This despite appearances is a straight up love song. Wink, wink, say no more, as the fella says.
There's a reference in chorus 2 to a scene in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, in which the main character, alone in the post office at night, has an overpowering vision. All the undelivered mail with which the building is stuffed cries out to be--literally--delivered. I hope it's an image I'll get to refer to again and again in many works, because it affected me profoundly.
pain is a message
that something's broken
pain is a message
you have to open
sometimes, true
you have to wait for
it to get through
to get what you paid for
get what you paid for
what you paid for
cry it out loud
you don't have to be nervous
or frightened or proud
it's just customer service
customer service, customer service
customer service
love is desiring
your lover's freedom
if they hunger for feedback
you get to feed 'em
sometimes, yes
the answer is no
that is your test
how will you say so
how will you say so
will you say so
we tremble to write
down the message love gives to us
letters at night
they all whisper, deliver us
deliver us, deliver us
deliver us
trust is a language
two minds make slowly
in tongues of fire
in pain made holy
what you give
does not reduce you
our love lives
you let me choose you
you let me choose you
let me choose you
body's electricity
run through dust
we are all that we see
laid on all that we trust
baby, whom do you trust
do you trust, do you trust
baby whom do you, whom do you trust
ode to Chicago 2.0
Version 1.0 of this poem had the same first half. The end is completely different, and it's much better now.
The older version was meant to be read aloud, too. It may hark back to the days of my callow youth, when I delighted in the Old Testament prophets as my principal source of poetry. Those guys really knew how to personify a city and whip the pants off it. Metaphorically speaking.
I'm not so hard-nosed in this one.
with your Parade cake makeup
and your bleach-blonde
teeth,
dried up, double-tongued
harridan of a city
shameless, straddling a river, riding high on
commerce, baby, the starch-pressed minds
of billionaires and all their filthy
politicking, how you dote on them.
you lift your skirts up to them
like a napkin; they wipe red hands clean
of old men who shake Dunkin Donuts cups at passersby
of beggars who lack even strength to prophesy
but look as cool as you, baby,
when you pull the sheet up over
another still, small, face, and light your
slow cigarette.
I love your pigeonshit train tracks
and your crew-cut sidewalk
activists, I love
your rust-riddled bridges and the buses
that run under them all night,
the harmless little restaurants that change hands twice a year
the callous that the slicer handle left
right here
and you love me like a January sidewalk loves my ass, a fuel tank loves the letter E, leaky taps love insomniacs and rotten meat loves flies
I can see it in your eyes, baby,
baby, you love
me
The older version was meant to be read aloud, too. It may hark back to the days of my callow youth, when I delighted in the Old Testament prophets as my principal source of poetry. Those guys really knew how to personify a city and whip the pants off it. Metaphorically speaking.
I'm not so hard-nosed in this one.
with your Parade cake makeup
and your bleach-blonde
teeth,
dried up, double-tongued
harridan of a city
shameless, straddling a river, riding high on
commerce, baby, the starch-pressed minds
of billionaires and all their filthy
politicking, how you dote on them.
you lift your skirts up to them
like a napkin; they wipe red hands clean
of old men who shake Dunkin Donuts cups at passersby
of beggars who lack even strength to prophesy
but look as cool as you, baby,
when you pull the sheet up over
another still, small, face, and light your
slow cigarette.
I love your pigeonshit train tracks
and your crew-cut sidewalk
activists, I love
your rust-riddled bridges and the buses
that run under them all night,
the harmless little restaurants that change hands twice a year
the callous that the slicer handle left
right here
and you love me like a January sidewalk loves my ass, a fuel tank loves the letter E, leaky taps love insomniacs and rotten meat loves flies
I can see it in your eyes, baby,
baby, you love
me
open mic night postgame
This waketime was my second-ever trip to my local poetry open mic. Which as I've learned since is actually the birthplace of the entire poetry slam movement, and as such attracts traveling poets as well as skillful people from around here. It's not the poetry big leagues; more on the order of a respectable AAA affiliate.
Let me briefly explain to you how awesome this place is. In a four-person poetry slam competition (grand prize: $10), I came in 3rd. Reading "composition" in the first round and reciting "residual categories" in the second. And that was a completely fair verdict! I know that I am a good poet. As the book of Proverbs says, however, iron sharpens iron. And finding a whole scene full of other poets who are themselves good in many different and magnificent ways gives me the opportunity to aim at becoming great.
This makes me inexpressibly happy. There is a place in the world where I fit in, even if I don't really know anybody yet. Where people do the stuff I do and care about the stuff I care about to such a degree that despite all the work I've put into it I'm just. about. normal. Best of all this place is not merely out there in the world somewhere, but just on my doorstep, on my bus route, within arm's reach. All I need is the occasional night off work, and the discipline to work the modest expense involved into my budget.
Oh yes. Also the nakedness of spirit to start learning to write again from scratch. Which I don't mean in the negative "ahh I'm doing everything wrong!" sense at all. It's more like the transition from classical music to jazz, or (here's where i read it) as Bruce Lee said about martial arts: "Learn technique. Practice technique. Forget technique."
There are a whole host of habits, necessities, little skills which go into writing "on paper" poetry which must apply differently to "live performance" poetry. They're still useful tools--but you use a screwdriver one way when installing a set of shelves and another when assembling a swingset, say. And there are a whole host of basic, basic things about live poetry regarding which I've just recently become aware of the depth of my ignorance.
Which, again. Awesome.
There was extra time at the end ("we didn't run long, we ran short!") so they had the band play while people randomly stepped up to the mic and said whatever they chose. As opposed to the open mic, wherein people are called up one by one according to an order the MC decides on his own.
Anyway during this last part I improv'd a thing which I attempt to reconstitute here. XD Mostly so I can give this post the "poetry and lyrics" tab.
these are the same streets
I used to go get lost in
just to figure out where the hell I was,
and I found my way
here.
I stumble out onto a sidewalk that smells of banjo music
and barbeque sauce,
glance back over my shoulder at a long low room
full of better poets than I am
and I say, "you fool! how small your world,
how small the circle of yourself!
you dared to think that poetry was dead,
when it was you who could not see
beyond the lip of the grave you dug!"
oh let me catch a smooth round edge
on a sharpened piece of someone else's mind
and dash out through these streets, laughing, naked,
unraveling the borders of my old, small self
one
thread
at a time.
Let me briefly explain to you how awesome this place is. In a four-person poetry slam competition (grand prize: $10), I came in 3rd. Reading "composition" in the first round and reciting "residual categories" in the second. And that was a completely fair verdict! I know that I am a good poet. As the book of Proverbs says, however, iron sharpens iron. And finding a whole scene full of other poets who are themselves good in many different and magnificent ways gives me the opportunity to aim at becoming great.
This makes me inexpressibly happy. There is a place in the world where I fit in, even if I don't really know anybody yet. Where people do the stuff I do and care about the stuff I care about to such a degree that despite all the work I've put into it I'm just. about. normal. Best of all this place is not merely out there in the world somewhere, but just on my doorstep, on my bus route, within arm's reach. All I need is the occasional night off work, and the discipline to work the modest expense involved into my budget.
Oh yes. Also the nakedness of spirit to start learning to write again from scratch. Which I don't mean in the negative "ahh I'm doing everything wrong!" sense at all. It's more like the transition from classical music to jazz, or (here's where i read it) as Bruce Lee said about martial arts: "Learn technique. Practice technique. Forget technique."
There are a whole host of habits, necessities, little skills which go into writing "on paper" poetry which must apply differently to "live performance" poetry. They're still useful tools--but you use a screwdriver one way when installing a set of shelves and another when assembling a swingset, say. And there are a whole host of basic, basic things about live poetry regarding which I've just recently become aware of the depth of my ignorance.
Which, again. Awesome.
There was extra time at the end ("we didn't run long, we ran short!") so they had the band play while people randomly stepped up to the mic and said whatever they chose. As opposed to the open mic, wherein people are called up one by one according to an order the MC decides on his own.
Anyway during this last part I improv'd a thing which I attempt to reconstitute here. XD Mostly so I can give this post the "poetry and lyrics" tab.
these are the same streets
I used to go get lost in
just to figure out where the hell I was,
and I found my way
here.
I stumble out onto a sidewalk that smells of banjo music
and barbeque sauce,
glance back over my shoulder at a long low room
full of better poets than I am
and I say, "you fool! how small your world,
how small the circle of yourself!
you dared to think that poetry was dead,
when it was you who could not see
beyond the lip of the grave you dug!"
oh let me catch a smooth round edge
on a sharpened piece of someone else's mind
and dash out through these streets, laughing, naked,
unraveling the borders of my old, small self
one
thread
at a time.
shiny things: not shiny at all
All right.
That's it.
I've had enough.
It is time for another edition of shiny things.
Today's theme: shiny things which are, in fact, not shiny.
squid hat by obeymybrain of etsy
Awhile back Pearl let me know about a funny YouTube series called The Guild. It is now apparently a Thing which people watch. I can only approve if it involves the wearing of such hats. Apparently some squid hats were specifically designed for the show; there are many varieties available. This particular one is my favorite, and while I can't conceive of likely a situation in which I would wear it, it makes me wish that I could!
I think squid, especially cartoonish blue ones, are inherently happy-making to contemplate. However, it certainly counts as fluffy rather than shiny.
There is such a thing as a liger. Think about that when things seem frustrating in your daily routine. Somewhere--perhaps nearer than you think--is a magnificent, impossible half-lion half-tiger, and it is not impossible that someone is petting it. It is also very, very unlikely that someone is being mauled by it. Petting yes; mauling, no. The classic win / no lose scenario! Which I just now made up.
Humans do all sorts of crazy things--some of them awesome, others downright terrifying--but occasionally something ridiculously unlikely to have occurred in nature turns out downright cool.
Raise your hand if you want a pet one of these!
And, ah, lots of goats to feed it.
Perhaps a vet on call with a fully paid retainer.
Unregardless! I want one.
I sincerely hope the inherent blurriness of cameraphone pictures does not prevent that nametag from being legible. It says "HELLO! My name is Superman!"
The guy in the pic is one of the courtesy clerks (read: bagger, mopper and cart patrol) at my store. He is a pretty smart and nice guy who has come up with an ingenious way to compensate for the fact that his limited English robs him of what I read to be customary eloquence. On that one you have to trust me. I talk a great deal and listen slightly more than I talk. And what people are about to say, most of the time, is at least half of what they're saying. Sometimes you can even tell what it is!
