The world seemed simple, even good.

The innocent thoughts of youth,

Now crashed down by a brutal flood.

I remember when,

Success was a sticker in a school book,

The simple wishes of youth,

Now gone, the stickers overlooked.

I remember when,

Good was good and bad was bad,

The direct mind of youth,

Now hidden by a PC charade.

I remember when,

Money was not the only goal

The creative fun of youth,

Preferred toys to filling the pocket’s hole.

I remember when,

I woke up to find a painful truth,

The joyful years of youth,

replaced with adulthood’s heavy hoof.

The award was started to in order to be given to excellent bloggers, with fewer than 200 followers recognition for their efforts and promotion to a larger audience.

Like ‘Limited Literature, I also have a love of the German language (and all things to do with Germany) so to be given an award that originated in Germany is extra special.

There are some simple rules for the recipient of a Liebster Blog Award:

The rules:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog
2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you (for some great poetry and creative writing, check out Limited Literature)
3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog
4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed (see below)
5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog

Now for five blogs of fewer than 200 followers that I would like to give the award to. I don’t yet follow many blogs, only choosing ones that i really enjoy reading, so I must say firstly that I am not certain that these blogs do in fact have few enough followers. Nevertheless they do deserve recognition for their great work.

1.Path of Resonance-this is the blog that inspired me to start my own and looks at a number of things including the blogger’s approach to life and musical posts, in particular about the darbuka drum.

2. Lance Schaubert-a wonderfully creative blog, but hard to describe as there is so much going on it it. everything from film reviews to cartography. certainly worth checking out.

3.Haiku 365-The title of this blog almost says it all, but there is a twist-a beautiful photo goes along with each haiku poem.

4.Good Geek Ranting-I’m pretty certain this one has over 200 followers, but its tricky picking from those i follow as i don’t have a long list to choose from. However, this blog certainly deserves recognition. I would describe this blog as ‘life as a story’ and seems to make even the normal day seem gripping.

5.Kjpgarcia-theres some really creative poetry on this blog so well worth checking out.

I would reccomend checking all these blogs out, despite me thinking half of them may not really fit into the ‘under 200 followers’ category.

A harmless “how are you?”

Warrants not a simple answer,

As “fine” is never true.

Behind the eyes of those who say,

Such undeniably blatant lies,

Their thoughts into the darkness fade,

Away from human judgment hides.

It seems we fear to show the truth,

Of our secret states of mind,

We keep away from others ruth,

Our emotions left behind.

Eye death (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

A temporary model of the countryside that once was there;

It is nature’s desperate try to turn the concrete towers to trees,

Gardens to grasses, streets to streams, buildings to boulders.

Washed away the sins of man and nature’s pain,

Revealed the glorious beauty of life after the rain.

Away from cities with their link with nature gone,

The world flourishes in cascades of colour and floods of green,

Roots that were starved by months of endless sun,

Now burst with life somehow both vibrant and serene,

Washed away the sins of man and nature’s pain,

Revealed the glorious beauty of life after the rain.

Image via Wikipedia

Not one stops to meet what it hears,

The melody floats through waterfall skies,

Drops bombard the pavement in,

Front and round musician’s eyes.

But no joy is lost from fiddler’s song,

The notes sing gracefully and long,

They weave through streets and market stalls,

Searching for an ear that knows,

That they are Worthy of great kingly halls.

Drops crash thicker, faster, wetter,

Fiddler plays both harder, better,

No flooding rain or human disinterest,

Will cause hardy violin or graceful notes,

Or great fiddler to rest.

I started it because i was inspired by a fantastic blog called ‘path of resonance’, which is written by a member of a band that i very much like. I loved how the blog seemed to be a way of not only  expressing yourself, but also sharing your successes, failures, goals and experiences with the whole world. For me, that is the pure joy of my short experience of blogging; being able to share your thoughts with everyone and those who can relate or enjoy those thoughts, are then able to share it with even more people. Essentially, the blog becomes a way for the world to learn and grow with eachother, ultimately leading to us all becoming better people with a far wider set of interests than we had prior to starting our blogging journey.

