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"Because imagination always seeks a new order and a new individuality, it is always attaching itself to a new reality, and adhering to it. It is not that there is a new imagination, but that there is a new reality. The poet comes to feel that his imagination is not wholly his own but that it may be part of a much larger, much more potent imagination, which it is his affair to try to get at. For this reason, he pushes on and lives, or tries to live, not the verge of consciousness."
Wallace Stevens
© 1995
By: Alan W. Goodson
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| Author's Comments | Chapter Intros |
Chapter 1 |
Chapter 2 |
Chapter 3 |
Chapter 4 |
Chapter 5 |
Chapter 6 |
Chapter 7 |
Chapter 8 |
Thank you.
By:
Loneliness ~ Love ~ Lost Love ~ Songs of Life ~ The Search ~ Time ~ Warning Signs ~ The Dark Side
Chapter 1
- Loneliness - top
We've all felt it at one time or another. That indescribable emptiness, that
feeling of despair and deep inner pain. In a word, loneliness. For some of
us that feeling nearly becomes a part of us. A dark part that we don't always
like to show to others simply because it sometimes masquerades as a weakness
or an inability to cope with our daily lives. True loneliness is perhaps one
of the strongest emotions a human can experience. And it has many faces. It's
entirely possible to experience this emotion in a crowd. One doesn't have
to be alone to be lonely. It can strike at any time and may never disappear
entirely. Everyone has their own way of dealing with loneliness. Some try
to ignore it or fill up the emptiness in a variety of ways. Some try to escape
from it, and some, unfortunately, decide not to deal with it at all and choose
suicide as a way out of the nightmare it can often become. When I first went
out "on my own" my job took me away from my loved ones for extended periods
of time so, for me, loneliness became as much a part of my life as breathing.
No matter what I was doing or where I was it was always there, always waiting
to take control and push me into depression. Sometimes it won and sometimes
it was a draw but I was never able to conquer the feeling entirely. Many nights
I sat alone, writing letters to my girlfriend back home and I would stop and
write a poem about what I was feeling, I knew she was having her own difficulties
dealing with the loneliness and, for me, it was a way of showing her that
we were both in it together and it was something we could deal with together
even from a distance. So, in this way, loneliness became an inspiration for
many of the earlier poems I wrote. Putting those feelings on paper seemed
to help me to understand and control them better. I eventually married that
"girl back home" and now I seldom feel that old familiar pain but the memories
of how it was are never too deep inside. And I guess it taught me an important
lesson as well. It seems that the only way to handle loneliness is to face
up to it and share the feelings with another person who may be feeling it
too. Perhaps the only thing worse than being alone is suffering alone. So
join me now as we walk through some old memories of mine and maybe, if you're
lonely now or ever have been, you'll see that you aren't so alone after all.
A lot of us have been there before, and survived.
Chapter 2
- Love - top
Ah yes, Love. That many splendored thing that makes the world go around. By
far the longest chapter in this book and for good reason. Love is, for the
most part, the largest part of our lives and surely the most important. Love
is what makes it all worthwhile. Without love everything else in life sort
of loses its glow. Many books have been written, songs sung, stories told
and lives created or destroyed by love. And still, no one really understands
what it is or why it is so important to life itself. But love is something
that we don't need to understand to experience or enjoy. Like food or water,
it is a necessity of life, without love we can never really reach our full
potential or even become a complete person. Love has many different faces.
There are as many kinds of love as there are kinds of people. No two people
would describe it in quite the same way. The fact is, love is a reality and
without it we can never truly be happy or satisfied with our lives. Many of
these poems may be hard to relate to simply because love is different things
to different people. But I'm sure a few will hold some meaning for you as
they all do to me. I certainly hope so anyway. They are all very personal
and come straight from the heart but I share them with you because love is
one of the few things in life that you can share without actually giving it
up.
Chapter 3
- Lost Love - top
For every love found as many or more have been lost along the way. I know
I've had my share as I'm sure most of you have. But I feel that true love
never really dies. It may fade but a part of that feeling stays with you forever.
But the pain you feel when love fades is very real indeed and surely the strongest
emotional pain a person can ever experience. Some people don't survive that
pain and many are damaged forever because of a love that didn't last. If you
could actually lose love completely there would be no pain. But relationships
do end and love itself can lose it's intensity over a period of time. And
that is what this chapter is about. Some of the poems were written over a
love I only thought I had lost but that returned to me and remains with me
even now. It's a scary feeling though, thinking that a love has ended. Almost
losing it and finding it again can be an emotional roller coaster. As the
old saying goes, "you never miss the water till the well runs dry". So I included
these poems in the book mostly as a reminder to myself as to how important
love is and to make me appreciate the love I have all the more. Perhaps we
all need a reminder every now and then.
Chapter 4
- Songs of Life - top
When I first started putting this book together in the form of chapters I
had a hard time categorizing some of the poems I had written. Many of them
could just as well have been included in other chapters but some just wouldn't
fit into the mood I was trying to create so I think of this chapter as kind
of a "catch-all" for the poems that just didn't seem to belong anywhere else.
Some of them, however, are the best I feel I've ever written or at least the
moral to them is very important to me and I feel they belong in a class by
themselves. If it seems that I'm trying to play the role of a philosopher
in some of them, well, maybe I am. We've all got our opinions and beliefs
and a few of mine are stated in this chapter. The longest poem I've ever written
is included here and it relates directly to my life only so you may find yourself
skipping over "The Visit". The moral to that poem, if there is one, is stated
simply in the last verse. Another one, titled "The Trip" is simply that, a
poem written about a trip without any moral whatsoever. You might say this
chapter is just a break from the more serious poems preceding it. There is
no underlying theme here but I hope you can find something of interest. And
if really into seriousness read on my friend.
