Fear not The Unknown it Is But Part of The Writing Journey

Poetry and Emotions:  By Eva Marie A Cagley

I have often written my best poetry when I am experiencing emotions, whether it be happy, sad, angry, elated or just plain love struck. That’s when my best poetry is born. My muse is running in top gear and the words just pour out like raindrops. To capture those moments, I find I can’t put my pen down and come back later. I have to see the piece through. Usually my poem will come out longer during these times and some rhyme some don’t. That is one reason I love free verse so much. I do not have to worry about the form, just the content. It leaves me spell bound often when I go back and read it later and I can’t help but to ask myself, “did I write that?” Yes, I did. 

Emotional poetry is also very therapeutic. Poetry can be a powerful healing tool. Just like journaling. When I write with emotions, the reader can feel where I’m at or see what I see. I love to read emotion based poetry as well.  It just tugs at my heart and I can relate some experience of my own with it.  Seems like my soul craves to be heard. And my spirit wants to fly like the eagles. 

Sometimes my poem is born out of just a word or thought and as I write it just blossoms into something beautiful and transpiring. It allows the reader to feel with me what I am feeling and may even spark something within them to write a poem. I have written some of my poetry with tears in my eyes and other’s joy in my heart. All I know is that I must write during those times.

If I set my pen down before I am finished and try to go back to it, I lose the momentum and it becomes an entirely different poem of two poems within one. After writing with an emotion, I do little editing on the piece as I don’t want to lose the feeling expressed. Sometimes I have to do a few sentence restructuring and grammar and spelling checks, but nothing major that would alter the mood that my muse has transpired.

Images are so important for the reader to visualize your poem as if taking a picture, but it is equally important to get that feeling across. The more I write, the easier the words flow into a piece of art on its own. It’s a good way also if you’re a beginner to write with your emotions in gear. Many a great love poem has been written and love songs with emotions flaring.

While I am not a poet that can just spew out poem after poem day in and out, I am a poet that can write when the muse awakens and find the words just form magically of their own accord. I rarely use a picture to write a poem about. I use experiences in life and emotions to paint my pictures like I would paint the sunrise on canvas. I have found it is useless to set at my computer 24 hours a day and try to write. I must get out and live life in order to write about it. Just as when I write an article for a blog. I must carry through with the thought before it is lost forever. 

Anger has always been a simple emotion to write about. Writing is a safe way to express it and let it out so you can move on and let it go. This way I don’t stay stuck in a rut. I find I like diversity in my poetry and try to write on a range of poetry such as love, nature and spirituality. That way I don’t get bored with writing and my readers don’t get bored reading. Least I hope they don’t. Here are a couple of my poems that I wrote free verse with the flow of emotions. 

Remember to have fun with your craft and let those emotions flow!

SET ME FREE 
 
This emptiness inside 
Like a dark hollow in a tree 
Haven to birds that make spring nest 
Void now of all emotions. 

I sit and watch as birds feed 
Their young, tiny beaks grabbing 
On worms from their mother 
I marvel at their new life, and I wonder. 

Yet still void I sit here in myself 
Created hole 
Darkness surrounds me as I 
Search for life within. 
Oh, creator of creatures both small and big 
Have I nothing left to give? 

As the wind gently blows, 
Breathing life 
Into my soul once again 
That I may feel some emotions 
Even pain is welcome today 
I just want the numbness to go away. 

As I approach another day 
Help me appreciate what I’ve thrown away 
That I might toss into the wind 
This emptiness that fills me once again. 

I feel the warmth of the sun once more 
Your gentle tap upon my door 
Your tender caress that last throughout the night. 
Help me appreciate the little things 
A blooming rose, sending scents of perfume into the air. 

Children swinging and laughing with glee. 
Birds chirping way up in a tree 
The sun now warm upon my back 
As emptiness fades into the starry night 
I have once again found my guiding light 
As I wish I may I wish I might? 

Upon, the first star I see tonight, 
Thanking GOD that I can write 
Burring the dead inside of me 
Once again I am set free 
I find myself in poetry. 

©Eva Marie Cagley 

SOUL SEARCHER

You search for poets of the soul

You think you’ve found them but you don’t know

What lies deep beneath their skin,

The souls that won’t let you in!

You think you know how poets feel

When you read their words

You think they’re real

They create emotions that you can’t still.

But hidden beneath the rhyming scheme

And pretty words that make you dream

Is where you find the soulful being!

Behind the painted dressing screen.

They make you happy, joyful and sad

They may be someone’s mom or dad

They may be a child left alone again

They may be childless and hurt within.

You think you find them on the page

But they are hidden.

Clothed in invisible ink behind the scene

They will make you stop and even dream.

So next time you read a poem

And you think you see, I beseech you to look within

Behind the painted dressing screen

Is where you’ll find the soulful being!

Sometimes they hurt and sometimes they’re sad.

You may not like what you may see

But it’s all a part of one’s reality

Poets of the soul both breathe and hurt.

They laugh and cry and even flirt

They fall in love and break up too

They dream and build mountains just like you!

So when in search of poets of the soul

Remember it may be someone you already know!

© Eva Marie Cagley

Links to my publucations:

https://linktr.ee/EvaMarieCagley