Quote #6

Robert Frost is easily my favourite poet.
 

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.
 – Robert Frost

Looking for Love

For me to achieve
I require two things
A direction to travel
And someone to push.
 
I have one of those two
I have my direction
But until I find the push
I walk slowly and alone
 
Putting more of my heart
Into finding the push
When I know I should focus
On following the path
 
But I just can’t do that
Because what is the point
Of being truly happy
With no one to share it.
 
So I let my path blur
And I let my vision fade
Senses give one by one
As I try to find love.
 
– ©2012 Alex Hicks

Update!

Time for an update!
 
First, holy crap! 16 Followers! That’s 16 more followers than I thought I’d get! Thank you to everyone who comments and likes and follows me/things I post. I am in your debt. I initially created this blog to show my poetry to my closest friends who I invited to the site. After 3 weeks of me posting and none of them wanting to read anything, I decided to open it to the public eye. just over 2 weeks later, I have 16 followers and lots of views! It has been a huge boost to my self-esteem and it has encouraged me to write more. Thank you everyone.
 
Second, I will start reading my poems and posting it on YouTube probably around the middle of October. All of my recording equipment is currently packed for moving on October 1st, so once I get moved in and set up, I’ll start recording and adding relevant images/music to the poems. I also intend to create my own music to put in the videos. Should be an interesting attempt.
 
Third! I’m thinking about writing one poem a day for a year. Topics are one thing I am not short of for poetry, and I love writing. Suggest ideas and other things that might help with that.
 
And finally, I welcome all constructive criticism on anything I write. The more I have the better my poems will be in the long run so if you notice something I could improve on, speak up!
 
Thanks again!
 
-Alex H.

P.S. I need a good suggestion for a title for the blog. Poet’s Brain isn’t really all that great because poetry comes from the heart first the brain second.

Quote #5

I’ve been listening a lot to this band lately. I have to say I started listening to them when Charles Trippy on youtube joined them. Anyway, I find their songs very motivational.

“Sometimes there are only lonely roads.”
 – We The Kings, Sunshine State of Mind, Somebody to Call My Own

Quote #4

Now I usually don’t like spamming posts, but I found a quote that I just love and it references a legend I learned about a long time ago when researching mythology.

“Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.”
-Jean Cocteau

And here you are if you are unsure as to what a Gordian Knot is and the myth behind it.

Quote #3

“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.”
 -T.S. Eliot

The Lost Ones

Slow day at work so I have lots of time for reading and writing. You can probably expect more poems today 😛
 

I stand surrounded by trees
The forest whispering secrets
For me and me alone
Telling me stories
Stories of the happiness they’ve seen
The sorrow they’ve witnessed
And stories of the ones who are lost.
Like me.
 
I stand high on a cliff
Overlooking the raging sea
The wind screaming my name
Telling me stories of its travels
The world it has seen
The ships it has guided
and telling me of the ones who are lost.
Like me.
 
I stand in the middle of a field
Knee-high grass as far as I can see
Moon telling stories
of trips around the world
Crickets basking in its calming glow
Telling me about the stars
And telling me of the ones who are lost
Like me.
 
I am nothing more
than a shoulder to cry on
A totem of solitude
A fly on the wall
I am nothing more than a lighthouse
A lighthouse for those who are lost.
Like me.
 
©2012 Alex Hicks

My False Self-Esteem

My Confidence builds
With each compliment I receive
Like sheets of glass
They build thicker and thicker
 
And in an instant
The chime of a clock
I make a mistake
The glass shatters
 
And as I gather the pieces
I realize that
The glass I collect
Is my false self-esteem
 
I let the compliments build
A wall that surrounds me
A fragile glass wall
And I always break it down
 
One mistake is all it takes
And I know that I
Can pick up the pieces
And rebuild the wall
 
But with each time
The wall gets more worn
More fragile to touch
Much less to shield
 
So I let it hinder me
I leave pieces where they fall
and for days I walk on broken glass
Each footfall like a thousand needles
 
I know I need to change
Because the thicker the glass
the harder it is
to see the truth beyond
 
©2012 Alex Hicks

Quote #2

So I made a mistake on one of the projects I’m working on in the office. Nothing major (only added 5 minutes to the process) but I take my own mistakes very personal and for some reason this one hurt me.

In my industry 5 minutes is huge when you’re on a project deadline.

Anyway, it reminded me of this quote:

“To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense” – Ambrose Bierce

The mistake was a file specific setting that makes it easier for me to work on drawings. I usually turn it off before I save a file, but apparently I forgot to this time. One of the more experienced drafters didn’t know how to use this setting, and it added 5 minutes to processing the drawing. (I got blamed.)

I didn’t apologize for it, I explained how to use the function and admitted that it was my fault for forgetting to turn that setting off.

History Repeats

There is a phrase that we all know
It is a phrase that goes to show
That all humans can be kind
If we hold others in our minds
Because if we can forget to care
The human race will go nowhere
So we take the words of those we trust
Above the words, some that we must
And ignore the ones that mean the most
And still we feel that we can boast
Of simple things yet we forget
To feel emotions like regret
And agony for those who lost
Giving to ourselves despite the cost
So I assure you I can tell
When a person true means well
And I can see what people mean
When the explain where they have been
As history is on repeat
Study it or face defeat
The hands of time will slowly turn
Hoping our future does not burn
Mistakes are made as we breathe air
and as all humans we must err
Because we must learn from our mistakes
From events in which we did partake
In this life or in the last
We must never forget the past
Because if we do we’ve lost all hope
The end of all, the hangman’s rope.

©2012 Alex Hicks