And this guy has a running joke that despite its simplicity never fails to amuse me. Or him, either, which only raises my opinion of him.
Most days of the week, he greets all coworkers by saying "Hello! I'm, today, Superman." Witty responses are encouraged but not required. The comically exaggerated expression on his face makes it virtually impossible not to laugh or at least smile.
Then, whenever someone gets on the PA to call him for bagging assistance up front, wet cleanup in aisle 2 etc., I can think "aha, they are calling superman to the rescue!"
Sometimes he'll switch it up and say, "I'm, today, Manager!" On Fridays he used to be Dracula, which lent an element of danger to the first of the ridiculously busy weekend days and gave me an opportunity to use the phrase "stainless steel scarf" in real life. Alas, one of the actual managers told him not to say he was going to be Dracula anymore, as it might creep somebody out. I say that's a shame. Anyone creeped out, rather than uplifted, after meeting Behrouz is most certainly not paying attention.
Shiny, no. Fluffy, only in the hair department. Awesome? 100%.
If you have ever washed dishes, this is something I hope you've had a chance to experience. If you've never washed dishes in a commercial sink, let me tell you, it makes an everyday chore a pretty dynamic experience. Properly appreciated, a sink such as ours can make even a day full of ridiculousness more fun. Who can say no to a high-speed jet of water, its temperature almost infinitely adjustable? Sure, it's inadvisable to spray it on floor, coworkers, salads in process etc. Yet there is a certain amount of visceral satisfaction involved in just spraying the living daylights out of stuff--have I mentioned there is also hot and cold running soap solution?--until it's clean enough for food to be eaten off of it.
This pic is from last winter, but trust me, this is a very, very important part of my day. Surfing lolcats is an occasional--very occasional--pleasure and/or vice. Surfing the internet generally, even if it's just to play KoL, is something best accomplished with the cat leaning her head over my wrist and demanding I pet her instead of the keyboard.
She may not be a liger. But she fits on my desk!
That's it.
I've had enough.
It is time for another edition of shiny things.
Today's theme: shiny things which are, in fact, not shiny.
squid hat by obeymybrain of etsyAwhile back Pearl let me know about a funny YouTube series called The Guild. It is now apparently a Thing which people watch. I can only approve if it involves the wearing of such hats. Apparently some squid hats were specifically designed for the show; there are many varieties available. This particular one is my favorite, and while I can't conceive of likely a situation in which I would wear it, it makes me wish that I could!
I think squid, especially cartoonish blue ones, are inherently happy-making to contemplate. However, it certainly counts as fluffy rather than shiny.
There is such a thing as a liger. Think about that when things seem frustrating in your daily routine. Somewhere--perhaps nearer than you think--is a magnificent, impossible half-lion half-tiger, and it is not impossible that someone is petting it. It is also very, very unlikely that someone is being mauled by it. Petting yes; mauling, no. The classic win / no lose scenario! Which I just now made up.
Humans do all sorts of crazy things--some of them awesome, others downright terrifying--but occasionally something ridiculously unlikely to have occurred in nature turns out downright cool.
Raise your hand if you want a pet one of these!
And, ah, lots of goats to feed it.
Perhaps a vet on call with a fully paid retainer.
Unregardless! I want one.
I sincerely hope the inherent blurriness of cameraphone pictures does not prevent that nametag from being legible. It says "HELLO! My name is Superman!"
The guy in the pic is one of the courtesy clerks (read: bagger, mopper and cart patrol) at my store. He is a pretty smart and nice guy who has come up with an ingenious way to compensate for the fact that his limited English robs him of what I read to be customary eloquence. On that one you have to trust me. I talk a great deal and listen slightly more than I talk. And what people are about to say, most of the time, is at least half of what they're saying. Sometimes you can even tell what it is!
And this guy has a running joke that despite its simplicity never fails to amuse me. Or him, either, which only raises my opinion of him.
Most days of the week, he greets all coworkers by saying "Hello! I'm, today, Superman." Witty responses are encouraged but not required. The comically exaggerated expression on his face makes it virtually impossible not to laugh or at least smile.
Then, whenever someone gets on the PA to call him for bagging assistance up front, wet cleanup in aisle 2 etc., I can think "aha, they are calling superman to the rescue!"
Sometimes he'll switch it up and say, "I'm, today, Manager!" On Fridays he used to be Dracula, which lent an element of danger to the first of the ridiculously busy weekend days and gave me an opportunity to use the phrase "stainless steel scarf" in real life. Alas, one of the actual managers told him not to say he was going to be Dracula anymore, as it might creep somebody out. I say that's a shame. Anyone creeped out, rather than uplifted, after meeting Behrouz is most certainly not paying attention.
Shiny, no. Fluffy, only in the hair department. Awesome? 100%.
If you have ever washed dishes, this is something I hope you've had a chance to experience. If you've never washed dishes in a commercial sink, let me tell you, it makes an everyday chore a pretty dynamic experience. Properly appreciated, a sink such as ours can make even a day full of ridiculousness more fun. Who can say no to a high-speed jet of water, its temperature almost infinitely adjustable? Sure, it's inadvisable to spray it on floor, coworkers, salads in process etc. Yet there is a certain amount of visceral satisfaction involved in just spraying the living daylights out of stuff--have I mentioned there is also hot and cold running soap solution?--until it's clean enough for food to be eaten off of it.
This pic is from last winter, but trust me, this is a very, very important part of my day. Surfing lolcats is an occasional--very occasional--pleasure and/or vice. Surfing the internet generally, even if it's just to play KoL, is something best accomplished with the cat leaning her head over my wrist and demanding I pet her instead of the keyboard.
She may not be a liger. But she fits on my desk!
home no more
This will definitely not end up on the album tentatively titled "where home is." It is sort of off in the opposite direction from the sonnets. Used to be I'd write poems about grumpy things and songs about uplifting ones; lately it seems the other way around.
Started out thinking abut all the prep myself and the roomies are doing to clear out an infestation of what turns out to be only grain beetles. Which is what I'd been saying for weeks. They're not roaches, fleas, ticks or bedbugs; I've seen all those and these are mostly harmless. Prep continues tonight and bombing is tomorrow.
At work, though, I listened to one of my co-workers break up with her boyfriend over the phone. (He was a lying fool unworthy of her and the breakup was long past time, in my unsolicited opinion. Details will not follow.) It got me thinking about problems, issues and situations and so forth. Thinking, in other words, about those times in life where I've had to wrestle with things that I really, really don't like to think about. It was hard enough for Fay to tell that louse that he was the one who screwed up, while still retaining the self control to finish out the rest of her shift. We all have to do tough stuff like that from time to time, and the feelings we want to feel about it have to be dealt with very carefully!
The musical sound was partly inspired by Jenny Owen Young's track "Clean break." Which I really, really like, and if you have YouTube you should go check it out. I had some chords worked out this morning, but they were weird and dissonant and I'm'a have to reconstitute them from scratch, alas, for I have forgotten them.
Jenny O. Y. got her start through Kickstarter, which Myke insists is a viable option for me & various willing accompanists. I feel my foster brother's estimates of time and cost involved are, shall we say, optimistic, but I do still think this thing is doable. Eventually.
now I'm moving my chair
and I'm moving my desk
pile 'em up on my bed
till there's no place to rest
there was something
scuttling across my floor
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
cause I ain't home no more
I pull all my novels
down off of the shelf
got to find role models
some freakin where else
guess I'll pick some up next time
I go to the store
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
cause I ain't home no more
I washed all of my clothes
with hot water and bleach
hung them up in the yard
to keep them within reach
but soon as I put some on
it started to pour
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
cause I ain't home no more
I won't unplug the phone
in the back of my skull
but I'm tired and I'm mad
and my mailbox is full
can't one thing happen that I
get to ignore
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
cause I ain't home no more
why don't you all come in
I will leave on the light
work it out 'mongst yourselves
if it comes to a fight
I'll be back to soothe you when you're
beat up and sore
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
cause I ain't home no more
Started out thinking abut all the prep myself and the roomies are doing to clear out an infestation of what turns out to be only grain beetles. Which is what I'd been saying for weeks. They're not roaches, fleas, ticks or bedbugs; I've seen all those and these are mostly harmless. Prep continues tonight and bombing is tomorrow.
At work, though, I listened to one of my co-workers break up with her boyfriend over the phone. (He was a lying fool unworthy of her and the breakup was long past time, in my unsolicited opinion. Details will not follow.) It got me thinking about problems, issues and situations and so forth. Thinking, in other words, about those times in life where I've had to wrestle with things that I really, really don't like to think about. It was hard enough for Fay to tell that louse that he was the one who screwed up, while still retaining the self control to finish out the rest of her shift. We all have to do tough stuff like that from time to time, and the feelings we want to feel about it have to be dealt with very carefully!
The musical sound was partly inspired by Jenny Owen Young's track "Clean break." Which I really, really like, and if you have YouTube you should go check it out. I had some chords worked out this morning, but they were weird and dissonant and I'm'a have to reconstitute them from scratch, alas, for I have forgotten them.
Jenny O. Y. got her start through Kickstarter, which Myke insists is a viable option for me & various willing accompanists. I feel my foster brother's estimates of time and cost involved are, shall we say, optimistic, but I do still think this thing is doable. Eventually.
now I'm moving my chair
and I'm moving my desk
pile 'em up on my bed
till there's no place to rest
there was something
scuttling across my floor
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
cause I ain't home no more
I pull all my novels
down off of the shelf
got to find role models
some freakin where else
guess I'll pick some up next time
I go to the store
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
cause I ain't home no more
I washed all of my clothes
with hot water and bleach
hung them up in the yard
to keep them within reach
but soon as I put some on
it started to pour
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
cause I ain't home no more
I won't unplug the phone
in the back of my skull
but I'm tired and I'm mad
and my mailbox is full
can't one thing happen that I
get to ignore
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
cause I ain't home no more
why don't you all come in
I will leave on the light
work it out 'mongst yourselves
if it comes to a fight
I'll be back to soothe you when you're
beat up and sore
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
knock, knock, knock on my door
cause I ain't home no more
five sonnets on interior design
1.
Now God, we say, is infinitely wise.
I pray he'll stoop to spread a dab on me
as I rub sweaty palms along my thighs
and wonder why I act so foolishly.
A word's a sword, and to the wise, enough
to unlock doors which can't be battered through.
