Choose to wear colour in spite of winter,
it is the finest suit of armour.
Jesus only died because noone dared save him,
Know that being blessed is just a trick of the mind.
Know that it is the best trick.
Do not applaud poets who preach to the choir.
They treat art with the same respect as those-they-speak-against treat
their victims.
They are lazy and corrupted and offer no resolve or answer.
They drag beauty down to mediocrity.
They place their boot upon the face of art.
They are stepping stones with which to raise yourself up.
They are the poetic equivalent of self help books.
Applaud poets who give answers – they have read past the byline.
Applaud poets who paint a picture – they have touched beauty.
Applaud poets who have something to say – they have lived.
Your ex-girlfriend is not a cigarette, but your poetry gives us cancer.
We get it, you smoked her down to the filter. It hurt, but it hurt good.
Tom Waits did this better, Charles Bukowski did this best.
You are neither.
Hanging out in bars will not make you a writer – writing will.
Hanging out in bars will not make you more interesting – it will make
you a drunk.
Hanging out in bars will not make you happier – it will make you
poorer.
The same advice applies to coffee shops, vegan restaurants, and any
other haunt you choose.
Hang out in bars – you will meet interesting people.
Hang out in bars – you will learn to love the hangover and the zen it
brings.
Hang out in bars – you will remember why you loved writing.
You will know the themes of Bukowski and Kerouac. But you will
not become them.
Make yourself a regular at one or two bars.
These places will help the mojo flow.
Go to strange and unexpected places for inspiration.
Treat these joints as sanctuary.
Take up smoking. You will meet the strangest people in beer gardens,
smoking areas and other social Gulags this side of midnight.
They will provide you with inspiration and madness.
Be open to inspiration and madness – this will keep you sane.
Get into a fight every once in a while. It will remind you what it is to
be alive.
Do not sell out beauty for cheap-clicks. It is the job of the analyst and
charalatan to tell you what you want to hear –
Your job is to remind us why we live and what we live for.
Beauty is hanging around every corner. Beauty has been forgotten.
Say hi and lighten up her mood.
She will thank you for it.
Fuck the trends.
It is inevitable that you will have influences and that you will seek to
imitate them.
There is nothing wrong with this. It is natural.
Learn from the masters as they pass through your hands and you
through their realms.
But let them go once you have learnt all you can, for as the wheels of
fortune and time spin eternal so shall you change,
O holy wanderer! O traveler of strange lands!
O closing time Aristotle!
O whisperer of personal and sacred mysteries!
Read.
For God’s sake, read!
Find your own voice, it is the only thing worth a damn in this sad
game.
The form is only good if it is useful. It is only useful if it serves the
poem.
Do not rhyme/villanelle/freeform/slam/sing/heroic verse etc. for the
fuck of it, or for the sake of style.
Break the bonds of style. You are doing nothing new.
If style is your master ; kill style without mercy and enslave it’s
children.
Break it’s neck upon the wheel of truth.
Grind its bones for your bread.
Eat it’s flesh and obtain its power.
And then, well…you know what happens to what we eat.
Drugs will help you at times to see things differently. This is what
they are for. This is their purpose.
Drugs can only take you so high. Sooner or later you will get sick of
it.
Although you may touch that which you seek, and it may be good –
it will be gone when the smoke clears.
Find a way to manifest this without substances. It is cheaper.
Read William S Burroughs.
Read William S Burroughs high.
Read William S Burroughs sober.
Read William S Burroughs high.
Read William S Burroughs.
Read someone else.
Start again.
Listen to strange music.
Buy strange and unexpected records and treat them as the landscape
of your writing.
Watch as your rhythm and imagery grows strange and alien fruit.
Reap the harvest and invite all to sit at your banquet.
Make merry with wine, mirth and song.
Make very merry, for you do not know the hour when death will
come for you.
Give classical music a go.
If you are already doing this –
Give jazz a go.
If you are already doing this –
Give rock a go.
If you are already doing this –
Give folk a go.
If you are already doing this –
Give hip hop a go.
If you are already doing this –
Give minimalism a go.
If you are already doing this –
Give walls of noise a go.
If you are already doing this –
Give experimental a go.
If you are already doing this –
Give early music a go.
If you are already doing this –
Give country a go.
If you are already doing this –
Give metal a go.
If you are already doing this –
Give opera a go.
If you are already doing this –
Give muzak a go –
If you are already doing this –
Give reggae a go –
If you are already doing this –
I can’t help you.
Find your own damn path or start again.
There is no right or wrong here.
Only false and true and the line between has become battered and
faint.
Do not listen to self styled Guru’s or Masters of Taste.
They are full of shit.
Listen to self styled Guru’s and Masters of Taste.
Their shit tends to stick and you might learn something.
Become your own Guru and Master of Taste.
Your shit will still stink, but at least it’s yours.
Don’t trust anyone who claims to have all the answers, they are
inevitably trying to sell you something. Your time and money are
worth more than this.
Self help books were invented to make you feel like shit. They do this
by falsifying a sense of wellbeing and then pulling the rug from
under your feet. Barely ever will they give you an honest answer or
piece of advice.
They are the literary equivalent of lazy poets.
The Hagia Sofia is the only modern building – all else are imitations.
All art is confessional, except that which is not confessional.
No confession will save your soul.
Quality of art is not valued by commerce.
The only thing that commerce values are the trends it can brand.
Art is the highest form of communication.
All art is religious.
Make sure to get paid for your art whenever you can. If it’s good for
the church, its good for you.
