It's strange how sometimes life leads you down different avenues in what sometimes is almost the length of a heartbeat. Sat drinking a glorious cup of coffee this morning at the kitchen table, unusually for me i flicked the television on and a song by Billy Joel, "always a woman" was wafting it's mellow soulful rhythm around the room and i glanced up from my morning paper to catch a glimpse of the video.
I was met with images not of the said Mr Joel and his live warbling on stage as expected but by the imagery of a screen goddess namely that of Audrey Hepburn. The song clearly well chosen and i sat there yet again (as i have done many times when Ms Hepburn makes any entrance) completely mesmerised by this woman's beauty and screen presence a seemingly far cry from the trashy celebrity attention seeking whores who (presume fame to be their God-given right) swagger across our tv screens all too often with sarcasm and swearing their only tools for what is a "fast food" like trade nowadays.
Anyway, I am sure i could go on about the frailties of the British viewing public and its susceptibility to "fall" for the next gimmick or false star that says f##k or takes drugs in full view of the children they are trying to raise as the next generation (God help them) but that is not the point of my wittering today.
I watched Ms Hepburn taking awards during the video and strut her stuff on stage and also watched as some wonderful still images of this amazing star graced the screen, she really was a stunningly beautiful woman and i will never tire of seeing her or her work such is her enduring beauty and screen magnetism. Having watched this video i found myself wandering if Ms Hepburn was still with us (forgive me) which of course she sadly is not and (as per usual) i entrusted my search to the wonderful world of Wiki which gave me a full and complete history of this gorgeous human being at the click of a mouse.
I found out that (for the rest of you Philistines like me) Audrey died in January 1993 from of all things appendictal cancer a rare form that took hold and eventually led to her demise in Switzerland where she is interred. While browsing this wonderful literal autobiography i noticed that at her funeral she had a poem read out that she had always loved, my ears pricked as i suddenly became intrigued at what such a person of infinite beauty in itself see's as beautiful.
So, I found myself clicking on said poem and it's author (easily done by Wiki's wonderful world of the highlighted important bits!) it was by Rabindranath Tagor and was called 'unending love'. I soon unearthed said poem (yes you guessed where) and found myself reading a poem that was not the usual pretentious massaging of some overly educated inbred full of their own self worth but that of a man with simple straight forward words that when used together were clearly not only meaningful but heartfelt also, no wonder this man had captured such a beautiful heart with such pure writing skill as truthful as it was wonderful.
I realised at that point that my hitherto total refusal to write anything poetry-wise other than verses that rhymed was a total dereliction of duty on my part to the written word. How dare i surmise that just because i have never tried it then it should be ignored?. Here was a man putting into words everything that poetry had meant to me and everything i needed and wanted to get across (and mostly failing) yet not a rhyme in sight.
Those of you now thinking mmm.. this guy definitely needs to get out more, are quite possibly correct!, but having worked seven days a week for 25 years and not had the benefit like many of my piers in poetry of a "decent education" I was happy in my own rhyming little world and content that it was 'proper' poetry (ahem).
So there you have it, my eureka moment, my light bulb moment that will ensure I am a fully fledged fan and in fact writer of said literary verse without the rhyming bit.. all thanks to a cup of coffee, Billy Joel's video about a screen Goddess and a man with a wonderful enlightening way with words from Pakistan that i discovered only this morning..(told you my education was quite forgettable).
Anyway, to me a revelation and an opportunity to change my writing style and give another type of written word a chance. I cant wait, watch this space.
Unending Love by Rabindranath Tagor.
I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age-old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –
And the songs of every poet past and forever.