Chapter 5
- The Search - top
This chapter is dedicated to the child in all of us. That person inside who
is never really satisfied with life as it is but is always searching for deeper
meanings and new experiences. Everyone has had that desire to reach out for
more, to find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Some of us search
for it our whole lives while others are content with the truths and realities
they find earlier in life. But mankind as a whole is always searching for
something more. We could never have come this far if it wasn't for the dreamers
among us. The title of this book itself and the opening "poem" are derived
from my perception of what a dreamer is. Everyone is, to some extent, a dreamer.
We all search for our own reality and everyone of us has a different idea
of what we want that reality to be. The world as it is is sometimes pretty
hard to take. The whole concept of religion is based on the idea that there's
something more out there. Something beyond this life we all have to go through.
I've never considered myself to be a religious person but I've always hoped
for a better world out there somewhere and I've spent a lot of time and energy
looking for that world. I think this chapter best describes that time spent
and if there are a few dreamers out there who read this I'm sure you'll be
able to relate quite well to some of the things I've written here. So come
with me now and let us search for "the underlying theme, a wishful view of
a different reality".
Chapter 6
- Time - top
Time has always held a fascination for me. It's something you cannot touch,
or feel, or see but it's always there, always moving, and in a way it's in
control of us all. We did not create time, we just invented a way of measuring
it. What I've tried to do in this chapter is to simply write about the effects
of time as it relates to my own personal experiences. The first six poems
deal solely with that attempt. The ones that follow those six have more to
do with the passing of time and the influence it can and does have on every
one of us. Although "Time, Part 6" is subtitled "The End" I seriously doubt
that it will be the last in the series. As I go on through life time is always
presenting me with new attitudes and feelings and just as time must go on,
so must I write about it's affect on me and my feelings on the matter. And
to give credit where credit is due, I would like to thank the members of the
rock group PINK FLOYD for the inspiration not only in the title of this chapter
and many of the poems contained within but also for introducing a young boy
of about sixteen to the concept of time. For it was from a song of theirs
by the same name that I received much inspiration in the writing of many of
the poems I've included in this book. I suspect that the poems contained in
this chapter were the building blocks of all the poems I've written in my
life. Although some were written recently the idea's which they sprang from
have been floating around inside my head for many years now. After you read
them you may never look at a clock in the same way again.
Chapter 7
- Warning Signs - top
If there is a message in anything I've ever written you'll find it in this
chapter. This is my attempt at philosophizing and my message to mankind. Each
of these poems contain a warning of some kind or another. I seriously doubt
if I'll ever go down in history being recognized as a prophet but I had to
at least try. And this chapter is the result of that attempt. There are so
many things in this life that can hurt you it's a wonder that we live as long
as we do. And there is much more to be afraid of than just physical pain.
Some of the most dangerous pitfalls we can fall into have nothing to do with
physical injury at all. With the world advancing at such a rapid pace it's
hard to keep up with it all sometimes and in the attempt to keep up sometimes
we leave some of the more important things in life far behind. Many of these
poems concern that problem. I fear at times that we forget the important things,
like love and caring for one another and just being a friend to those around
us. After all, we're all in this together and in the end we'll all either
prosper together or burn together. So this chapter mainly deals with those
emotions we often neglect and in the process it warns us of the result of
that neglect.
Chapter
8 - The Dark Side - top
I saved this chapter for last for a some good reasons. Each of us have a side
to our personalities that we keep deep inside. Our worst nightmares and deepest
fears lie there and we seldom care to drag those fears out in the open for
examination. We save that until either the last possible moment or we wait
until the fears come upon us without our help. So in a way you might say I've
saved the worst for last. Not that I feel that these are the worst poems by
any means for in fact, "Apocalypse" may very well be the best I've ever written
in the final evaluation. It's certainly the most bizarre. For the most part,
these poems deal with the dark side of life and with the realities of the
dangerous world we live in today. With the incredible destructive power of
modern day weapons it could all be over by the time you finish this paragraph.
We live in an age of terrorism. Not just the problems in certain middle eastern
countries but here in our own homeland. The ability to destroy all life on
earth as we know it today exists in the hands of a very few people. And the
sanity of those people is often called into question by some of their actions.
It's something to think about but it's almost too scary to think about for
long. So what I've tried to do in this chapter is to put it all into a different
kind of perspective so maybe it's not quite so intimidating as in real life.
The thing to remember though is that the horror does exist in our lives and
when it all falls apart it won't be a dream. So please, join me on this final
walk beneath the cloud upon the final battlefield into the nightmare world
where even your deepest fears can become a reality... a very different kind
of reality.
| EMPTY GLASS | KEEP THE LOVE | loneliness |
| WHEN YOU'RE ALONE | LONG TIME | CAROLINA RAIN |
| IN YOUR EYES | MIRROR, MIRROR | SEASONS CHANGE |
| CRYING | DREAMING | NIGHTS ALONE |
| IF I ONLY | AUTUMN | MEMORIES |
| IF YOU COULD SEE ME | SOLDIER IN THE RAIN | SURVIVE THE LOSS |
| DARK NIGHTS ALONE | CRASH AND BURN | STAY |
| WHEN IT'S OVER | REMEMBER ME | THAT'S HISTORY |
| TIME (part 1) | TIME (part 2) | TIME (part 3) |
| TIME (part 4) | LOVE'S REALITY | TIME (THE END) |
| WITHIN A MEMORY | REMEMBER | LOST SMILES |
| REFLECTIONS | RAINBOW'S END | MOMENT'S LOST |
| APOCALYPSE | FINAL BATTLEFIELD | BENEATH THE CLOUD |
| ONCE UPON A DREAM | NIGHTFALL | VISIONS |
| NO ONE | PARADISE LOST |
