#honestly it felt weird posting the first image by itself so i just went digging through my files for more ghggfg

[hey-hey-j]

*holds them close to my heart* I...... lov them.....

(★ my Kofi)

[what-does-one-affects-the-other]

What's your opinion on this robot harry?For me it's so annoying he can't even pretend to be excited for his own tour, his social media presence is such a turn off

Well I’m sort of digging myself a grave with this one, but since I haven’t seen a post I can fully agree with, here we go. Disclaimer, I actually study this at uni. I was the Social Media Manager for the planning and putting together of a fashion show, on all platforms. I just handed in last month a 6-months marketing plan that was based around social media promo. So I do have a bit of knowledge in this area. I am by no means an expert, but this is my future field of choice, so I like to think I’m at least educated.

The situation isn’t as black and white as people have put it so far. All I’ve seen is “he’s horrible at engaging with fans” and “he doesn’t own you shit so stop complaining”. The answer is a very big grey area in which Harry’s actual social media presence fits perfectly in my opinion. First of all, there’s two main templates we studied for marketing purposes this year, Gaynor Lea Greenwood’s promotion suggestions (2009) and Burcher (2013)’s Paid, Owned and Earned media concept. Long story short, the first one is your traditional marketing campaign and the second one relies more on social media and advertising on it. Now, I think Harry’s team went for the more traditional approach, and let me explain why.

Harry started distancing himself more and more from twitter and Instagram ever since the hiatus started.Even before, during OTRA and MITAM promo, most of his tweets were promo stuff, lyrics I’m not sure we fully understand even now, charity work, promoting friends or tweeting about holidays/important days or events. His fan interaction has been low for quite a while, and I’m honestly baffled people are acting like this is news. Looking through his Twitter in 2015, there are some tweets to fans, yes, but they’re very sparse.I counted about 12 in 5 months, most of them in September, when Perfect came out, and around the release of MITAM.His tweets were mostly thanks to fans for various awards and nominalisation, promoting the songs/album, some lyrics and, without fail, after every concert he tweeted a thank you for coming.

It felt more personal than what we have now (tho in all honesty, his tour hasn’t started yet and if we eliminate the OTRA tweets it’s already a different story), but Robot Harry has been a thing then, and people were riding along with it instead of condemning it to the extent they do now.But, the thing is, Harry didn’t have the entire burden of engaging with the fanbase like he has now.Louis, Niall and Liam always took turns in taking the lead in replying to fans and interacting with them, which allowed Harry to do his part and everyone was mostly happy.

And yet, I personally don’t feel this frustration many people feel. I think it’s quite interesting actually. A bold move that wouldn’t work for other artist whose career relies on people who live and breathe social media (maybe Beyonce or Adele, but they are in another league). I was very intrigued by Harry’s statement in the Behind the album video, in which he said that there was a time in his life when people knew everything about him, and he didn’t like it.He has been overexposed since 2012, his personal life splashed across tabloids, fake relationship or not.And now he disappeared for a year (and has been retreating into himself for at least 2) and he wrote this mysterious™ album, trying to see if people can listen and understand it without knowing much about the current him. In this context, having an album that surrounds itself in mystery and then doing 4 Q&As on twitter and 3 livestreams sends…extremely contradictory messages. I can, and will fault his team for presenting a dual image of Harry that sometimes makes 0 sense, for handling a lot of things so poorly, and for the entire Carolina mess, but I will say that his social media fits this old school mysterious rockstar image they’re showing of him. I also think his actual reason is very personal and very real, and I respect the fact that he didn’t compromise this choice he made for promo purposes.