It edges slice out calloused thoughts, grown tough,
long pressed against old frames, turned like a screw.
We fasten habits to a mighty name,
then pace round boarded corridors of "ought",
lock all our doors, and wail that no one came
to see our works and cry "what hath God wrought?"
I ask, for aching feet and empty hands,
a sword, a lever, and a place to stand.
2.
I ask for aching feet and empty hands--
to go far, and give everything away.
Replace the dragons on the map with lands
whose scents I treasure, though I cannot stay.
Let me learn each thing's name in its own tongue.
I'll keep those languages inside of me:
a rack of balanced weapons, gently hung,
drawn only to deter, to heal, to free
a pathway through the hedge of every keep
where, shaded by some wide, green, timeless tree,
the hearts of friends, like spellbound princes, sleep.
Let me then sheath my sword, and bend a knee.
This too I pray, let me remember this:
in secret places, silence is a kiss.
3.
This too I pray, let me remember thus:
what moves the world is moved by it in turn.
Why Christ's a gentleman is obvious--
why trample what he paid so much to earn?
Whom you can grasp, you'll lose without the right
to hold them, if their true consent you lack.
That voice which forged the universe with light
poured itself into flesh, to bring light back.
So do no less. To move, you must be moved;
to change a mind, permit yourself to doubt.
To earn trust, demonstrate what can't be proved.
To exorcise--first let the demons out.
Release your fists; let all you hold go free.
What fills an empty hand? Infinity.
4.
Release your fists; let all you held go free.
What's left is where you've come--and here you are.
Knit branch and leaf together; that's a tree.
And every man and woman is a star.
Sing out, however gnarled and bare your perch.
Breathe gently on new-blooming wisps of flame.
Three friends around a table is a church--
a grin, flashed up through blood and tears, a Name.
Transform your mere location to a place
where death's defied, and all things are made new:
where nothing's lost, though much may go to waste.
The power to create resides in you.
Leave all you touch more holy than before.
Where ground gives out beneath you, build a floor.
5.
Leave all you touch more holy than before;
become someone whose every word may bless.
I've made my watchword stewardship, not war.
Inside me is the Earth's last wilderness.
It stares out of my mirror, shadowed, vast,
and dares me to make more than what I've been.
I will dig deep, and build myself to last,
to write upon the world what's wrought within.
I pray I'll have the strength to still my spade
when some green seedling interrupts my eye.
Let me throw over everything I've made
to leave that center open to the sky.
If God is love, and all these things are true,
then make yourself. Then make yourself anew.
Now God, we say, is infinitely wise.
I pray he'll stoop to spread a dab on me
as I rub sweaty palms along my thighs
and wonder why I act so foolishly.
A word's a sword, and to the wise, enough
to unlock doors which can't be battered through.
It edges slice out calloused thoughts, grown tough,
long pressed against old frames, turned like a screw.
We fasten habits to a mighty name,
then pace round boarded corridors of "ought",
lock all our doors, and wail that no one came
to see our works and cry "what hath God wrought?"
I ask, for aching feet and empty hands,
a sword, a lever, and a place to stand.
2.
I ask for aching feet and empty hands--
to go far, and give everything away.
Replace the dragons on the map with lands
whose scents I treasure, though I cannot stay.
Let me learn each thing's name in its own tongue.
I'll keep those languages inside of me:
a rack of balanced weapons, gently hung,
drawn only to deter, to heal, to free
a pathway through the hedge of every keep
where, shaded by some wide, green, timeless tree,
the hearts of friends, like spellbound princes, sleep.
Let me then sheath my sword, and bend a knee.
This too I pray, let me remember this:
in secret places, silence is a kiss.
3.
This too I pray, let me remember thus:
what moves the world is moved by it in turn.
Why Christ's a gentleman is obvious--
why trample what he paid so much to earn?
Whom you can grasp, you'll lose without the right
to hold them, if their true consent you lack.
That voice which forged the universe with light
poured itself into flesh, to bring light back.
So do no less. To move, you must be moved;
to change a mind, permit yourself to doubt.
To earn trust, demonstrate what can't be proved.
To exorcise--first let the demons out.
Release your fists; let all you hold go free.
What fills an empty hand? Infinity.
4.
Release your fists; let all you held go free.
What's left is where you've come--and here you are.
Knit branch and leaf together; that's a tree.
And every man and woman is a star.
Sing out, however gnarled and bare your perch.
Breathe gently on new-blooming wisps of flame.
Three friends around a table is a church--
a grin, flashed up through blood and tears, a Name.
Transform your mere location to a place
where death's defied, and all things are made new:
where nothing's lost, though much may go to waste.
The power to create resides in you.
Leave all you touch more holy than before.
Where ground gives out beneath you, build a floor.
5.
Leave all you touch more holy than before;
become someone whose every word may bless.
I've made my watchword stewardship, not war.
Inside me is the Earth's last wilderness.
It stares out of my mirror, shadowed, vast,
and dares me to make more than what I've been.
I will dig deep, and build myself to last,
to write upon the world what's wrought within.
I pray I'll have the strength to still my spade
when some green seedling interrupts my eye.
Let me throw over everything I've made
to leave that center open to the sky.
If God is love, and all these things are true,
then make yourself. Then make yourself anew.
expectation
This poem was a birthday present for Biljana, one of the ladies who works at the Starbucks in my store. Last week I'd read "composition" to her right after I wrote it. She really liked it, and since her birthday was this week she asked me to write one for and about her. I accepted with glee! She just turned either 19 or 20 (I forget XD) but this sort of touches on most of the things she's shared with me about her life. I made several attempts at a poem for her, none of which really seemed right. On the way to work on the bus yesterday, I finally hammered this out. It ended up being from an emotional place pretty close to things I feel now too, but it's written as though she's the speaker. And she liked it! Win!
Perhaps one day I'll have enough poems by or about people or written by request to have a "poems for people" collection. That would rule.
expectations lie. I've given up
my vision of the time
when the respect I earn is truly mine
when you see what I work so hard to show
when you know what I know. I know
it's too much to expect
the same consideration
I bend over to extend. so I reject
my expectations.
maybe now we can be friends.
since everything you break, you buy,
now that I'm done expecting, I
can only hope, and try to see
in you what you won't view in me.
I'm young, but I still have the power
to fight for every working hour
to reach for love like every flower
turns its face to the sun.
don't bother getting in my face
I doubt you have the time to waste
it's my--and no one else's--place
to tell me when I'm done.
and I am done with expectations--
yours or mine, small or great.
I'll overcome my situation.
just you wait.
Perhaps one day I'll have enough poems by or about people or written by request to have a "poems for people" collection. That would rule.
expectations lie. I've given up
my vision of the time
when the respect I earn is truly mine
when you see what I work so hard to show
when you know what I know. I know
it's too much to expect
the same consideration
I bend over to extend. so I reject
my expectations.
maybe now we can be friends.
since everything you break, you buy,
now that I'm done expecting, I
can only hope, and try to see
in you what you won't view in me.
I'm young, but I still have the power
to fight for every working hour
to reach for love like every flower
turns its face to the sun.
don't bother getting in my face
I doubt you have the time to waste
it's my--and no one else's--place
to tell me when I'm done.
and I am done with expectations--
yours or mine, small or great.
I'll overcome my situation.
just you wait.
cherubim of the lord
Seriously, this never happens.
I wrote a song about a current event. I didn't mean to write a song about the oil spill. It really is about Deep Horizon--that news makes me angry and sad whenever I think about it. But it uses that horrific disaster as a way of describing any preventable disaster, anything I in my own foolishness could have stopped from happening but chose to ignore until it was too late. In fact it was my doubleplusungood times at my new day job the week before last that got this one started. And not so coincidentally gave me the right mental state for it. Mentally, I took solace in saying to Mandy in a fantasized exit interview, "well, you did help me to realize that 'cherubim of the lord' rhymes with 'omnidirectional sword.' "
After that, though, the single line (on a single note) "cherubim of the lord" was all I had for a couple of weeks. Somewhere in there I got the "we're on the inside of Eden" couplet--yet still the song refused to gel. To crystallize, if you will. I started to worry this would be another one like "teeth of the storm", which is still my record-holder for longest time between the arrival of the central line and the rest of the song, at slightly over two years.
So I was giddily relieved yesterday morning, and indeed spent some time jumping up and down going "whee! ha ha ha!". A little three-note triplet started to sound in my head as I brushed my teeth, and five seconds into it I knew exactly what it was for. A flat, B flat, C, over and over and over. The triplet holds steady but the way the song's rhythm phases around it tranforms with every line. And not just the first four lines but all the final repetitions of "cherubim..." are all sung on G natural, so the triplet itself as well as the thundering chord changes going on behind it are totally necessary to keep it interesting. Sort of a musical representation of something the song only hints at.
Orders of angels are something I have learned about variously and sundrily, so the concept of a cherubim is a pretty robust one in my mind. (Later I will look up my previous post on the subject for more info.) Cherubim are neither chubby happy babies nor angels who appear shouting "Fear not!" Angels shout "fear not" when they want you to stay where you are and listen. When a cherubim arrives it is there to DO something, and even as the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom, one of the subsidiary lessons is that when a cherubim shows up, it is wise to haul ass out of its way. The other title of this order of angels is "the strong". Not the sort of strength that comes from bulging muscles or massive metal beams, but the strong nuclear force that binds quarks together into elementary particles, the weight of the moon's mass which tugs the ocean up away from its resting place in the deeps of the earth, the forces of gravity and potential energy that pull a tree crashing over onto the forest floor even when no one is around to hear it.
This is going to be a massively difficult song to sing, play, and--unless I do it exactly right--even tough on the ear. There are momentum changes almost every line, and most of the rising action happens in a lengthy instrumental bridge between "...fruit of the forbidden tree" and "if we have no home...." I'll need either lots and lots of layered tracks or a really good piano player to make that part work. However, if I DO manage to get it exactly right and it can sound in real life the way it does in my mind, it will be amazing.
