Feed the Lake

[Nora O’Dowd]

The lake is infinite. The lake is ravenous.

No matter your river size you must feed it."

Love this deep dive, and the everloving rivers emptying into that lake. Keep swimming, Ray!!!

[Ray Sweatman]

Thanks so much nora!!!!

[williamphaynes/elliott]

I always enjoy good abstract writing/ enjoyed this piece a lot

[Ray Sweatman]

thank you, william!

[Gianluca Marras]

I read this as a corporate guy, so the casket scene is where I stopped. God's advocate reading your sins, and the worst one being not knowing the difference between death and life. That landed harder than all the surreal beauty around it. You're asking for a choice in your own birth and death like it's the most reasonable request in the world. It is. Some days I sit in a role I chose, watching a life I'm not sure I did, and that line names it better than I can.

Alla prossima 🫂

[Ray Sweatman]

thanks for the wonderful comments, gianluca!

[Earl Nobdy]

I dig yr flow, brother

[Ray Sweatman]

thanks, bro!

[Sam Rasnake]

“The composer and the muse straddle

its glossy white back and bob on the top

of a lake full of moonlight’s misty music.

Luis Bunuel comes with his razor

mouthing Cut! Art is born with a flick

of a wrist.” I like this piece. Good work.

[Ray Sweatman]

thanks, sam!

[Jeanne Vessantra]

As writers, we inhabit a place somewhere within a sacred world, both familiar and distant from the everyday. It is a parallel water: the reflection upon the lake, and the depths beneath it. We move between both, never entirely belonging to either.

[Ray Sweatman]

Thanks Jeanne! Lovely and true

[Gan]

Feed the lake. Drink it deeply.

[Ray Sweatman]

thanks, gan!

[Miner Poet]

The kind of artful uplift one needs more of.

[Ray Sweatman]

Thanks ross!

[Petra]

The lake as an endless creative force is a powerful image, and Jean Rhys as a giant tadpole made me smile. <3

[Ray Sweatman]

Thanks petra!

[Petra]

<3

[Martin Lane]

Omg

[Ray Sweatman]

You ok there, martin?

[M.P. Strayer]

Loved this. In particular the opening:

Beethoven went deaf

but that didn’t stop him from hearing music

or conducting his last symphony.

They had to turn him around to see

the audience standing and applauding

but what he saw was Elise

at various stages of her life

transforming into one big eyeball.

[Ray Sweatman]

Thanks, m.p.! It's a wild one.

[Parker McCoy]

Beethoven is muzakked.

Now, that's a great line and so true.

[Ray Sweatman]

thanks, parker!

[Ray Sweatman]

thanks l cohen