His promo relied on more traditional channels. TV and radio appearances, print magazines, and most importantly, the secret gigs. Now, I’m sorry, but I felt entirely more connected to Harry running across London at 8AM in my pyjamas than by any twitter spree he’ll ever do. I never did this before. This reminded me of the stories my dad told me, of queuing up for days in front of the box office so he’d get the tickets when they went on sale. It was very old school and it worked for me. It was a phenomenal experience, something I will never forget. And he did this for us. All profits went to charity, he didn’t do this for money. And while I know this was for a few selected cities and a handful of lucky fans, it was intimate and it was special and I think everyone, regardless if they were there, or vicariously living through pics and videos, felt a connection to Harry. We got emotional on his behalf when he sang with his idol on stage 2 weeks later, you don’t do that for someone you have no connection to.

Now, the actual reason I’m happy with what we’ve got is that it is genuine from my POV. Liam is the perfect candidate for a comparison, since he also took a bit of a break from social media (not as heavy as Harry’s, but he definitely wasn’t as active as Louis or Niall) and his promo is as textbook as it gets. He slowly, but surely increased his activity since January, a few more tweets, a few more pics on Instagram.A big turning point was April when he posted 13 pics on Instagram, compared to 8 in March, 4 in February and 3 in January. His Twitter went through a similar process.Now, the moment he started posting more, I knew his music was gonna be out soon. It’s pure marketing. You start your campaign weeks before the actual launch, it’s only natural. Unless you want to drop it as a surprise, but that’s another discussion. Actually Harry did it too, with the TV ad, but that was ruined by the info getting leaked beforehand and everyone getting pissed off by that so whatevs. Now, Liam is going for the approachable celeb route. Streams, Instagram stories, snapchat, tweeting fans, loads of pics, videos with popular Youtubers. It’s nice and about as well handled as it gets (apart from that weird video release earlier than it should have been and Liam just generally being a bit…odd?off?idk how to explain it, but a lot of people feel the same way from what I’ve seen). It fits with the image Liam is going for, it aims at the right target audience. He’s not trying to enter a new market like Harry is. He’s consolidating his place in the current market from what I’ve seen (and I’ll admit I haven’t followed his promo as closely as Harry’s). Trying to imagine Harry doing this sort of promo doesn’t really work for me.

Niall has been present on and off social media ever since he came back from his trip last year. Literally, if I pull up the calendars people have been making each month, he doesn’t get more than a handful of days without doing something, so it’s unfair to compare him to the others, since he’s always around and posting and doing stuff.

Louis deserves a better team and I won’t have anyone uttering anything else in my presence, and yet somehow, despite Niall’s constant presence and Liam’s textbook engagement, I’ll never feel as connected to them as I feel to Louis. Louis’ tweets are the perfect mixture of absolutely adorable fan service (“our year” 😭😭) and some of the things he’s passionate about (tv shows, fashion, footie/sports). His promo for JHO was….I have no words for it and I’m gonna have a rage fit if I start thinking about it, but his overall persona is charming and endearing when he’s posting things himself. He created a real communication channel between us and him and he knows how to use it when he needs to send a message (warning selfies anyone?Only you?). There’s an actual analysis of Instagram stats that shows he’s the number 1 male account in engagement and overall likes and that doesn’t surprise me one bit. Louis is a smart businessman, he has a loyal fanbase who is here for him through thick and thin.

And on top of everything I said so far, none of them owe us anything outside the promo bubble. Apart from shoots, songs/albums/tours info and official announcements, they do not owe us anything. If they chose to share a picture from their home, that’s their personal space, and while it’s good for PR, amazingly good in a society that thrives from the feeling of knowing everything about everyone (like what’s your fave’s breakfast and how’s their cat is doing), it’s still a part they can choose to keep private and no one should be entitled to ask for more.

Have you seen Adele’s Instagram? It gives you this illusion of closeness to her, with make up free selfies, funny poses and landscape shots. Too bad literally everything is from touring and other official appearances right? There’s one picture of her home, and that’s to celebrate the end of the tour. Harry sort of did the same with the booklet pictures. He allowed you into his personal space in a controlled manner, just like Adele did. Only he did it in a different way. His promo is just different and you have to think a bit outside the box to see that he actually did a lot of things other artists do. Just a bit differently. Was it perfect?Fuck, no. Was it as bad as many people make it look like?Personally, I don’t think so. It was just different and people are entirely justified to see it as a good or a bad thing. I see it mostly as a good thing. Mostly.