(edit 5/20/12: Updated the lyrics slightly to match the version I recorded last week. W00t!)
oil under the water, poison under the words
oil under the water, poison under the words
we beg forgiveness, but never alter
we beg forgiveness and are ignored
she holds and never wavers, falters
holds and never wavers, falters
holds and never wavers, falters
an omnidirectional sword
you drilled down, down to where cold blood bled black
you built a cage for fire and turned your back
it rusted through
because of you
it gushes through
it trusted you
you know you knew
you know you knew
what would you have her do
what would you have her do
this ain't some story you're readin'
it's your breath and your flesh and your sea
we're on the inside of Eden
we're the fruit of the forbidden tree
if we have no home left to return to
it's cause we've been hacking away the foundation
god's messenger comes with no vengeance
she comes with only mass times acceleration
if I brought on the tempest
throw me overboard
to my earned consequences
the cherubim of the lord
the cherubim of the lord
the cherubim of the lord
the cherubim of the lord
I wrote a song about a current event. I didn't mean to write a song about the oil spill. It really is about Deep Horizon--that news makes me angry and sad whenever I think about it. But it uses that horrific disaster as a way of describing any preventable disaster, anything I in my own foolishness could have stopped from happening but chose to ignore until it was too late. In fact it was my doubleplusungood times at my new day job the week before last that got this one started. And not so coincidentally gave me the right mental state for it. Mentally, I took solace in saying to Mandy in a fantasized exit interview, "well, you did help me to realize that 'cherubim of the lord' rhymes with 'omnidirectional sword.' "
After that, though, the single line (on a single note) "cherubim of the lord" was all I had for a couple of weeks. Somewhere in there I got the "we're on the inside of Eden" couplet--yet still the song refused to gel. To crystallize, if you will. I started to worry this would be another one like "teeth of the storm", which is still my record-holder for longest time between the arrival of the central line and the rest of the song, at slightly over two years.
So I was giddily relieved yesterday morning, and indeed spent some time jumping up and down going "whee! ha ha ha!". A little three-note triplet started to sound in my head as I brushed my teeth, and five seconds into it I knew exactly what it was for. A flat, B flat, C, over and over and over. The triplet holds steady but the way the song's rhythm phases around it tranforms with every line. And not just the first four lines but all the final repetitions of "cherubim..." are all sung on G natural, so the triplet itself as well as the thundering chord changes going on behind it are totally necessary to keep it interesting. Sort of a musical representation of something the song only hints at.
Orders of angels are something I have learned about variously and sundrily, so the concept of a cherubim is a pretty robust one in my mind. (Later I will look up my previous post on the subject for more info.) Cherubim are neither chubby happy babies nor angels who appear shouting "Fear not!" Angels shout "fear not" when they want you to stay where you are and listen. When a cherubim arrives it is there to DO something, and even as the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom, one of the subsidiary lessons is that when a cherubim shows up, it is wise to haul ass out of its way. The other title of this order of angels is "the strong". Not the sort of strength that comes from bulging muscles or massive metal beams, but the strong nuclear force that binds quarks together into elementary particles, the weight of the moon's mass which tugs the ocean up away from its resting place in the deeps of the earth, the forces of gravity and potential energy that pull a tree crashing over onto the forest floor even when no one is around to hear it.
This is going to be a massively difficult song to sing, play, and--unless I do it exactly right--even tough on the ear. There are momentum changes almost every line, and most of the rising action happens in a lengthy instrumental bridge between "...fruit of the forbidden tree" and "if we have no home...." I'll need either lots and lots of layered tracks or a really good piano player to make that part work. However, if I DO manage to get it exactly right and it can sound in real life the way it does in my mind, it will be amazing.
(edit 5/20/12: Updated the lyrics slightly to match the version I recorded last week. W00t!)
oil under the water, poison under the words
oil under the water, poison under the words
we beg forgiveness, but never alter
we beg forgiveness and are ignored
she holds and never wavers, falters
holds and never wavers, falters
holds and never wavers, falters
an omnidirectional sword
you drilled down, down to where cold blood bled black
you built a cage for fire and turned your back
it rusted through
because of you
it gushes through
it trusted you
you know you knew
you know you knew
what would you have her do
what would you have her do
this ain't some story you're readin'
it's your breath and your flesh and your sea
we're on the inside of Eden
we're the fruit of the forbidden tree
if we have no home left to return to
it's cause we've been hacking away the foundation
god's messenger comes with no vengeance
she comes with only mass times acceleration
if I brought on the tempest
throw me overboard
to my earned consequences
the cherubim of the lord
the cherubim of the lord
the cherubim of the lord
the cherubim of the lord
composition
Whenever I do a one-word title, the poem is meant as both a definition and a demonstration in text.
Today was my second day in a row of working both the jobs i have right now, and since I made the mistake of staying up past my bedtime last night to play Civ (silly girl!), I woke up dead tired. First job let me out a little early, so I had time to go sit in the library across the street from the grocery store before my shift there began. I've been reading a lovely book called "The Rest Is Noise" about classical composers of the 20th century, but I didn't feel like taking it out and reading it. And checking out another book seemed like overkill when I've got one with which I'm almost finished. Tired both emotionally and physically, the only thing I could think of to do is write. Start with stream of consciousness and hammer it into a coherent thoughtspace as it goes along. In college I would have just snuck off to the woods and sung "Time" by Phil Ochs (Tori version); the best I could do here was quote it, towards the end. Homage, baby; it's a form of currency!
This time, this brief moment in my life, is a time I've been calling "everything happens at once time." Where many strands of development, growth and work all rise into manifestation together--where I find out what I'm really made of and whether the work I've been doing is substantive or foolish. What things are made of is their composition.
So I know poems shouldn't need introductions; they should be able to speak for themselves. And the weirder, the less formally structured the poem, the more that applies. This is because when you step outside conventional forms, by that act of abnegation you declare the thing you are trying to express to be greater than the form. To be worth abandoning form in order to get across. If the work itself fails to reach anyone, then you have failed as a maker. You have made something which is self-indulgence and only qualifies as art because intention counts.
All this to say, if this introduction is artistically superfluous, let's just consider it a hidden part of the poem that doesn't get read when I read it aloud. Or when you do, cause it sounds much, much better that way. Trust me on this.
before my engine starves, I'll carve,
I'll carve mind out of time
make it mine, make it fun, get it done.
like some mumbling turtlenecked composer
loops a tape of tables falling over and over
and wriggles between the cascading layers
of noise, noise, blankets himself, buries
the world in the sound
of the sound of the world buried
under its own secret structure.
let me roll over and fold a warm
coverlet over myself.
sleep is food and food is sleep
and fuel is fuel is fuel to keep
the engines in my ribs and head
primed, churning, turning out of bed
now this machine I've been seems natural
now all the regulations I ingest
seem, not assumptions, but chaste, factual
a cat which purrs, claws kneading at my chest
but some of it is lies! I spy surprise
disguised as expectation, meter bleeding into freeverse,
false assumptions buried
in true memory, unremembered things
mute, tugging at cut strings.
where is our engine now, they howl.
where is our engine now.
I said I lived to find the door
that opens, pouring out gold light
it may be true, but more, but more
true is that I must live to write
must build me a machine
build a machine in me
or one will grow soon as I turn my back
clickety-clack
clickety clack
for I know and I know and I know
I go too slow, too slow, too slow
if I let speed, vibrations shake me,
rattle me apart, I'll have to start
over again, pink, naked in a mountain
of switches and levers and cold blunt
angled metal shapes wound through
with vine, live mice in bent wheels, tangles
of wire that wave their twisted little ends
like worm-heads probing for soft
cool earth or the roots of plants in
hyperfast stop-motion. this machine lives.
even the dead parts live; it thirsts, I thirst
I am hungry and tired and I crave
every element
tungsten and water, hydrogen and sunlight,
plasma and iron and the sound of a violin
played on a subway platform in a dream.
sleep is food and dreams fuel the machine
that manufactures dreams
that I ratchet together with wet spare parts,
screwdrivers and twine, bloody calluses
and time, time, time that you love
and it's time, time, time
to pour into the ground and lay down
till it blooms
it blooms
Today was my second day in a row of working both the jobs i have right now, and since I made the mistake of staying up past my bedtime last night to play Civ (silly girl!), I woke up dead tired. First job let me out a little early, so I had time to go sit in the library across the street from the grocery store before my shift there began. I've been reading a lovely book called "The Rest Is Noise" about classical composers of the 20th century, but I didn't feel like taking it out and reading it. And checking out another book seemed like overkill when I've got one with which I'm almost finished. Tired both emotionally and physically, the only thing I could think of to do is write. Start with stream of consciousness and hammer it into a coherent thoughtspace as it goes along. In college I would have just snuck off to the woods and sung "Time" by Phil Ochs (Tori version); the best I could do here was quote it, towards the end. Homage, baby; it's a form of currency!
This time, this brief moment in my life, is a time I've been calling "everything happens at once time." Where many strands of development, growth and work all rise into manifestation together--where I find out what I'm really made of and whether the work I've been doing is substantive or foolish. What things are made of is their composition.
So I know poems shouldn't need introductions; they should be able to speak for themselves. And the weirder, the less formally structured the poem, the more that applies. This is because when you step outside conventional forms, by that act of abnegation you declare the thing you are trying to express to be greater than the form. To be worth abandoning form in order to get across. If the work itself fails to reach anyone, then you have failed as a maker. You have made something which is self-indulgence and only qualifies as art because intention counts.
All this to say, if this introduction is artistically superfluous, let's just consider it a hidden part of the poem that doesn't get read when I read it aloud. Or when you do, cause it sounds much, much better that way. Trust me on this.
before my engine starves, I'll carve,
I'll carve mind out of time
make it mine, make it fun, get it done.
like some mumbling turtlenecked composer
loops a tape of tables falling over and over
and wriggles between the cascading layers
of noise, noise, blankets himself, buries
the world in the sound
of the sound of the world buried
under its own secret structure.
let me roll over and fold a warm
coverlet over myself.
sleep is food and food is sleep
and fuel is fuel is fuel to keep
the engines in my ribs and head
primed, churning, turning out of bed
now this machine I've been seems natural
now all the regulations I ingest
seem, not assumptions, but chaste, factual
a cat which purrs, claws kneading at my chest
but some of it is lies! I spy surprise
disguised as expectation, meter bleeding into freeverse,
false assumptions buried
in true memory, unremembered things
mute, tugging at cut strings.
where is our engine now, they howl.
where is our engine now.
