Inspiration

Musik: Emilie Autumn - Shalott
Kleiden: This ancient orange top I bought in France when I was around twelve, light blue jeans
Filme: The Reader (Stephen Daldry)
Buchen: The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald

This is how I plan to begin every post (the film, by the way, being the last one I watched whilst the rest are all current). Don't ask about the German. Unless you want to, of course...

On Saturday I went to a Young Writers festival in Sheffield, featuring poets such as Matt Black, Rommi Smith and Dorethea Smartt. It was one amazing day - I was very inspired by all of the extremely talented people there. In particular, my conversation with Dorethea Smartt was very enlightening. I asked her for advice on how best to perform my poetry and she asked me to think about performers I admired and what it was that made them great. I immediately thought of Emilie Autumn, whom I went to see perform in March and found to be utterly breath-taking.

That's kind of the back-story to this poem I wrote about Emilie, eponymously named.

Emilie Autumn

I

What inspires me about you?
The theatrical abandonment;
The utter sincerity with which
You give yourself entirely
To the moment
As though every one
Might be the very last-
You hold onto it tightly,
You scratch and you claw,
So not a single second is let off lightly.

It is as though you and I
Were the only beings living.
And you stare blankly;
Screaming like all hell let loose,
Not caring that, in fact,
There are so many other people there,
Thinking the exact same thing-
That you are singing for them
And only them.

II

Your soul is laid bare.
You are naked,
You have not a care,
As the passion erases
Any shame that was there.
It makes you more beautiful,
More perfect, more unbearable,
More awe-inspiring, more intimidating,
More breath-taking, more shocking,
More melodramatic, more controversial,
More…more
More than I can stand.

III

There are so very many lights,
A magnificent set
Of a quaint Victorian asylum.
And the fantastical costumes,
Of corset, tights and garters.
The great clock of rats head
And the theatre mask you wear.
The shocking bright red of your hair.
Your girls; sexual and sensual.
The enormous exhibition of it all.

And I stand there mouthing every word
That exits your windpipes,
Marvelling as you play
With a demons aptitude;
An electric violin
As though it were a sin:
Oh sweet love, give me my sin again!
For I could listen for all eternity,
And never tire.

IV

I can only stare
And long for your confidence…
The way you just don’t care.
For I can claim it all I like,
But it is not so,
That the people’s eyes don’t scare
Me to the depths of my soul.
I like to bottle it all up;
And I don’t ever want to let go entirely
For I do not dare.
I can only stare.