Something New

I’ve given you something old, I guess it’s high time for the something new. There are so many new things I could offer you it would almost be impossible to choose one, but I must. After much deliberation, the best new I can do is in the form of a poem, but not just any poem. Before you get the poem, you get the backstory to the poem first.

I am a part of two #Facebook writing groups. In one of those groups, I made many online friends. When I became disillusioned with the one group I created my own group, Canadian Creative Writers. Many people from the first group followed me over to my group. CCW has grown from two people in February 2020 to nearly 1k members at the beginning of June 2021.

I have enjoyed building a lot of friendships with the people in my group. I have a good rapport with one such person in my group. We banter back and forth as if we were long time friends. Recently I posted about how I seem unable to write a poem which will not fit on one side of a 6x9” trim book and barely takes up any space on the other side. We went back and forth discussing either writing shorter pieces or even longer ones to fill out the other side. Trying to get the last word on the matter I told him I would write a two pager about him. Over the course of a few days, I fulfilled my statement. And now for the something new…

Iron Sharpens Iron

I have this friend whom I’ve never met

Though we live just hours apart

If our paths ever crossed I’d be willing to bet

We’d hit it off from the start

We ponder, we write, we both love to share

And we both wear our hearts on our sleeves

Through our words, our minds are laid bare

To a depth very few souls can ever conceive

My friend tends to write on the side of dark

Leaning into a world few ever care to explore

It this darkness where he seems to get his spark

To write about the things most people abhor

Some say people write to exercise their inner devils

My friend, however, appears fairly well adjusted

I know I can tell you my friend is quite on the level

though his writing might deal with the maladjusted

There is a side to him which he sometimes reveals

In the poems about his wife and his unending devotion

It is in these moments when he no longer conceals

The swirling thoughts about his deeply hidden emotion

He inspires me to write about life in the light

About the goodness of humanity still abounding

In his darkness I feel the urge to still fight

Against the darkness, ever stronger, astounding

A friendship borne in light and dark imagery

In words written down in form upon a page

His about death, dragons, a little witchery

Sometimes filled with emptiness and rage

Mine, though not so colorful nor flowery

Try to show the other side of life so fair

Or at times about its lies and its treachery

Showing there’s always someone who’ll care

We write what we write as we are inspired

What we write does not define who we are

Our writing only interprets what we do

Our friendship fulfills who we are

Do we feed off of each other’s writing

You’ll have to go ask him for yourself

As for me, sure, sometimes its inspiring

As I said, I can only speak for myself

One day we shall meet he and I

We shall raise a glass to the day