I said I lived to find the door
that opens, pouring out gold light
it may be true, but more, but more
true is that I must live to write
must build me a machine
build a machine in me
or one will grow soon as I turn my back
clickety-clack
clickety clack
for I know and I know and I know
I go too slow, too slow, too slow
if I let speed, vibrations shake me,
rattle me apart, I'll have to start
over again, pink, naked in a mountain
of switches and levers and cold blunt
angled metal shapes wound through
with vine, live mice in bent wheels, tangles
of wire that wave their twisted little ends
like worm-heads probing for soft
cool earth or the roots of plants in
hyperfast stop-motion. this machine lives.
even the dead parts live; it thirsts, I thirst
I am hungry and tired and I crave
every element
tungsten and water, hydrogen and sunlight,
plasma and iron and the sound of a violin
played on a subway platform in a dream.
sleep is food and dreams fuel the machine
that manufactures dreams
that I ratchet together with wet spare parts,
screwdrivers and twine, bloody calluses
and time, time, time that you love
and it's time, time, time
to pour into the ground and lay down
till it blooms
it blooms
harvest of grace
My Grandma Jule sent me an awesome birthday card with a cool poem in it. I say cool because usually poems in cards are dreck, but this one was very much not dreck. It was a really thoughtful thing for her to do. All the more so because a) the pick-me-up was extremely welcome in this crazy everything-happens-at-once time, and b) she just survived a "small" heart attack and is adjusting to lifestyle changes, meds--all the stuff we all dislike medical issues for. Therefore I wrote her a poem. She'll get the original in the mail in a few days, but here for your (and perhaps her, if she gets online time) viewing pleasure is the e-text version.
Cause everyone needs a pick-me-up. Especially awesome grandmothers one doesn't get to see nearly often enough.
come on, give me a shove
so I'll do what I must
I'm one bright spark of love
gently breathed into dust
songbirds perched out of sight
and wet dew on the lawn
sing and wink in the light
and beckon me, "Come on,
don't be discouraged! Not
when the worm wriggles loose,
or the sun burns too hot
for the rain on your roots.
"There are seeds in the fields;
water deep in the soil.
We are nourished, and yield
without labor or toil."
so as I face this day
in my own little place
let me yield, and make way
for a harvest of grace.
Cause everyone needs a pick-me-up. Especially awesome grandmothers one doesn't get to see nearly often enough.
come on, give me a shove
so I'll do what I must
I'm one bright spark of love
gently breathed into dust
songbirds perched out of sight
and wet dew on the lawn
sing and wink in the light
and beckon me, "Come on,
don't be discouraged! Not
when the worm wriggles loose,
or the sun burns too hot
for the rain on your roots.
"There are seeds in the fields;
water deep in the soil.
We are nourished, and yield
without labor or toil."
so as I face this day
in my own little place
let me yield, and make way
for a harvest of grace.
birthday sonnet smash!
This was an exceedingly good birthday weekend. Open mic at the Theosophical Society was lots of fun (Though Paula did read the entire Dr. Seuss birthday book, which made me cringe but was very kindly meant and I appreciated it as such.) Lovely happy birthday calls, and even presents of the timely and excellent sort!
This sonnet I actually started on the 26th. I finished it on the 29th, though, so it may as well be in honor of my birthday--since like all good sonnets I've written it doesn't seem to have a title. Who knows why that is! The idea for it came together on a day when I'd gotten out early from first-job. I decided to use that extra time to sit around on the sidewalk basking in the sunlight before I got on the train and headed for second job. Started out meaning to read a book, but after awhile I just relaxed and enjoyed the moment. Felt like I was sitting in my own comfy attic chair and not on a busy city sidewalk--except it clearly was a busy city sidewalk. Just felt that much at home there. Good times. Oh! And the poem quotes one of the pastors from the days when we attended Belmont Assembly of God--his name escapes me, but the saying "it came to pass--it did not come to stay" has stuck in my memory lo, these many years.
The poem doesn't quite work for Memorial Day, which is today. So instead I will hope for a solemn-but-happy, dignified and meaningful Memorial Day for everyone. May you be surrounded by living love and loving memory!
Chicago sun, bake, make my soul concrete,
which, everywhere you set your foot, you find.
Not like these stubbed-out butts which haunt the street
or old receipts with which trash bins are lined.
Here, that which holds up nothing, nothing tends.
A trainless track rusts, crumbles, leaved with grass.
What weight will rumble down me--to what end?
Wring me out. For the time will come--to pass;
it cannot come to stay--that I must hold
one shape against the weight of feet and light.
Now I rest, wet, new-poured into the mold.
Noon sun, stretch out your moving fingers. Write.
Draw out the stone within, which--secret, strong--
will hold me solid as the road is long.
This sonnet I actually started on the 26th. I finished it on the 29th, though, so it may as well be in honor of my birthday--since like all good sonnets I've written it doesn't seem to have a title. Who knows why that is! The idea for it came together on a day when I'd gotten out early from first-job. I decided to use that extra time to sit around on the sidewalk basking in the sunlight before I got on the train and headed for second job. Started out meaning to read a book, but after awhile I just relaxed and enjoyed the moment. Felt like I was sitting in my own comfy attic chair and not on a busy city sidewalk--except it clearly was a busy city sidewalk. Just felt that much at home there. Good times. Oh! And the poem quotes one of the pastors from the days when we attended Belmont Assembly of God--his name escapes me, but the saying "it came to pass--it did not come to stay" has stuck in my memory lo, these many years.
The poem doesn't quite work for Memorial Day, which is today. So instead I will hope for a solemn-but-happy, dignified and meaningful Memorial Day for everyone. May you be surrounded by living love and loving memory!
Chicago sun, bake, make my soul concrete,
which, everywhere you set your foot, you find.
Not like these stubbed-out butts which haunt the street
or old receipts with which trash bins are lined.
Here, that which holds up nothing, nothing tends.
A trainless track rusts, crumbles, leaved with grass.
What weight will rumble down me--to what end?
Wring me out. For the time will come--to pass;
it cannot come to stay--that I must hold
one shape against the weight of feet and light.
Now I rest, wet, new-poured into the mold.
Noon sun, stretch out your moving fingers. Write.
Draw out the stone within, which--secret, strong--
will hold me solid as the road is long.
my third decent sestina! ever!
My first two were [Persephone and the spider], which was written for a contest on Gaia, and denizen section L. (That's 50 for you non-Roman numeral lovers. I now wonder if my teenage self was making an unconscious pun there. 'Cause denizen is a long, long poem about the descent into madness, and its section numbers go from I to L. Get it? I to hell? XD Okay, it's a terrible pun. Sartre, however, was exactly wrong. Hell is the absence of even the possibility of other people.) So, typically sestinas don't rhyme. Instead they are characterized by the pattern of repeated end-words. Each sestina has six stanzas of six lines each, plus a short three-line stanza at the end called an envoy. All seven of those stanzas must use only the six chosen words at the end--or, in the case of the envoy, in the middle, according to the following pattern:
123456
612345
561234
456123
345612
234561
2/5, 3/4, 6/1
I make them rhyme because I like to, it's harder that way, and I think a really long form poem is boring without rhymes. Homonyms ARE allowed, so bare/bear and wear/where are totally within the rules. If homonyms weren't allowed I doubt any sestina would ever be written. Oh, and yes, I did do some grammatical fudging--there's a bunch of places where I dropped an "or" or "and" without a semicolon. Still understandable...just not totally correct. I call poetic license!
As I just now said to Dave on AIM, I wrote this poem out of a combination of grandiosity and spite. Well, not spite exactly. Someone on the Ankhet forums told me sestinas don't exist, because they typed "sestina" into a search engine and came up dry.
My response was: 1) try "poetic form sestina" (link appended), and 2) was that...a challenge?
So, of course, I had to write one. :D Originally I meant it to be about the person who, ah, instigated its composition, but it ended up about me. Me-as-I-wish-to-be moreso than me-as-I-am, however. Foolish me!
[the explorer]
She took a pair of scissors to the map
till 'here' was shorn, 'there' was no longer there.
She had no ink to scrawl across the gap,
nor pages with brave emptiness to bare.
For she felt sure such knowledge was a trap,
said to herself, "Well, here I am; that's where
my world begins and ends. Should I beware
of dragons at the edges of a map
made by some fool who never journeyed there?"
And so she flung herself into the gap.
She yearned to see, to learn. She could not bear
to be told which paths led on; which were traps.
So, soon or late, she fell into a trap.
She gathered pride (a heavy thing to wear),
pounded it flat. There bloomed a bare new map:
a hint, a note, a hard way out of there.
In those closed walls she found a narrow gap,
sucked in a breath as deep as she could bear
and squeezed through, inch by inch. Until, scraped bare,
she stood outside that first of many traps,
breathless but whole. All she had left was where
that exit lay: her handmade, hard-won map.
Though more than once she found herself back there,
each time again she found that hidden gap.
And so she flung herself into the gap
time and again. And all that she could bear
out of that first and most familiar trap
was her own legend of the route, of where
her steps had wound--her own, her faithful map.
She cursed at first, then laughed to find it there.
Though she took comfort in its presence there,
each time she flung herself into the gap,
deep in her bones the landscape bloomed, laid bare
by constant travel--each wide path, each trap.
One day she found a fresh explorer there.
She laughed--remembered--gave away her map.
Use scissors there. My scrawling is a trap
till knowledge inks the gap wisdom scrapes bare
within you. Journey, earn; become the map.
123456
612345
561234
456123
345612
234561
2/5, 3/4, 6/1
I make them rhyme because I like to, it's harder that way, and I think a really long form poem is boring without rhymes. Homonyms ARE allowed, so bare/bear and wear/where are totally within the rules. If homonyms weren't allowed I doubt any sestina would ever be written. Oh, and yes, I did do some grammatical fudging--there's a bunch of places where I dropped an "or" or "and" without a semicolon. Still understandable...just not totally correct. I call poetic license!
As I just now said to Dave on AIM, I wrote this poem out of a combination of grandiosity and spite. Well, not spite exactly. Someone on the Ankhet forums told me sestinas don't exist, because they typed "sestina" into a search engine and came up dry.
My response was: 1) try "poetic form sestina" (link appended), and 2) was that...a challenge?
So, of course, I had to write one. :D Originally I meant it to be about the person who, ah, instigated its composition, but it ended up about me. Me-as-I-wish-to-be moreso than me-as-I-am, however. Foolish me!
[the explorer]
She took a pair of scissors to the map
till 'here' was shorn, 'there' was no longer there.
She had no ink to scrawl across the gap,
nor pages with brave emptiness to bare.
For she felt sure such knowledge was a trap,
said to herself, "Well, here I am; that's where
my world begins and ends. Should I beware
of dragons at the edges of a map
made by some fool who never journeyed there?"
