Poet for hire
Let me entertain you this holiday season❤️🔥
Hello there friends old and new,
You might have seen on Instagram that I was recently given the honour, no the pleasure, of performing my poetry at The Annual, a fabulous gala hosted by Diversify Norway.
I cherish every moment I get to share my poetry with a live audience. There’s a feeling of connection I get that I’ve never experienced before. When I recite my poems, I can remember exactly where I was when I first started forming the poem in my mind. The poem becomes a kind of container for sharing that memory with the audience, and together we make new memories around that poem and the words go on to mean something new for someone else.
This is the magic of poetry.
I have decided to publish the ENTIRE performance here, for you my lovely readers. It was a strange experience to bring this text, meant for a dinner gala, into the recording studio. After a false start, I recorded this in one take and have only lightly edited it. This recording is a raw and real as I could get it to the live rendition. Thanks to Diversify for having me!
One day soon, I hope I’ll be able to work with musicians to put these songs, poems and ideas to music. If you’re interested in working with me on this - get in touch.
Here it is. The Luxury of Love.
❤️🔥To enquire about booking me to perform The Luxury of Love or if you would like me to create a bespoke written performance especially for your event, please contact info@lovestoriespublishing.com
Love,
Eleanor Flowers 💐
Audio transcript
Quantum Change
I loosened all my knots
and bound my body up in hope
all safely bundled tight
I threw my being in a boat
and rode the ocean waves
until my salty skins were soaked
I slept in certain faith
that I could keep myself afloat
that stars were keeping watch
that there is magic in those skies
that freedom’s only shown
once binding forces are untied
And seas stand wide and open
to brave people who have tried
to love
through fear and loss and pain
who've learned to watch their minds
(a light for those toes bold enough
to dip in changing tides)
I loosened all my knots
so I could feel for different paths
so I could swim through alien worlds
recalculate the maths
And dive into the blue, into the black
through depths unknown
reach subatomic levels
of my jellied, quantum bones
And Freed from wretched safety
Freed from that which plagues me
Remembering why I came here
I would find my way back
home.
It is my belief that poetry is the ultimate in luxury goods. Poetry is like love! Free and available to us any time, and yet when we indulge in it, it can totally transform us and those around us. It’s both luxurious, and absolutely necessary for life to flourish.
That opening poem was called Quantum change. When I wrote that poem three years ago, I was beginning to allow myself the luxury of love. I love that line in it “And freed from wretched safety”. I am interested in the idea that you can free yourself from the safe option and start take your own path, the path no one can take for you.
That is the brave path of love.
Here is why I want to indulge in poetry and to talk of love: because without love there can be no change. In her book All About Love, bell hooks reminded us that love is an action, not just a feeling that drops into our bodies.
I want that no bullshit type of love in my life. The type of love that doesn’t lie to you. The type of love that helps you to see yourself and where you’re at. That twenty twenty vision love. This poem is called twenty twenty:
I am no victim of my brain
Nor subject solely to my pain
For fear is fickle, hurt the same
Invite them and they will not stay
This feeling cannot last forever
All in life must come and go
As bonds are made so are they severed
Aches move as waters ebb and flow
No!
I am not afraid of change
With open thoughts I'll map new truths
I'll change my tracks, seek open plains
This poem here will be my proof
Do what you've done get what you've got
Life's ways will teach you plenty
Think what you'll learn from this bad lot
Hindsight is: 2020
The luxury of love. We forget to love. We forget to play. To make art. To dress up. To read poetry. To indulge in doing something nice for someone who cannot pay us back.
To love. A verb. A doing word.
I am not afraid of change. I love change so much I changed my own name! I chose the artist name Eleanor Flowers because I wanted to give myself the luxury of blooming into the best possible version of the person I could be.
This poem is called why I changed my name:
Eleanor stumbles
And Eleanor falls
If she can't get back up
Then Eleanor crawls
All the way to the top
Of the jaggedy mountain
Where Eleanor stops
For a drink at the fountain
And she goes off again!