[annakie]

I’ve been meaning to make a post about my love for Mystery Science Theater 3000, and how it’s influenced me for so much of my life, and about the new episodes, and now this.

So, getting to see Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conriff riff live last night is a good of an excuse to do it as any.

Long post and a few more pics, including some kinda cool Manos stuff, below.

Like a lot of MST3k fans of old, I discovered the show by being bored and channel surfing in the 90′s, finding this show where these 3 guys kept talking over a movie, and eventually sticking around long enough to see a few host segments and start to enjoy the show. 

I honestly couldn’t tell you what the first MST3k episode I sat through from beginning to end first, though it may have been Frist Spaceship on Venus, in a rerun.  I know I became a fan before Joel left, my senior year of high school.  I clearly remember watching the last few Joel episodes, being sad he left, and then being shocked when Mike showed up.  I liked Mike just as much and was in awe when I found USENET about a year later and read through many of the great Joel vs Mike flamewars on rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc.

I didn’t post a whole lot on the group, though I did a little.  At the time, MST3k to me was this really cool under-ground-y feeling thing, few people I talked to knew what it was (though I converted many), the first fandom I participated in online, and my favorite show.  

My family didn’t always have cable, it usually depended on how bored my dad was, he’d subscribe and cancel on a whim, so when we had it, I recorded the hell out of the episodes.  When we didn’t, sometimes my grandma did, so when I could, I’d head over to her place with a VHS tape and hang out with her while we watched the show.  I think she didn’t really love the show, but she loved me coming over to hang out with her.

I still have a box full of my MST3k VHS tapes.  I even used to circulate them sometimes, for awhile when we had 2 VCRs at the house, thanks to help from USENET tape trading circles.

In 1995 or so was when I realized I was living in El Paso, going to UTEP, and it dawned on me that I might be able to dig up information on Manos: The Hands of Fate.  The Internet was a much smaller place back then, and we didn’t have the benefit of things like IMDB, so even after digging online I couldn’t figure out an exact timeframe for the release of the movie.  I spent probably 12 or so hours skimming through months and months worth of microfiche scans of the El Paso Times and El Paso Sun Herald looking for some mention of the movie.

 I eventually hit jackpot and found not only some advertisements for the premiere, but also the review that was written the next day after the premiere. I printed out scans of the movie poster advertisements and snail mailed them to the guy who ran the biggest MST3k fansite at the time, then typed out the transcript of the reviews and another short article about the movie for USENET.  I’m fairly certain we wouldn’t have the movie poster image for Manos online if it wasn’t for me, and the guy who put them on his site.  

The images have faded and the pages have gotten a bit stuck together after 20ish years, but I still have the printouts I didn’t send.

I also remember the night the show premiered on Scifi, I drove to Las Cruses with a friend after a long day at a water park where I got super sunburned to watch the episode with my brother and sister-in-law.  I was so dehydrated and sun-sick that I think I had to run to the bathroom a few times, but it was worth it.  MST3k had been saved.

Round about 1996 I decided I needed a solid Internet name that would stick, especially since I was chatting on IRC a lot and joined the Scifi Channel’s IRC channel, since MST3k was now on Scifi, and became one of the regulars on the server.  I’d managed to pick one of the very few copies of the MST3k Amazing Colossal Episode Guide that had come to El Paso, so I flipped through the book until I landed on episode #422 - The Day the Earth Froze.  That was already one of my favorite episodes, and the heroine of the not-that-bad-for-a-MST3k-episode was named Annakie.  That felt just weird enough to be an internet handle, and just obscure enough that only MSTies might get the origin.  