And so she flung herself into the gap.
She yearned to see, to learn. She could not bear
to be told which paths led on; which were traps.
So, soon or late, she fell into a trap.
She gathered pride (a heavy thing to wear),
pounded it flat. There bloomed a bare new map:
a hint, a note, a hard way out of there.
In those closed walls she found a narrow gap,
sucked in a breath as deep as she could bear
and squeezed through, inch by inch. Until, scraped bare,
she stood outside that first of many traps,
breathless but whole. All she had left was where
that exit lay: her handmade, hard-won map.
Though more than once she found herself back there,
each time again she found that hidden gap.
And so she flung herself into the gap
time and again. And all that she could bear
out of that first and most familiar trap
was her own legend of the route, of where
her steps had wound--her own, her faithful map.
She cursed at first, then laughed to find it there.
Though she took comfort in its presence there,
each time she flung herself into the gap,
deep in her bones the landscape bloomed, laid bare
by constant travel--each wide path, each trap.
One day she found a fresh explorer there.
She laughed--remembered--gave away her map.
Use scissors there. My scrawling is a trap
till knowledge inks the gap wisdom scrapes bare
within you. Journey, earn; become the map.
inside outside
Sigh. Yet another set of lyrics.
So, I have a job interview tomorrow. If that doesn't work out, I am next in line for a full-time slot on the morning shift. One of the morning ladies is moving back to the old country as soon as her house sells. Either way, my situation is likely to change in the next few weeks.
Hence, another one of those songs about making tough changes. I think it really, really, really loses a lot as just a set of lyrics. However, till I get a mic that hooks up to my compy somehow, this is what I've got. Even if it is time to leave, at least I got something substantial from all my time working with slicers and knives!
the blade is the intimate thing
nothing made is made till it gets into it,
gets into it, gets into it
the blade is the intimate thing
everything it touches is surfaces,
surfaces naked
I know you, I know you
inside, I bring your
inside outside
I know you, I know you
inside, outside
the hand feels what it's touching's touching
underneath the surfaces another layer
listens, glistens, whispers like a prayer
however hard I pound and scratch
or soft, caress it I can't catch
a glimpse of it, no splinter of it
pierces through and I can't make it
I feel you, I feel you
inside, please bring what's
inside outside
I feel you, I feel you
inside, outside
throw me in the flames
pump the bellows hard
let my every surface burn to ash
and melt a puddle from the shards
pour me in the mold
draw me out with tongs
hammer, hammer, hammer, fold
hammer, hammer, hammer, fold
hammer, hammer, hammer, fold
hammer, hammer, hammer, fold
however long, however long, however long
it takes to bring
my inside outside
inside outside
inside outside
till when struck I sing
I'm the intimate thing
the intimate thing
So, I have a job interview tomorrow. If that doesn't work out, I am next in line for a full-time slot on the morning shift. One of the morning ladies is moving back to the old country as soon as her house sells. Either way, my situation is likely to change in the next few weeks.
Hence, another one of those songs about making tough changes. I think it really, really, really loses a lot as just a set of lyrics. However, till I get a mic that hooks up to my compy somehow, this is what I've got. Even if it is time to leave, at least I got something substantial from all my time working with slicers and knives!
the blade is the intimate thing
nothing made is made till it gets into it,
gets into it, gets into it
the blade is the intimate thing
everything it touches is surfaces,
surfaces naked
I know you, I know you
inside, I bring your
inside outside
I know you, I know you
inside, outside
the hand feels what it's touching's touching
underneath the surfaces another layer
listens, glistens, whispers like a prayer
however hard I pound and scratch
or soft, caress it I can't catch
a glimpse of it, no splinter of it
pierces through and I can't make it
I feel you, I feel you
inside, please bring what's
inside outside
I feel you, I feel you
inside, outside
throw me in the flames
pump the bellows hard
let my every surface burn to ash
and melt a puddle from the shards
pour me in the mold
draw me out with tongs
hammer, hammer, hammer, fold
hammer, hammer, hammer, fold
hammer, hammer, hammer, fold
hammer, hammer, hammer, fold
however long, however long, however long
it takes to bring
my inside outside
inside outside
inside outside
till when struck I sing
I'm the intimate thing
the intimate thing
pop music at my store: doing it wrong and doing it right
This is a post I've been meaning to do for awhile. Given that I'm starting it at about midnight (by the way--my new power cord works! my compy is back! huzzah!), it counts as both Monday and Tuesday.
At work, there is a computer upstairs which has a large playlist of songs on permanent shuffle. Most of these songs are pleasant enough. There are just a few, however, which stick in my craw. The one I have mentioned most often is a song by the band Simple Plan called "Welcome to My Life." For those of you not curious enough, or too wise, to follow the link to the full lyrics, here's the first verse and chorus:
---
Do you ever feel like breaking down?
Do you ever feel out of place?
Like somehow you just don't belong
And no one understands you
Do you ever wanna runaway?
Do you lock yourself in your room?
With the radio on turned up so loud
That no one hears you screaming
No you don't know what it's like
When nothing feels all right
You don't know what it's like
To be like me
To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life
---
Awhile ago Amber explained to me the true definition of "scandal". In Catholic parlance, a scandal is something which encourages others to sin.
This particular set of lyrics is scandalous, to me, in the extreme. It encourages people to feel self-pity and resentment, and to cut themselves off from others. It promotes a bitter state of mind in which a person makes the whole world their enemy because they are feeling lonely and depressed.
It asserts that when you're feeling lonely and depressed, the solution is to isolate yourself from others and sulk among your many possessions. Also, the best way to make others like and respect you more is to angrily inform them they cannot possibly relate to the emotional pain you are experiencing. Oh, without leaving any room for the possibility that others might also experience emotional pain.
For goodness' sake, the speaker in this song has a room of his own with a door that locks. He has a radio which he can turn up to scream-drowning-out volume, presumably without adverse consequences. How many of the listeners who hear--and we may assume, empathize with--these selfish assertions lack those same comforts?
That's really the irony, though. That this song whose main message is, "wah, wah, you don't understand me and I'm all alone and will wallow in my misery" is popular because people empathize with it. In other words, many, many people can understand precisely "what it's like" because they share the same feelings of isolation and loneliness. Thus the fact that the song is popular enough to make it onto my store's iTunes refutes its main premise.
Here is another song, also on the playlist at work, which approaches almost the same set of feelings but does so in a way which is much more positive. It is "Story of my Life" by Smashmouth.
---
I get to the party, but I'm too late
And I got stood up on my very first date
I listen to country and everybody goes rock
I get to the dance floor, that's when the music stops
It doesn't matter what I do, I just can't seem to win
But here I go again
And I say
Hey that's the story of my life
I had a good plan but it didn't go right
Oh no I'm overdrawn
I check my account and the money's all gone
Why me I don't know what to think
I finally get aboard and the whole boat sinks
Seems to be the story of my life
---
Here the speaker takes an almost amused attitude towards his misfortunes. He doesn't accuse others of not being able to understand his misfortunes; rather, he describes them and implicitly invites others to share in his frustration. This is reinforced by the fact that multiple voices chime in to sing the chorus, mimicking the internal voices of listeners who see their own stories reflected in the words to the song.
There's really not much in the way of instruction or even encouragement in this song--not in so many words. Instead it comforts those who are experiencing frustration and loneliness with the message that they are not alone, that their frustration is universal. Also, I like to think there's a certain amount of self-aware irony here. "Sure, I've got troubles just like these," the listener is meant to think. "Yet the guy who wrote this is a famous musician who probably has lots of money and a hot girlfriend, so maybe things won't stay this bad!"
Which is what pop music is supposed to be all about. It doesn't make you think very hard, doesn't shake up your mind or wring out your deepest emotions. It just makes you feel a little better and a little more able to face the frustrations of the day.
At work, there is a computer upstairs which has a large playlist of songs on permanent shuffle. Most of these songs are pleasant enough. There are just a few, however, which stick in my craw. The one I have mentioned most often is a song by the band Simple Plan called "Welcome to My Life." For those of you not curious enough, or too wise, to follow the link to the full lyrics, here's the first verse and chorus:
---
Do you ever feel like breaking down?
Do you ever feel out of place?
Like somehow you just don't belong
And no one understands you
Do you ever wanna runaway?
Do you lock yourself in your room?
With the radio on turned up so loud
That no one hears you screaming
No you don't know what it's like
When nothing feels all right
You don't know what it's like
To be like me
To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life
---
Awhile ago Amber explained to me the true definition of "scandal". In Catholic parlance, a scandal is something which encourages others to sin.
This particular set of lyrics is scandalous, to me, in the extreme. It encourages people to feel self-pity and resentment, and to cut themselves off from others. It promotes a bitter state of mind in which a person makes the whole world their enemy because they are feeling lonely and depressed.
It asserts that when you're feeling lonely and depressed, the solution is to isolate yourself from others and sulk among your many possessions. Also, the best way to make others like and respect you more is to angrily inform them they cannot possibly relate to the emotional pain you are experiencing. Oh, without leaving any room for the possibility that others might also experience emotional pain.
For goodness' sake, the speaker in this song has a room of his own with a door that locks. He has a radio which he can turn up to scream-drowning-out volume, presumably without adverse consequences. How many of the listeners who hear--and we may assume, empathize with--these selfish assertions lack those same comforts?
That's really the irony, though. That this song whose main message is, "wah, wah, you don't understand me and I'm all alone and will wallow in my misery" is popular because people empathize with it. In other words, many, many people can understand precisely "what it's like" because they share the same feelings of isolation and loneliness. Thus the fact that the song is popular enough to make it onto my store's iTunes refutes its main premise.
Here is another song, also on the playlist at work, which approaches almost the same set of feelings but does so in a way which is much more positive. It is "Story of my Life" by Smashmouth.
---
I get to the party, but I'm too late
And I got stood up on my very first date
I listen to country and everybody goes rock
I get to the dance floor, that's when the music stops
It doesn't matter what I do, I just can't seem to win
But here I go again
And I say
Hey that's the story of my life
I had a good plan but it didn't go right
Oh no I'm overdrawn
I check my account and the money's all gone
Why me I don't know what to think
I finally get aboard and the whole boat sinks
Seems to be the story of my life
---
Here the speaker takes an almost amused attitude towards his misfortunes. He doesn't accuse others of not being able to understand his misfortunes; rather, he describes them and implicitly invites others to share in his frustration. This is reinforced by the fact that multiple voices chime in to sing the chorus, mimicking the internal voices of listeners who see their own stories reflected in the words to the song.
