your seat.

So it’s clearly not all about ‘working hard and sticking at it’ as the deadly dull ‘Look how I made it’ types say.

I think those that ‘ conventionally make it’ are mostly ‘delusionally positive’ about their mediocre work.

These are the ones who when the tell of their ‘how I made it’ you feel queasy and tricked.

And that’s why even most the ‘classics’ are mostly total crap other than a few passages.

The really good stuff is they stuff from people who aren’t ‘delusionally positive’ about their work.

Aren’t willing to crack open their minds that whisper so seductively ‘you’re not ready yet’.

And we all know that these people like this are lost to society – unless a century later,

Someone finds that scrunched up poem by the desk and reads the other half,

Feels ‘delusionally positive’ about you and tells the whole world via a oversize trumpet.

Then and only then does a truly great book ever get born into this grey and badly written world.

Of course it would be remiss of me to not mention this:

It’s also totally true and frank to say that every bad writer forever hidden in some backwater –

Also always thinks of himself as an undiscovered literary genius –

That someone in a hundred years will discover and duly make him a member of the ‘literary immortal’.

Of course – I agree with you, statistically I am far more likely to be the latter type, than the genuine article.

But of course my brain wants to say it’s because ‘I am sensibly unwilling to crack my brain open’,

And then asks itself repeatedly:

“I wonder who will discover my brilliance and make me immortal in a centuries time?”

We are strange folk indeed.

No wonder we are so roundly rejected.

And left to our backwaters.

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

‘Writers Block’
Is very handy.
For Example:
When you meet someone who doesn’t read?
Out Comes The Block.
You asked the said non-reader to close their eyes.
Then….
!Whack!
Rough justice employed.

Another example:
You are at a poetry reading.
You come across the “toolbox poet”.
They’ve had an easy life.
Their parents are (of course) still together, upper middle class types.
Their progeny is this ‘toolbox poet’.
It is they that is trifecta-masacre-ing you’re brain, eyes, and ears,
Has never known poverty or genuine struggle.
Is quite possibly what the Americans refer to as a ‘Trust-Fund Baby’.

Alas ‘Toolbox Poets’ – They have nothing to say,
Yet yield Hiroshima like damage on new poetic pastures, usually in urban locales.
They use ‘form’ like a mega-sledgehammer.
They use rhyme far too much and for no good reason.
Their empty platitudes flow like the cheap tract-nouveau-riche-wine,
Delivered to their and their parents friends pristine well swept doorsteps,
Like the badge of copy-cat-ism-style of dishonor it surely is.

The ‘Toolbox Poet’ not knowing what truth is – uses hearty dollops of ‘false mystery’.
‘False mystery’ is the poetic version of verbal sophistry –
Basically they use empty-misjoint-imagery spoken with faux gravitas,
To swindle audiences who have not yet purchased ‘intellectual imposter glasses’.

So where was I?

Yes let me backtrack to ‘Writer’s Block’ (the non-metaphoric physically real kind).
‘Writers block’ comes in handy with run-ins with the ‘Toolbox Poet’ set.
And as my prescriptive advice,
Simply throw said block from the very ‘back of the back’ of said room,
Ideally throw from behind a billowy curtain or from an appropriate alcove.
Aim for the trajectory to have a nicely curved parabola, but not too curved –
less it miss its mark – i.e. the Toolbox Poets ‘schnoz’.
Too flat a trajectory – and you risk hitting the audience.
Watch this glorious ‘Writers Block’ fly with feeling-imbued-slow-ity through the air,
Until it completely nulify’s the ‘toolbox poet’ in mid-bad-stanza,
Mid-bad-imagery-rhyme & mid-flowery-false-platitude.
And Congrats! You hit with a bullseye’d ‘schnoz splashdown’
(NB: in the event that you missed? – Abort mission & stay behind said curtain or alcove & whistle quietly).

And for when the audience turns around post successful ‘Toolbox Poet’ assassination & wonders what has happened?
Well you just stand there sans curtain, whistle quietly & hold your hands behind your back,
Contemplating your next ‘writers block attack’.
Yes my friends of good and great writing –
Contrary to popular sentiment –
As I have outlined in detail above,
‘Writer’s Block’ comes in very handy.
In this the stolen-valor-filled-faux-literary-world.
Yes the valiant soldier wielding the ‘Writer’s Block’ is a poet-not-just-a-poet,
But is also a well battle scarred poverty knowing poet-vigilante,
Who’s parents duly hated each others guts and then in five to ten got truthfully divorced.
And in so doing accidently created a glorious poet-vigilante,
Willing to swiftly and parabolically destroy the high-crimes-of-poetic-dastardry –
Wherever the ‘Toolbox Poet’ plies this evil solipsistic trade,
Or doth present their oversized probably-open-mic’d-big-target-wearing-schnoz.

Hazaar to the Poet-Vigilante & his mighty non-aerodynamic ‘Writer’s Block’.
Hopefully he is not deluded,
Hopefully he is not living in a fantasy world of his own choice,
Hopefully he is not merely ‘projecting’ some twisted internal trauma based misery.
Hopefully he has met his ‘Jungian shadow’ and now gets on not just like a ‘house on fire’,
But as the houses warm embers the day after the house was on fire.
Oh yes – I know what you’re thinking.
It would be a shame if this ‘poet vigilante’ I speak of was in fact ‘dead wrong’ –
For all this would be a waste of time and a total ‘all encompassing lie’.
It would be an exercise in acute effrontery (which is definitely not cute).
But surely not – surely he is not then a ‘Poet Terrorist’.
Surely not dear highly-intelligent-literary-loving and truth loving avid reader!
After all – we’ve all seen the multitudes of ‘Toolbox Poets’ that abound –
The ones that litter the urban poet-scapes like maimed-and-hobbling-town-square-pigeons?
I ask of you dear discerning reader of near angelic virtue – have we not seen them everywhere?
Of course we have….Of course we have…..Of course we have.
I’d stake my very reputation on it.
And let me give you the tip –
That’s worth more than a few cases of ‘Smith’s Luxurious Highly-Blunted Flying Writer’s Blocks’.

Tag: literature

“How The Truly Great Books Get Born?” (Prose)

“The Poet-Vigilante Vs The Toolbox-Poet: Who will win?” (A Prose Poem)