To the next peak in sight
Watch as Eleanor summons
All her will and her might
Then she misses her step
And rolls all the way down
With a smack and a thud
To the Earth's soggy ground
And she lies in the mud
With a half-mounted dream
And a trickle of blood
Runs into a stream
That leads to a forest
Eleanor opens her eyes
Rolls onto her back
Looks up at the skies
From down here the clouds
Look just as magnificent
As they did when she stood at the top of the world
And all of a sudden her spine puts down roots
And up from her stomach grow little green shoots
And bees come to see what the fuss is about
Eleanor lays there for hour and hours
With tears down her face
Lay down in the waste
Til a bee comes and tickles the side of her face
And it doesn't take long
Til the sun and rain showers
Pour down on her being
And slowly
Ever so slowly
Eleanor Flowers
My name is a verb. To Flower. To flower. What luxury, the flower. Not just the flowers you can buy in the shop, but the wildflowers that grow by the side of the road. The spider that weaves her web of silk. There is luxury everywhere if you know where to look.
We forget to love. We forget to play. To make art. To dress up. To have a party. We forget to dance. I try to dance wherever I can remember to! At home alone between emails, sometimes I dance across the road – just to give the driver something entertaining to see while they are waiting.
I try my best to tango even when life gets really hard. Even when I’m feeling unloved by the world outside my dream world, I like to go dancing in my dreams.
This is Quantum Tango:
Two souls dancing in the night
above two bodies misaligned
From the guts
fly through the air
and
stack
like
cups
filled with moonshine
Two souls spilling, spinning lights
one pair sleeping off the fight
While sweet ghosts play
Two licking flames
Two-stepping over leaden hosts
Engaged in gentle tango
Two particles entangled
At this point you’re probably thinking who the hell is this girl to talk so much about love! The truth is that I sometimes find love really difficult. That’s why I think so much about it. To love is to open the door for someone who has been locked out by the world in ways that you might never understand. To love is to open your eyes to pain. A great poet once said that:
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
What kind of poet would I be if I didn’t give you some of that no bullshit love.
That’s the type of love that opens doors.
Give me a body I'll use it
Give me a mouth and I'll speak
Give me a pen I will stream messages
Plucked from the infinite deep
Give me a world and I'll watch it
Give me a ladder to climb
Show me a clock so I learn to forget its face
I have no need for clock time
Sometimes it can feel like no matter how hard we try to change we are utterly stuck, no matter how many doors we knock on, there’s nowhere or no way to move forward.
And then suddenly, after all that waiting, a door swings open:
I love a door when it's open
And I love a door more when it's closed
Please send me a child to teach me the lessons
that only the old spirits know
I want to dance in the darkness
Hidden behind velvet drapes
Drink angel wine I'm on magical time
Oil my skins someone come feed me grapes
I am the spider in waiting
I am a bridge between stars
I gather gifts in the dream space
Stories to wake dormant hearts
I have the blueprints inside me
Each passing look is a key
We all have pathways within and without us
Turn off the lights and you'll
See
Open someone’s door. Turn on someone’s light.
This next poem is called “All the Lights Came on” – and it’s a proper love poem. Really indulgent, rom com worthy love poetry:
All the lights came on
In every city
In every heart
All of us were there
In every waiting room
On every bus
Under every endless sky
In every heaven
For ever and for ever
We had all been hoping
Together in the darkness
For a hand as warm as yours
And a heart as full of questions
All the lights came on
And the whole world stopped
Every brake in every car
Every eye alight with every star
Seven oceans stopped their waving
Even the faithful ceased their praying
To see us both in bed and burning yellow
To hear my heart and voice both quietly saying
"I love you"
I’m going to leave you with one last, very expensive poem, this the poem that cost me the most to produce because to write this poem I had to totally, and utterly accept my life the way it was and that takes a lot of energy!
It’s the final poem of my upcoming show Shopping for God and I am so pleased to share it with you.
This is This:
Who could ask for anything more than This?
This bed, this morning, this kiss
I don't know why I didn't get the job, or win the prize, or seal the deal
I don't know why I didn't get the money or the fame
I wonder if I’ll ever be any good at those strange games
But who could ask for anything more than This?
This coffee, this window, this bus ride, that kiss
This is life.
Somebody gets married and somebody dies
Somebody gets lucky at something someone already tried
Somebody becomes unwell
Somebody falls in love
Somebody loses everything gambling on false gods
Somebody goes on hurting and looking for a cure
Someone who never got an answer starts a bloody war
Because they want someone to see them
Because they think there should be more, that it can't be just This
This?
Who could ask for anything more than This
This bed, this morning, this kiss
My own warm skin, the sun streaming in
Ah
For so many years I wanted someone else's life
Now all I want to do is make
The most of what's already mine
It isn’t always easy but I choose This
This way not that way
This is how I choose to live.