There's really not much in the way of instruction or even encouragement in this song--not in so many words. Instead it comforts those who are experiencing frustration and loneliness with the message that they are not alone, that their frustration is universal. Also, I like to think there's a certain amount of self-aware irony here. "Sure, I've got troubles just like these," the listener is meant to think. "Yet the guy who wrote this is a famous musician who probably has lots of money and a hot girlfriend, so maybe things won't stay this bad!"
Which is what pop music is supposed to be all about. It doesn't make you think very hard, doesn't shake up your mind or wring out your deepest emotions. It just makes you feel a little better and a little more able to face the frustrations of the day.
right-thinking individuals
A quick couple things before I post up the latest set of lyrics.
My laptop may be dead. It might be the power cord, or the joint inside the computer to which the power cord connects. If the former, I've got a new one coming in the mail soon; if the latter, I am a very sad panda. XD
One of the quotes from the poem by Megan below:
Her writings back again, better than ever.
For a while there is had begun to wither.
Happiness had taken hold.
But now her heart is black and cold.
--reminded me of something I was discussing with Myke in our last email volley. It is a common misconception among writers, especially poets, and especially when they are first learning their craft. Namely, the idea that one has to suffer or be depressed in order to get artistic inpiration. Myke and I had agreed that while suffering is sometimes a catalyst to inspiration, it is not exactly necessary. Last night I was talking the subject over with Dave, and his opinion was, as usual, succinct and to the point: You don't have to be suffering or depressed "right now" in order to be inspired. But you have to have had the experience, in order to contrast it with whatever you're writing, in order to have a wide enough perspective to write well.
On to the song I'm posting today. I wrote it oh, perhaps a week ago, and for the life of me I don't know why I haven't posted it up till now.
There's an episode of The Twilight Zone called "He's Alive!" which I highly recommend to anyone, anywhere, but especially people living in America right now. The story is of a disaffected and fearful young man whose only real friend is an elderly gentleman who witnessed the horrors of Hitler's Nazi regime. When the young man begins to believe he is being counseled in his quest for political power by a mysterious stranger, the elderly man warns him repeatedly that he is traveling down a road towards evil, and that he will not find happiness there. I won't spoil the whole plot, but there are some fantastic lines in it--and some eerie echoes of some of the madness that's happening in our own country today. Evil grows out of irrational fears. Or even rational ones which have been twisted by opportunistic villains into the shape of the Other, the Foreigner, the [insert person of opposing ideology].
Last night, watching BBC news, I saw a story on a European country which was about to pass a law making full-face-covering burqas illegal. They interviewed a Muslim woman who said, "There are Taliban who say that one woman without a burqa is a woman too many. These politicians are saying one woman with a burqa is a woman too many. I see them as two different kinds of dangerous extremism." Well said, ma'am, well said. Playing on people's fears to make ordinary citizens suspicious and distrustful of one another is NOT going to help any nation in the world pull itself together in this time of worldwide difficulty. Right now, though, I just hope no other states of America follow Arizona's bad example.
Poetry might not help much, but at least if it's good poetry it isn't going to hurt anything either!
Here is a song about mob rule.
[right-thinking individuals]
right-thinking individuals
they crowd around your door
the first round left them drooling, darling
now they're back for more
the war you feared is actual
but you just pour on the charm
they're right-thinking individuals
you don't care enough to arm
right-thinking individuals
they dance to your design
their wild excesses aren't yours
say you who drew no lines
it was you who turned their soggy
mediocrity to wine
they're right-thinking individuals
you don't trouble to define
past I agree with you
and you agree with me
so let's go after everyone
who sees things differently
right-thinking individuals
march out against your foes
you wave your hands and smile at them
like you're the one who knows
what they'll do when they drop those signs
and bare their vengeful souls
they're right-thinking individuals
that nobody controls
unthinking individuals
that nobody controls
My laptop may be dead. It might be the power cord, or the joint inside the computer to which the power cord connects. If the former, I've got a new one coming in the mail soon; if the latter, I am a very sad panda. XD
One of the quotes from the poem by Megan below:
Her writings back again, better than ever.
For a while there is had begun to wither.
Happiness had taken hold.
But now her heart is black and cold.
--reminded me of something I was discussing with Myke in our last email volley. It is a common misconception among writers, especially poets, and especially when they are first learning their craft. Namely, the idea that one has to suffer or be depressed in order to get artistic inpiration. Myke and I had agreed that while suffering is sometimes a catalyst to inspiration, it is not exactly necessary. Last night I was talking the subject over with Dave, and his opinion was, as usual, succinct and to the point: You don't have to be suffering or depressed "right now" in order to be inspired. But you have to have had the experience, in order to contrast it with whatever you're writing, in order to have a wide enough perspective to write well.
On to the song I'm posting today. I wrote it oh, perhaps a week ago, and for the life of me I don't know why I haven't posted it up till now.
There's an episode of The Twilight Zone called "He's Alive!" which I highly recommend to anyone, anywhere, but especially people living in America right now. The story is of a disaffected and fearful young man whose only real friend is an elderly gentleman who witnessed the horrors of Hitler's Nazi regime. When the young man begins to believe he is being counseled in his quest for political power by a mysterious stranger, the elderly man warns him repeatedly that he is traveling down a road towards evil, and that he will not find happiness there. I won't spoil the whole plot, but there are some fantastic lines in it--and some eerie echoes of some of the madness that's happening in our own country today. Evil grows out of irrational fears. Or even rational ones which have been twisted by opportunistic villains into the shape of the Other, the Foreigner, the [insert person of opposing ideology].
Last night, watching BBC news, I saw a story on a European country which was about to pass a law making full-face-covering burqas illegal. They interviewed a Muslim woman who said, "There are Taliban who say that one woman without a burqa is a woman too many. These politicians are saying one woman with a burqa is a woman too many. I see them as two different kinds of dangerous extremism." Well said, ma'am, well said. Playing on people's fears to make ordinary citizens suspicious and distrustful of one another is NOT going to help any nation in the world pull itself together in this time of worldwide difficulty. Right now, though, I just hope no other states of America follow Arizona's bad example.
Poetry might not help much, but at least if it's good poetry it isn't going to hurt anything either!
Here is a song about mob rule.
[right-thinking individuals]
right-thinking individuals
they crowd around your door
the first round left them drooling, darling
now they're back for more
the war you feared is actual
but you just pour on the charm
they're right-thinking individuals
you don't care enough to arm
right-thinking individuals
they dance to your design
their wild excesses aren't yours
say you who drew no lines
it was you who turned their soggy
mediocrity to wine
they're right-thinking individuals
you don't trouble to define
past I agree with you
and you agree with me
so let's go after everyone
who sees things differently
right-thinking individuals
march out against your foes
you wave your hands and smile at them
like you're the one who knows
what they'll do when they drop those signs
and bare their vengeful souls
they're right-thinking individuals
that nobody controls
unthinking individuals
that nobody controls
this is what passes for poetry these days
Okay. This is truly one of those "more in sorrow than in anger" moments. I haven't been back to Quizilla for several years and freely admit it was silly to spend so much time there. User-generated quizzes which ask you things like "Is your favorite color red, blue, yellow or green?" and then say "You are aligned with the element of earth!" if you answer green are...yeah. They're an incredible waste of time and mostly only tell you about the assumptions of the quizmaker.
Apparently, though, this site on which I wasted far too much time while in college has now expanded into another area: user-generated poetry.
These are the most popular poems on Quizilla. Here, for um...my edification, and your, ah...amusement? is the number one top rated poem on that website right now. It is entitled "The Dark Rain of My Miasmic Sou--" oh, wait, no. That's from the Kingdom of Loathing.
Inspiration: The Words Of The Broken Heart
by alexknight629
"Nothing is more powerful than the words of a broken heart.
The best inspiration is found when you truly fall apart. "
The heart of a shattered girl written out on paper.
Written at three in the morning under the light of a single taper.
The tears she sheds as thick as ink.
As her sanity is brought to the brink.
She may not cause herself physical harm.
But for anyone who cares there is still reason for alarm.
Inside, this girl, she's so sick of trying.
Wishing that only she could be dying.
Just read her words, they're written everywhere.
Can't you see she just wants someone to show they care?
But you'll never see the pain she locks inside
All the nights she stayed up and did nothing but cried.
She'll be with you all day,
Pretending everything is okay.
But if you look deep within,
You'd see what lies underneath her grin.
The heart of cold she does not show.
No one really has to know.
Her writings back again, better than ever.
For a while there is had begun to wither.
Happiness had taken hold.
But now her heart is black and cold.
Full of inspiration, Where to start?
Her words as strong as the broken heart.
---
I've run into poetry elsewhere around the blogosphere from time to time--poetry written by adults which was nonetheless not very good. Since leaving Gaia Online, though, I've never had an example of an unpolished work by a 14-year-old with which to explain why poetry is really important. Or rather, teaching people how to write good poetry is important.
People need poetry. We freaking need it. If a human being has sufficient grasp of any language by the time that human being reaches puberty, and has spare time between work, sleep and perhaps dodging bullets to compose it, there is about (guesstimating based on my own unscientific observations) a one in three chance that said human being will generate poetry. Even if they never show it to anyone else.
Poetry is used for taking mental states--the organized structures of emotion, memory, and expectation which provide the foundation for the formulation of thoughts--and altering them. Good poetry enables the writer and reader to do this efficiently, effectively and (I aver) to some worthwhile purpose. Yes, even if that purpose is taking a horrible thought and getting it outside one's mind so as to feel less helpless in the face of it.
This poem is, as I said, not very good. It is far from excellent. It is not, however entirely bad--it uses images somewhat, attempts to make rhymes, and displays a mental state with enough clarity that one can see it to poke at it.
There are times, though, when I wonder if American people who get into poetry writing really think this is all there is. As though the really good stuff written by poets of the times of old is gone forever--or as though there isn't any difference. Dangit, I know I could be better, I know I need to keep working at it. Even though it's a tool I drag out and apply to my mind whenever I face an especially tangly emotional problem, I pay attention to keeping its edges sharp. A scalpel which leaves a jagged edge is not the best thing for delicate surgery; it's likely to promote infection and leave scars.
