Ghosts

Sometimes my creativity is sparked by a single word or sentence...when I started writing I would almost always think of a title first, and write a poem based on it. I would sometimes have people give me title prompts. Say a word or short sentence or phrase and I'll turn it into a poem.

Helium.com is a site you can write 'articles' to, the titles are the prompts and so on and so forth. There is a creative writing section in Helium with a great many poetry titles one can write to. I often take a poem I've already written (that goes by a different title) and put it in one of the pre-titled prompts just leaving out my original title.

This poem is not one of those. There was a title prompt - Poetry: Ghosts

I couldn't resist trying to write a poem called Ghosts at that point because I realized I simply hadn't.

This poem is not what I intended it to be, not only is it much shorter than I originally wanted, it doesn't follow any of the original thoughts I had for the piece overall. It flowed from me in this form and it ended without me being able to tell it what to do. It was literally like ghost writing, it felt almost as if something or someone was simply reading to me while I transcribed. Many of my most meaningful poems are written without me even thinking on it.

I'm happy with how this one turned out, though it isn't anywhere near what I had intended it to be...it is something special and meaningful to me. Its simplicity is a part of what I enjoy about it and though I don't hold it as one of my all time amazing writing achievements, I consider it a strong piece of mine and one of my best in recent months.