I’ve been Annakie on the internet ever since.  I wouldn’t learn for a good 15 years that Annakie is actually some people’s real name, and so the last few years it’s been harder to snag my name on sites, but I try.

I joined the fanclub. MSTie #54377.  I still have several of my old newsletters.

(Uh the newsletter wasn’t “from Sergio”.  My boyfriend at the time had sent me a Christmas present, my mom wrote that on the newsletter when she left them both in my room that day.)

The Scifi channel IRC server would host chats with the stars of various shows, and occasionally that included MST3k. Once, Kevin Murphy picked his nose at me.

I was so excited to be spending the summer in Dallas the year the MST3k movie came out.  It was showing at a theater, in a location I was near to, the first week I was in Dallas.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have control over where we were going that evening. We did go to a movie that night, but not MST3k.  The people I was with promised we’d go see the movie next week (or at least drop me off.)  

It wasn’t in theaters anymore the next weekend. I was quietly devastated and only simmered with rage for a few weeks. :)  I eventually got to see it, by special ordering the VHS for more than I could afford to spend many months later.  I still have that VHS tape, damnit.

When the end came, I was living in Dallas, but couldn’t possibly afford cable. I scavenged the show when I could. The syndicated one-hour version of the show hosted by Mike-As-James-Lipton was a particular godsend.   I’d been unable to watch most of the last couple of seasons, but managed to get a friend’s parents to record the last episode for me.  

Eventually, I was able to afford a house, and cable TV, and managed to catch up on most of the SciFi episodes that I missed before they, too went off the air. The morning that the final MST3k rerun aired on SciFi I sat on my couch, drank a mimosa and cried a little when it ended.  

By that time MST3k had been a part of my life, and one of my favorite things for about a dozen years.  I had a giant poster of Mike, the Bots and the Mads that had been stuck up and pulled down from my childhood bedroom, to a dorm room, back to my room in my family’s house, then four apartments in Dallas. I hadn’t put it up in my house because the corners were torn off and I wanted to get it framed.  Never have.  It’s around here somewhere.  I instead took an 8x10 glossy I’d picked up somewhere, probably ordered it online, and framed it.  A few years later, I managed to snag a rare MST3k The Movie poster on ebay for something outrageous, like $75 or something. It was worth it.  It’s still framed and hanging in my house.

So yeah, so for awhile, that was the end.

I followed what all the alums did, like many did.  I read Timmy Big Hands, but Rifftrax was exciting.  I haven’t gone to as many Rifftrax shows as I should have or bought as many as I should have, but I do support them when I can.  When Cinematic Titanic was new, they came to Dallas and I went to that show.  At the time, the biggest thrill I’d had.  I didn’t stay after to meet them, I’d promised a friend we’d go out when I got out of the show and I am still really, really kicking myself for that decision because I could have had that meet and greet moment with Trace, Frank, Joel, Josh and Mary Jo.  It was a really great night, and at the time, one of the most awesome nights of my life.

A few years later, I’d gotten super into The Thrilling Adventure Hour, and finally got to go see my first show in LA at Largo for the 2014 Sparks Nevada’s I’m from Earth Day Special.  One of the episodes was written by Bill Corbett and he also guest starred in it.  I was thrilled to get to see and talk to several Workjuice Players who I had met three weeks earlier at Emerald City Comic Con, but honesty, my best memory of that night was getting to meet Bill Corbett, even briefly.

Last year when Joel announced the Kickstarter, I took a serious look at my finances and came up with a number I felt was OK to donate.  It was enough for a few decent rewards, and best of all, my name in the credits of an episode.  (I haven’t gotten to that episode even yet but I included “Annakie” as my middle name when I filled out the backer kit questionnaire.)  

