So You Want To Be A Writer?

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This is pure wisdom and truth! So You Want to Be a Writer By Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don't do it. if you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. if you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don't do it. if it's hard work just thinking about doing it, don't do it. if you're trying to write like somebody else, forget about it. if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you, do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers, don't be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don't be dull and boring and pretentious, don't be consumed with self- love. the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don't add to that. don't do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it.

when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

A World Away Are We

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Things that might have beenNow might they never be? What once we thought was Heaven sent Now a world away are we

In shiftless moods the fogs descend Fast lives filled with missed subtleties Do we understand or do we just pretend? When a world away are we

Thoughts fractures by perception Leave us treasured shards of memories Reality's masterpiece or deception? When a world away are we

Life will grind us down to size Until the very day In an epiphany we realize That we're not a world away.

~ Eric Vance Walton ~

A Writer's Life

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Twenty years of faithhave led me here to this precipitous place, The very edge of my dream

If the wind shifts rightly I can close my eyes and savor its perfume

This dream of mine, a writer's life I was born to live but have yet to attain so I walk as a ghost in the scorching daylight one foot in each world, yet not fully an inhabitant of either

My refusal to relent is born of sheer stubbornness bred from generations of those who did it the hard way those who, I see in some curious way walked their hope with them, To the grave and then a bit beyond.

Garden of Truth

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Everything fliesaway from us eventually

a finite succession of crystalline moments in time are all that we can really call our own

choices allow us to shape each of them before they are frozen in form

In this moment I choose to be grateful, happy and to be kind to you

I will never understand your struggles and mine you can never know

not hallow kindness born of pity from some bleeding heart

but honest kindness that comes from a place of solemn respect for a fellow traveler whose twisted path will eventually lead them to the very same garden of Truth.

The Edge

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this lonely road unfolds you,quells the guilt that scolds you and dulls the fear that holds you in the place you stand today

then the veil is slowly lifted, and wicked lies are sifted once muddled thoughts seem gifted what is there left to find?

once precious ties are severed true an epiphany, you forever knew you no longer worry what you'd do....if the moment's come and gone

so beautiful, this existence when pure truth spans the distance a call that makes Maya whence echoes from heart and mind

until now you’ve failed to see that you're everything you need to be won't you close your eyes and walk with me out to the very edge.

Know Your Name

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In your heartyou know you're ready but the world doesn't know your name

so you forever search and pray for some angel that will find something special in your muse, appreciate the miles walked in your shoes and just be gracious enough to hold open the door

you feel time growing shorter with each sweep of the hands shoo those troubles of the world before they nest in the corners of your mind

In your heart you know you're ready but the world doesn't know your name

a small voice says, don't cry we must crawl and stumble before we leap and fly

you chuckle under your breath in frustration but your soul is resolute you couldn't give up if you tried and oh have you've tried

now you have grown into faith, into your name and it fits. It's destiny, you'll never quit now the world will know your name.

~Eric Vance Walton~

Anything More Is Gravy

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It grew me right upThis blessing, this curse This thing that compelled me To become a reluctant deity Contriving a world and all that Gives it breath

Once the ambrosia of creation Brushes against your lips You rely on its complexity to complete you

this monkey that clings so desperately to my back screeching its words of wisdom Gleaned from lifetimes Of living in this harsh world

To have nothing more than that, would be enough a stone cold faith in these words and that they have somehow changed me, grew me right up Anything more is gravy.

What If?

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What if all that we've been taught is wrong?What if we live in a world where vanity is a kind of virtue?

A place where confidence and Self-love are the first steps In opening up your heart To the miracle that exists Within you

What if reality, as we know, it isn't truth at all but its antithesis?

Comprised of falsehoods that serve all but the greater good, Bars to keep us imprisoned so that we May never know the true power of our souls.

Meditation

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How lucid is your soul tonightas guards are put to rest? When not one is stirring ‘round you and the sun is setting West,

your true being is emerging as facades yield one by one you long to merge with oneness and to greet the golden sun,

free from inhibitions imposed by the mind you call your own freedom from the past mistakes, these karmic seeds you've sown,

cross-legged, in the lotus you begin to clear your wearied mind wishing for a sliver of a moment to leave the struggle far behind

your pulse begins to slow as the void becomes your breath your heart begins to soothe you ever-beating in your chest,

dancing somewhere in the stillness breaking shadows far and near where a worry’s no longer a worry and a tear is not a tear,

a wave is all consuming a bright beam breaks clouds above you reach your precious goal and for a moment become Love.

So Beautifully Bittersweet

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These lines on my faceconvey much more than words can say

In every laugh, every tear it is written that life is more than some fluid interplay of randomness

I've long felt trapped by the ceiling, have grown accustomed to the cool indifference of its glass

like a child I've fogged it over with breath and etched a message for some savior to find

But that savior never came and the hands, they continued so persistently in their sweeping revolution that now no time remains to succumb to sameness

The realization of a dream appears when it is meant to, always written in beautifully bittersweet form.

The glass so easily shatters.

Four Thousand Breaths

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I feed upon the sky at nightas the last ribbon of sun is gone, the darkness envelopes this place I sit four thousand breaths from dawn

my eyes embrace the ancient light as countless have before, as crickets sound a seamless chirp from grass down by the shore

time’s a faint and faded concept the years converge as one, miles are merely memories to be brushed away and shunned

reality is obsolete before the evening’s shepherd moon, my eyes open to realize it’s four thousand breaths from noon.

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