So what have I learnt? My first discovery was just the amazingly vast amount of knowledge, ideas and creativity that is being produced every minute and then being shared for all to enjoy. That alone is incredible. Then, I began to find out what truely interests me. The first time you sit down to write a blog is a strange experience, as you wonder “what do I want to write about? are others going to be interested in what I have to say? How do I write a blog?” and so on. But eventually, even if you had no plan on where to head in the first place you eventually end up gravitating towards certain things; for me it seems to be poetry-something i hadn’t even considered when i started out a month ago. I actually wanted to have a purely philisophical and thought based blog, but instead i found myself writing wondering thoughts in poetic language rather than prose. And it worked for me. Another thing that I have learnt is that praise from people you don’t know, is something much more special than that which comes from friends and collegues. Why? I think its because when someone you have never met likes your work, there is no bias, no reason for that person to spend their time appreciating what you have done.

What next then? I’ve decided that although it was not something that struck me as an idea at the start of my blog, poetry is going to remain an integral part of it. However, what i set as my starting point involved music and art and as of yet, there hasn’t been much of these on my blog (other than a short thought on why i prefer sad music to happy) and i feel the next step is to bring these in as a combination with my poetry. Poems will become lyrics for songs in the process of composition and there will be art work (hopefully) to also go along with the poetry and thoughts. Which reminds me, I really must post my painting based on Edgar Allen Poe’s masterpiece, ‘The Raven’.

Finally, i’d like to thank all those who have liked, followed, commented or even visited by blog. I may have not have that many, but the few that I do have, have given me the confidence to make something really special of it and share my ideas and creativity with an ever increasing and vibrant blogging community. Thanks for reading.

Our choices govern who we are.

What we do what we are becoming,

But you missed it, too content in doing nothing.

This life is a journey,

The world full of joys worth earning.

Its wonders open to those who wish to find,

But you missed it; to pointless interests you were tied.

This life is for living,

To the sloth or misled it’s unforgiving,

You made no choices discontent with who you were,

So you missed life and lost your adventure.

Above the earth, a silver mould,

Is forged from most complex of casts;

Like most perfect things it will not last.

A blanket that no thread is seen,

Not one smallest imperfection it seems,

It falls across the hills and trees,

And lies upon eternal leaves.

The spoilt canvas once more is pure,

The slashes on its surface cured,

Towns, factories, no longer scars,

Their forms now shining white like stars.

Slowly rich skies of red and gold,

Their colours lose and life grows old,

To the silver blanket draped over land,

“Melt”, the now warm sun demands.

Frosty Footpath - winter snow (Photo credit: blmiers2)

Its a question i’ve often wondered; Why do i find more joy in listening to dark depressing music than that which is happy?

I’ll start by looking at a band called Blackfield. The melodies are a mix of happy and sad (mainly the latter) tunes, but the lyrics are almost always pretty depressing-yet they are one of the bands that make me feel the happiest. It can be said that a lot of their music is quite calm and relaxing and perhaps that is one reason, but surely the depressing tunes and lyrics would counteract that calm feeling. Maybe you might see what i mean by listening to the band: Blackfield-Lullaby

So what about actual happy music? For me, the majority has no emotional effect at all-goes in one ear, out the other with no interest in the track at all. Its not that case with all happy music though, for example there is (in my opinion) an impressive number of happy sounding AND emotional instrumental tracks.  But maybe thats it-perhaps its simply harder to portray positive emotions with words; that negative words hold more power. Yet, musical notes don’t express emotion in the same way as words and there doesn’t seem to be the same barrier of major keys being any less powerful than minor keys (excuse the awful generalisation of major being happy and minor being sad-i know its not quite as black and white as that). So thats a possibility for why many happy songs just aren’t as happy as they could be-words almost seem to ruin a happy song.

Now back to sad songs. If negative words really are more powerful than positive words, then it should follow that sad lyrics are more powerful and that we may be able to relate to them more easily, even if we are in a good mood. Theres simply more emotional content and artistic feeling in a sad song.Also, often sad lyrics are more personal to the artist, resulting in much more thought being put into them.  One good example is Dream Theater’s ‘The Best of Times‘- a song written about the death of the father of one of the band members. The song just emits pure feeling and power, and the lyrics, although by no means poetic or even particularly good, are the main reason its such an emotional song. Theres a sense of hope and joy, despite the tragedy of the song and that, is why i believe sad songs to be, in a sense, much happier than a happy song.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment

from too few hours of yearned for slumber,

Its still dark as i slowly rise,

And i stumble and i lumber.

My salvation comes in humble form,

a water of life with  flavoursome fumes,

Without this coffee my daily norm,

without it fatigue and confusion  looms.