I was skeptical, but if Joel was behind it, I decided to trust it.  As great as Rifftrax is (and it is!) and Cinematic Titanic was, there’s just nothing like MST3k itself.  So I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the Kickstarter was funded and watched the live stream at the end of the campaign.  I was a bit trepidacious about the new cast, though I’m a fan of Felicia, am OK with Patton and had never heard of any of the other guys.  I felt better once it was clear the rest of the cast was invited back and some agreed to make appearances. 

I decided basically to trust Joel, and go in with an open mind.  The big MST3k reunion show where Joel and Jonah riffed together set any doubts that I still had at ease anyway.  Netflix picking up the show was a huge relief.

I’m still not done with the season.  I watched most of the first episode the day it came out, then decided to stop and give my views to Netlfix.  

I love it.  Jonah is fantastic, and I love him just a much as Joel and Mike. The hardest thing for me to get over has been a new voice for Tom -- Barron is GREAT, we just had the same Tom for so long.  The new Mads are great.  I like the riffing pace. It’s still the same show, still my favorite show.  I actually want to write a lot more on this but this post is really long.  But suffice it to say, I agree with almost everyone else on the new show.  When do we get a season 12 pickup?

So despite the fact that I follow both Trace and Frank on twitter, and the Alamo Drafthouse near me, I somehow didn’t notice that The Mads Are Back was coming to Dallas until last week.  Luckily, there were still (very few) tickets left to Saturday’s performance.  Apparently, they did an entirely different movie on Friday, but that was sold out.  

I didn’t know they were going to be doing a meet and greet before the show, and since I was going alone I ended up not arriving until about 15 minutes before the show started.  I managed to hop into line just before the line got cut off behind me, and, though it was rushed, I got to shake both Trace and Frank’s hands, thank them for coming to Dallas, and got my now very used and fragile Amazing Colossal Episode Guide signed, right on the “The Day the Earth Froze” page.  I mentioned I was having them sign that page since I go by Annakie on the internet, and so they signed it to Annakie. :)

(You can see how the pages are starting to fall off the binding there.  I’ve read the book once or twice.)

I wore a Thrilling Adventure Hour shirt, Frank commented on it, which made me particularly happy.

The show was great (except for the really annoying people sitting near me, who nearly got thrown out and I guess eventually were too drunk to stay), and they did a Q&A afterward.

I think we MiSTies are so lucky these days.  The show went from cable access, to Comedy Central, then to SciFi. We eventually got Rifftrax, and Cinematic Titanic, and now we have The Mads doing their own thing, and.... the show itself is back.  Aside from following a few MST3k related blogs on tumblr, a few groups on Facebook, and most of the cast on twitter. I haven’t really been in the central part of the fandom in a long awhile, (though I have made a few gifs) but when I dip my toes in, it’s still a pretty good place.

It also brings me a lot of joy to see so many new people discovering the show.  People who were born during or even after the run of the show jumping in and loving it, too, is just so awesome.

Next year, the show turns 30, and it’s still as great as ever, and maybe even stronger than ever.  Whatever they do next, I’m on board.

[failure-never-blogs]

The Ghosts of Poems Past

I posted a new poems guys. You can find it here  http://failure-never-blogs.tumblr.com/post/158013237664/the-ghost-of-you I would read it before moving any further into this post.

I’m really bad about taking time to sit down and type stuff up for here. Even my idea of giving commentary for poems has kinda fallen by the wayside as most of the time I don’t find anything that interesting to say about it for the most part, I mean the reason I’m sitting down today is a poem I’ve written but that’s more of an introspective look back at the title more so than the poem itself. I guess I’ll probably write about some other things in this post as well since I’m taking the time to post a blog post instead of just a commentary. But I’m not entirely sure what it is as I’m typing this all up. But for now let’s dig into the title theme for this post.

