Goldilocks Timing for Cremation
I Am Not Your Poetic Master
Somewhere between the strong sense of serenity the studious find in a good book and the maddening melancholy of the poverty line huggers.
That's where you will find me, rocking it up. (It's fine to smile at that line, I would in your shoes, socks, sandals or flippers)
If there are one or two things I find help me in life, it's
food and water, really.
Without them, I'd be a dead-assed Glaswegian Italian amalgam with elevated pretence of a poetic master.
(master with small m so you know I'm Humble with a capital H)
Can we be the master of our craft? Mastery sounds complete. Sounds finished, done, like all those we mourned so long ago.
Please call me a master when I am gone, not a second before. Masters are rules of slaves alone, not of crafts.
Masters of crafts are dead, buried and gone, lifeless, though their ideas and fruitions live on. On and on. Repeat timus infinitus.
There is no mastery in life, only amateurish attempts at greatness and value. A tree has not reached its peak until it has stretched out its bark and trunk full of sap, ants and other critters like ladybirds and caterpillars, over our heads.
What of the poverty line huggers, aren't they just studious in their own right? Did you happen to call attention to the discrimination?
Did your face crease and feel a twinge in your stomach at the comparison? Discriminative comparison.
We can but hope. Hope, as better and worse people than myself or even you have said, is all we have. Unless you are part of the misery squad that think all hope is lost.
Hope that laziness is not strapped on willynilly (no matter how often spellcheckers want me to change that to willingly…I won’t) to poverty line huggers, those with economic hardships, just because they don't frequent the local library as much.
Just remember, I'm not your master, 'til I'm at least six feet under and start to smell. Though, I'm more likely to be ash and dust in the breeze. Don't burn or celebrate me too early or late. Goldilocks timing for cremation.
*
Thanks for reading!
Author's Notes: Answers on a postcard or in the comments section. Answers, mumblings, thoughts, encouragements, denouncements, backpats and face slaps. Thank you! In case you didn't realise, it's for the Unfiltered Challenge.
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About the Creator
Paul Stewart
Award-Winning Writer, Poet, Scottish-Italian, Subversive.
The Accidental Poet - Poetry Collection out now!
Streams and Scratches in My Mind coming soon!
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Comments (12)
Sorry for the late comment in-between ‘hearting’. Seems everyone is getting into the STreAM! And I was enjoying reading the comments below. 😅🤣 Anyway this was very streamy..two completely different ideas/themes. I don’t get the goldilocks line though.. oh I just got it!! 😆
Woah! Incredible work, Paul! This line really struck me “Please call me a master when I am gone, not a second before. Masters are rules of slaves alone, not of crafts” so very well put! And the last line was so clever!
Brilliant, brilliant work Paul. This flowed so freely yet resonated in entirety with deep reflection. I find myself wondering about 'mastery' and whether it's something I might ever achieve in any field; I think your work here might help redirect such musings in better directions :) Thanks for sharing this masterwork!!
Great job on the poem, Mr. Paul Stewart! You've really captured something special in your writing. Keep up the amazing work! ✨ You have written this poem just as it should have been written. You are fortunate, perhaps! This thought might have first come to your mind.
Firstly, "Shakespeare was an eunuch" should be the title of your next composition. This was a speech and a half. You do this stream of consciousness well. I'm going to struggle with this challenge. Circumstances will conspire for starters. I never get that much time alone to bathe in that stream. But I'm a muller when it comes to poetry. Fiction I can reel off but poetry? I like to think.
To become a master, we gotta die, be buried and start to smell. Noted, Sir Paul, hehehehehhe. Jokes aside, this poem was so brilliant! 🍩🥐
Perhaps they are called Masters of their craft because they can bend said craft to their will?? 🤔 (like how a slave might bend to their master's demands??) But fine... you don't want to be called our Master.... (capital m or not). How do we feel about King or Lord (oooooo Lord of The Words)??? I feel like I'm writing a stream of consciousness poem for you in the comments! 🤣
This is an interesting piece of writing that I think can be read many different ways. Good work.
I kinda get it, not sure I got it, but read it, will read it again. Kind of a riddle, master v discrimination and such. Ok, unique narrative,
Wow. That’s about the only word I have. Excellent. Thanks 🙏 Paul.
You definitely deserve the backpats. Nicely done, buddy.
Well, it ain't what Ol' Bill woulda' writ, but this ain't bad! 😂 Good stuff, master poet!