Aim to make all that you do good enough to make people leave their
houses, for they are fickle creatures of comfort and we are competing
with entertainment on demand.
Set the night on fire with your art, make lightning crack at the edges
of your words. Make the audience stop and listen.
Do not be afraid of the ephemeral – the rose that blooms only once is
worth more than words carved in stone.
If you are confused read Ozymandias.
If you are still confused, read it again.
Every now and then, it is healthy to denounce the importance of
everything.
Do not be afraid to be a shit writer.
We are all shit, some of us just mask it well.
You will, in due time, learn to do the same.
And we will praise you for it.
All writing is divine excremement.
Sometimes it comes out hard.
Sometimes it comes out easy.
Sometimes it comes out like water.
Either way it comes out.
There is nothing you can do that hasn’t been done before.
Find a new way of doing it.
There is nothing you can do that hasn’t been thought about before.
Just do it, this is what separates you from them.
Learn to read the tarot,
the I-ching,
runes,
the weather,
birdshit.
It will teach you how to make sense of the world.
It will give you an air of mystery worth its weight In gold.
It will teach you everything.
It will teach you nothing.
It will show you the future.
It will show you the past.
It will show you right now.
It will do what it says on the tin.
It will not do what it says on the tin.
It will be divination.
It will not be divination.
It will show you exactly where you stand.
Learn to believe in absurdities such as Capitalism, Conservatism,
politics, sex, religion, science, Robert Anton Wilson, Communism,
Marxism, Socialism, the Free Market, time, money, the Yankee
dollar, welfare, human rights, freedom, love, death, quantum physics,
the Readers Digest, Liberalism, Feminism, Meninism, Middle
America, the Bible Belt, Donald Trump, justified wars, ecological
conservation, astrology, divination, honor killing, child soldiers, The
War on Terror, The War on Drugs, legislation, vendetta’s, disease,
marriage, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Scientology, Athiesm,
discipline, history, cute chicks playing the ukulele. Ad infinitum.
Learn to drop these beliefs like they were hot. Or baby Hitler.
Start again.
Write poetry in the bathroom stalls of dive bars. Fill the world with
beauty.
There is no shame in being unemployed.
This might be the only way you can have the required freedom to
write.
Do not judge those on a different path than yours.
Do not judge yourself for the path you are on – if you don’t like it,
change it.
The first step toward change is acceptance. Accept. Make peace.
Move on. This may take time or this may be instantaneous,
-you will find out.
Only burn the bridges you want to see spread like wildfire.
Paint yourself in these ashes.
Light your cigarette on these flames.
Don’t wear polyester.
Define your own style – dressing well is the most dangerous act of
social rebellion.
Start taking nocturnal rambles when the night is quiet and the suburbs
empty.
It is in these hours that you may find solace and beauty.
You will walk with nightcats and stars past coffee shops and bars
and find yourself at last,
where you want to be –
where you never thought you’d be.
Magick is hard.
Magick is easy.
Magick tastes like orange peely.
Do not take yourself seriously. Noone else does.
Do not play to the peanut gallery.
Play like you mean it.
A life well lived is one of self evolution. You are in a box right now
and you must do everything you can to break free from that. Then
you will transcend and be somewhere else, and yet, you will find
yourself in another box.
It may be comfortable, it may be where you want to be. But sooner or
later you’re going to have to break out of that one too.
Do it without regret.
Do it without mercy.
Do what thou wilt.
Learn at least one instrument, however badly.
It will keep you warm on those dark nights of the soul.
It will be a constant companion.
It will extend your voice, your brain, your fingers and your lover will
thank you.
Don’t fixate on sex unless you can make it beautiful.
We don’t need the details of your love life. This is gossip.
Sex is the one realm where the poetic toolbox comes in handy.
Tension is apprehension, and a promise.
Listen to advice.
Don’t listen to advice.
Rinse & repeat.
There are no wolves and sheep. Only those who trade jackets.
Poetry is only half of what we are doing. Do not define yourself by
poetry alone.
Do not define yourself by what you do/
wear/
think/
like/
hate/
care about/
play/
eat/
read/
engage in &tc.
– this is only a social cue to tell people how to treat you based on
what they can expect, seen through their own lens.
Their lenses are warped, just like yours.
Remember that and we will all get along.
Take. No. Shit.
To define is to limit.
You are beyond this.
You are greater than a title.
You are not a poet.
You are a poet.
You are a Pope.
You are a hobo.
You are a mystic car salesman from Reno.
You are a point in a list poem.
You did not make the list poem.
Audition. Audition again and again and again.
You are more infinite in depth and breadth than you can imagine.
Trust yourself.
Become the rebel not the revolutionary.
All revolutions lead back to the same old same old –
One mans foot on the other mans neck.
The rebel knows this.
The rebel fuck’s the system.
The rebel is society’s mutation.
Mutations are the only way things can evolve – today’s strangeness is
tomorrow’s way of life.
Do not fear change.
Learn to live.
Learn to breathe.
Learn to sleep.
Learn to create.
Learn to destroy.
Learn to smile.
Learn to care.
Learn to not give a shit.
Learn to love.
Learn to cry.
Learn to hurt.
Learn to die.
Wake up.
Start again.
Rise.
Rinse & repeat.
Writer bio:
Saša Čuha is a poet, film-maker, musician, visual artist and actor currently residing in Melbourne.
He is known for his live performance style which is a fusion of poetry and music. Saša is inspired by storytelling, surrealism, occultism, cinema, experimental music and in developing new forms, styles and expressions within poetry. He is currently working on two film scores, editing a new spoken word album and being a dad.
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