“The Ghost of You” is a poem I first wrote a long time ago. Honestly I would say it first goes back to 2010 which looking back isn’t that long ago but for me as a writer it’s a bit back there. I mean admittedly I’ve been writing since I was 13 years old and stories even longer but nothing from when I was a teenager has stuck around so much as the idea of this poem. The very first one is a very short poem which I’ll post right now

No matter what I do I can’t escape the ghost of you The electric touch of your skin The memory will never thin

I feel your presence right beside me You’re there even if I can’t see Your voice still haunts my mind It’s so lovely and kind

I still feel your lips on mine This must be some kind of sign No matter what I do I stay lost in the ghost of you

It dates back to 8/27/2010 which is the oldest date I can find on my computer. Honestly it’s not really aged well at all. It’s something that I can place mostly due to the fact that it has rhyming which is something I only started doing in 2009/2010. It’s also incredibly short for me. I’m a bit long winded when it comes to writing anything. I see potential in some of the individual lines which is probably why I ended up revising it sometime later. But I’ll get into that in a little bit. As to what drove me to write it? Well I’m not entirely sure I want to say it probably had something to do with a girl I was fawning over at the time. 

Also at the time and still to this day I’m a big fan of My Chemical Romance. Now looking back at the poem it has nothing to do thematically with the song or even anything on the album. So I’m not entirely sure what it was that led into me working on the poem. Besides this post isn’t about the poem itself so much as it’s about an evolution of the poem’s title in what I wrote and how it morphed. This poem isn’t based around loss so much as it is in missing someone who isn’t there in the present moment. It’s more about infatuation and the feeling of that moment after you leave them. Let’s move onto the second iteration.

Once again I miss your touch But as always it’s far too much I can’t forget the feel of your skin It’s a memory that will never thin

The beautiful sound of your voice Has always been my music of choice But sadly, now it’s only in my head But the sweet memory isn’t dead

No matter where I go or what I do I just can’t escape the ghost of you In my heart you will always stay I cannot just walk away

From your spirit I cannot hide To you my soul is open wide You’ve made my head your home So I guess I’m never really alone

Your presence still haunts me But your face I cannot see Inside it’s dark and cold When did you get so bold?

So where do I go from here? I don’t know why you disappeared How long should I sit and wait? Or is it already far too late?

Even now your words haunt my mind I’m trying so hard to leave you behind But your ghost stays haunting me Will you ever let me go free?

It’s nearing the break of day And your spirit won’t go away So maybe you won’t drive me mad With memories of the love we had

This version is actually one that I ended up posting a while ago. It was written 9/18/2011 from what I can tell from the original word document. I posted it on facebook in it’s old “notes” function which isn’t used anymore and was honestly pretty awful even for what is was. But I’m not here to moan about where I used to post things I’m here to chronicle things. 

This one is a revision of the original that I did to make it more about loss. I realized I wasn’t a huge fan of the original and ended up rewriting it to use in a story “The Water’s Edge: Alone” which I never published or posted anywhere, I actually abandoned that story I struggled with the ending of the story and never felt that great about the story as a whole. 

I guess something good came out of the struggle of that abandoned story which was that poem. Speaking of those stories I actually wrote three of them but only ever did anything with one of them. I originally only submitted one (http://failure-never-blogs.tumblr.com/post/150328547354/the-waters-edge-the-pier) to a short story contest which I won then wrote two more. The second titled “The Song” I also never published because I felt like it was to formulaic and I never felt that great about it but felt good enough to share with a couple of my friends who volunteer as test subjects for my writing sometimes. Included in that “series” of my writing was a poem called “Mourning Sunrise” (http://failure-never-blogs.tumblr.com/post/150012138849/mourning-sunrise) which I’ve actually posted here before. But yeah basically I reworked for a story that I never went back to work on and eventually only posted the poem.

How I feel about the poem is unique, I really like the poem for what it is, a rough draft of something that could have been something better if I was more talented but honestly I’m pretty okay with it. I feel like I capture some of what I was going for when I was more raw intensity more than talent or skill. It was one that I debated with myself about reworking or editing heavily or maybe even rewriting. I’m fond of it but not overly so. It is what it is but it holds a special place in my heart for what it is. I don’t think I’ll ever really rework it or publish it on my blog by itself. I think this is how it will eventually be left, an interesting footnote to me and probably to me alone in my journey as an artist.

“Ghosts”

Now let’s move a little bit closer to “now” with the next couple poems. In my google drive I have a folder simply named “Ghosts” sitting beneath my poems folder. I don’t remember exactly what it was that made me segregate the poems into there but they all deal with some of the same themes. The Poem “Nightmares” (http://failure-never-blogs.tumblr.com/post/138045238229/nightmares) is there the most recent poem I published “Ghosts in Smoke” (http://failure-never-blogs.tumblr.com/post/156714447629/ghosts-in-smoke) is in there as well. 

While that is mostly fictional it’s not the only one which holds those names  and it’s actually known in the drive as “Smoke” which was originally written 8-29-15 and recently posted after sitting in my drafts queue for a while. It’s an interesting poem for me that I have an attachment for in some weird way. I actually really like the way it’s written and the way it flows but it’s a very different poem from the one I'm about to talk about which actually has the name “Ghost in Smoke (Ghost of You)” in the google drive folder.

My soul is heavy tonight Staring at the candle light Tracing patterns in the smoke My heart beating in my throat

My roads as dim as the light I’m lost this early summer night I’m reaching for you hand But all that’s there is empty land

I forgot that you’re still a dream No matter how real it seemed But that doesn’t change a thing This old wound still stings

I’m still haunted by ghosts The things I regret the most For now all I can do is pray And wait for the dawn of a new day

Because I see you in the shadows Your presence is all I know You’re rooted so deep inside I can never truly hide

This is actually the older of the two poems and the vastly more personal one to me. It was written 7-16-15 and feels closer to the original title that “Smoke”. I’m not entirely sure of why I wrote what I did. I guess it was hearkening back to the death of an old relationship more than anything else. It’s one of the reasons I’ve never published it on my blog. It’s something of an interesting piece for me that part of me really likes and part of me really doesn’t. It’s an evolution for sure moving forward with idea and title of “The Ghost of You”.

What really separates the two of them is the theme, One is more of a regret of a broken relationship and the other the mourning of a lost loved one. There are aspects of both that I really like and both have stanzas and lines that I really honestly love. The first stanza of the above poem and this stanza from the linked poem “I swear I see you dancing/In the fire you’re enchanting/Floating up above the flames/where only memories remain/ I feel really nail some of what I was aiming for. A lot of the times I really write with a certain image or idea in mind and let it flow from there. Sometimes it’s even a line that really drives me to write something as in the case of some of my poems (Ashes and Embers, Willows and Reeds). Overall I’m happy with these two poems and how they ended up working out.

So why did I title both of them so similarly and confusingly? I wish I knew obviously smoke plays a very heavy theme in both of them, also a very heavy part of the poems and their settings. There are a few themes that push themselves through in my writing often and honestly a few settings. Smoke, the sea, and rain are all things that make frequent appearances. My muse is pretty apparent in that regard I suppose. 

Which now brings us to the current poem that I have titled “The Ghost of You” and is what I now feel is the definitive version of the poem that holds the title. I have a hard time really talking a lot about how I feel about this one because I wrote it so recently. But the theme I really feel like nails down the title. The idea of being haunted by the memory of an old lover, one who has passed on and one who you still love really seems to hit the nail on the head. I had talked with someone recently who had lost a wife at young age and remarried sometime later. He talked about how he never really got over her and how he still loved her but also deeply loved his current wife. It was a conversation in passing with someone I’ll never see again. Those kind of conversations happen at times in my field.  From a creative standpoint there are parts I’m fond of and I don’t really feel like I need to edit very much. I’ve as of this writing not shown it to anyone so I don’t know how it will be received going forward (today is 3-3-17 @ 0219) so we shall see. Until next time my friends

I’m willing to let it all go, So long as the words flow Joshua