Is Megan going to get older, though, and just keep writing the same sorts of thing over and over, believing it's good because no one ever says "you know, that pair of rhyme words is kinda boring, maybe also think about scansion a bit"? Will she try to get better, or get bored with poetry and just stop, robbing us of a potentially rather good poet? Would we notice?
I'm pretty sure that not noticing the fact that we don't cultivate our potential good poets or notice when there aren't many says something bad about America. This could, however, just be my personal bias. Also my desire to be paid enough to live off of in exchange for teaching people how to write good poetry. I would love to live in an America, in a Chicago, where this could be the case.
Who knows. XP It's past my bedtime anyway.
Apparently, though, this site on which I wasted far too much time while in college has now expanded into another area: user-generated poetry.
These are the most popular poems on Quizilla. Here, for um...my edification, and your, ah...amusement? is the number one top rated poem on that website right now. It is entitled "The Dark Rain of My Miasmic Sou--" oh, wait, no. That's from the Kingdom of Loathing.
Inspiration: The Words Of The Broken Heart
by alexknight629
"Nothing is more powerful than the words of a broken heart.
The best inspiration is found when you truly fall apart. "
The heart of a shattered girl written out on paper.
Written at three in the morning under the light of a single taper.
The tears she sheds as thick as ink.
As her sanity is brought to the brink.
She may not cause herself physical harm.
But for anyone who cares there is still reason for alarm.
Inside, this girl, she's so sick of trying.
Wishing that only she could be dying.
Just read her words, they're written everywhere.
Can't you see she just wants someone to show they care?
But you'll never see the pain she locks inside
All the nights she stayed up and did nothing but cried.
She'll be with you all day,
Pretending everything is okay.
But if you look deep within,
You'd see what lies underneath her grin.
The heart of cold she does not show.
No one really has to know.
Her writings back again, better than ever.
For a while there is had begun to wither.
Happiness had taken hold.
But now her heart is black and cold.
Full of inspiration, Where to start?
Her words as strong as the broken heart.
---
I've run into poetry elsewhere around the blogosphere from time to time--poetry written by adults which was nonetheless not very good. Since leaving Gaia Online, though, I've never had an example of an unpolished work by a 14-year-old with which to explain why poetry is really important. Or rather, teaching people how to write good poetry is important.
People need poetry. We freaking need it. If a human being has sufficient grasp of any language by the time that human being reaches puberty, and has spare time between work, sleep and perhaps dodging bullets to compose it, there is about (guesstimating based on my own unscientific observations) a one in three chance that said human being will generate poetry. Even if they never show it to anyone else.
Poetry is used for taking mental states--the organized structures of emotion, memory, and expectation which provide the foundation for the formulation of thoughts--and altering them. Good poetry enables the writer and reader to do this efficiently, effectively and (I aver) to some worthwhile purpose. Yes, even if that purpose is taking a horrible thought and getting it outside one's mind so as to feel less helpless in the face of it.
This poem is, as I said, not very good. It is far from excellent. It is not, however entirely bad--it uses images somewhat, attempts to make rhymes, and displays a mental state with enough clarity that one can see it to poke at it.
There are times, though, when I wonder if American people who get into poetry writing really think this is all there is. As though the really good stuff written by poets of the times of old is gone forever--or as though there isn't any difference. Dangit, I know I could be better, I know I need to keep working at it. Even though it's a tool I drag out and apply to my mind whenever I face an especially tangly emotional problem, I pay attention to keeping its edges sharp. A scalpel which leaves a jagged edge is not the best thing for delicate surgery; it's likely to promote infection and leave scars.
Is Megan going to get older, though, and just keep writing the same sorts of thing over and over, believing it's good because no one ever says "you know, that pair of rhyme words is kinda boring, maybe also think about scansion a bit"? Will she try to get better, or get bored with poetry and just stop, robbing us of a potentially rather good poet? Would we notice?
I'm pretty sure that not noticing the fact that we don't cultivate our potential good poets or notice when there aren't many says something bad about America. This could, however, just be my personal bias. Also my desire to be paid enough to live off of in exchange for teaching people how to write good poetry. I would love to live in an America, in a Chicago, where this could be the case.
Who knows. XP It's past my bedtime anyway.
poetic rebuttal to a freestyler on the bus
Friday night was, unusually for me, an unpleasant day at work. Stuff that doesn't usually get to me got to me; I became flummoxed and cranky and was even emoting unpleasantly to my ladies. Very disappointed in myself. I was on my long bus ride home, trying to write a poem to work out my tension and get calm again, when a young man in the back started freestyling. This is something I've seen, or rather heard, before, and ordinarily it fills me with joy. "Poetry is not dead!" I think. "It's just here on the buses and in the streets where people can use it!" Friday, though, it mostly annoyed, because although he didn't mention me as such his words evinced a general disdain for his fellow passengers which irritated me, and was difficult not to take personally. So I wrote this rebuttal. Which I chickened out and didn't give or read to the fellow, but eh. XD At least I get to post it here. It's short as all get out, but in future if I revisit the form I'll go longer.
I have no idea what to do with line breaks, since it's freestyle style with very few pauses for breath. So don't pay too much attention to line breaks; I recommend reading aloud "for best results." ;)
so many words I heard in streets and buses
redefining who us is by the words, the verbs, they swerve
like wheels, you feel that they deserve
to flow, it takes a poet to bind the mind,
a speaker to see the weak speech
and turn it into strong, the meek gain the reach
to right the wrongs of the cold-blooded town,
old rain flooded down
into closed minds that should be open, I'm hopin'
that you find a better sound
I have no idea what to do with line breaks, since it's freestyle style with very few pauses for breath. So don't pay too much attention to line breaks; I recommend reading aloud "for best results." ;)
so many words I heard in streets and buses
redefining who us is by the words, the verbs, they swerve
like wheels, you feel that they deserve
to flow, it takes a poet to bind the mind,
a speaker to see the weak speech
and turn it into strong, the meek gain the reach
to right the wrongs of the cold-blooded town,
old rain flooded down
into closed minds that should be open, I'm hopin'
that you find a better sound
the first slice
The first slice of a meat or cheese off a deli slicer has various fates. Most often it's either thrown away as misshapen, or given to the customer as a sample. Sometimes, if they wanted a very thick chunk, it's the entire order. Other times, if I've decided to refill a tray by hand and am feeling hungry, I'll curl it up in my palm to eat later while I heap up the rest of the slices in the tray in the appealing (but difficult to unpeel) little flower-like bunches which are standard for some reason.
Edit: Oo! I changed it around and completely re-wrote a stanza. It is much more focused now, and better I think. Yay for edits.
I prayed for knowledge many times, but wisdom once, and often
now I'll ask for wisdom, light that's clear when edges blur.
Let it bear up under me when my resolve would soften,
grasp and aim my actions, so that new new things occur.
Oh, I strive to think, emote and pray with great precision,
but precision's useless if I have no end in sight.
Every hand I shake, each door I open's a decision;
none of them are evil yet I can't say which is right.
Confident and humble--sugar water, bitter lemons,
worry and ambition barely balance with good taste.
Am I Rudyard Kipling, Leonard Cohen, Samuel Clemens,
or some upstart deli clerk who ought to know her place?
Time is razor-sharp, so best be careful how you spend it.
One main chance cut open lets ten others wilt, untouched;
each untasted fruit may cry that you did not befriend it.
What you make must answer what you did not want as much.
Do something! Find out if you're a good or bad example.
Move your weak flesh forward, even if it's a a crawl.
Push the meat across the blade, and carve yourself a sample.
Taste and see if your heart has blood in it after all.
Edit: Oo! I changed it around and completely re-wrote a stanza. It is much more focused now, and better I think. Yay for edits.
I prayed for knowledge many times, but wisdom once, and often
now I'll ask for wisdom, light that's clear when edges blur.
Let it bear up under me when my resolve would soften,
grasp and aim my actions, so that new new things occur.
Oh, I strive to think, emote and pray with great precision,
but precision's useless if I have no end in sight.
Every hand I shake, each door I open's a decision;
none of them are evil yet I can't say which is right.
Confident and humble--sugar water, bitter lemons,
worry and ambition barely balance with good taste.
Am I Rudyard Kipling, Leonard Cohen, Samuel Clemens,
or some upstart deli clerk who ought to know her place?
Time is razor-sharp, so best be careful how you spend it.
One main chance cut open lets ten others wilt, untouched;
each untasted fruit may cry that you did not befriend it.
What you make must answer what you did not want as much.
Do something! Find out if you're a good or bad example.
Move your weak flesh forward, even if it's a a crawl.
Push the meat across the blade, and carve yourself a sample.
Taste and see if your heart has blood in it after all.
this cheese procedure
What? Two posts--in one day? Something must be wrong with me. ...Or right, I supppose. You know what it was? I was feeling antsy this morning and decided to write instead of taking a book along to read on the bus. So on the morning ride I wrote this here poem, and on the way home I finished up the ballad of the RosaRing, below, the first half of which had languished unfinished in my notebook for quite some time.
Oh, quick poetry note. Rhymed quatrains fall into normal English speech patterns much, much more easily if you alternate between even and odd numbers of syllables per line. This poem goes 8-7-8-7 which is an extremely comfortable line length for your everyday poetry writing needs. Short enough that you never feel like you have to add in extra words to make it come out right, long enough that it takes only the most perfunctory vocabulary gymnastics to trim a long thought down to size.
This does not, by the way, fulfill my intention to write more poems about cheese. Certainly this poem *mentions* cheese, but it's essentially me complaining about sampling events. As such I don't think it's an especially good poem, only a couple notches above the little "buy some soup and a sandwich" songs I make up at the sample table. Hopefully, though, these are complaints with which others who've worked in retail or customer service can identify. Perhaps it will comfort or at least amuse!
Customers, bah! Who needs 'em? (Er...other than, y'know. Everyone.)
XD
train up in this cheese procedure
hold the wheel against the blade
all those corporate sponsors need your
help to feed what they have made
to each doubtful, hungry shopper
who must lay some fruits aside,
skimp on cream, or simply drop her
list to buy what you provide
train up in this cheese procedure
you'll cast orange cubes like darts
customers, pierced through by greed for
flavor, will clear out their carts
fill them up with cheese, with crackers,
all the things you're charged to sell
retail jobs were made for slackers
as some two-bit public hell
where each wedge you slice, so careful,
is inhaled by passersby
who won't stop to get an earful
of your sales pitch, or who try
hard to get your phone and address
knowing fully well you're trapped
smiling, talking, standing at this
table strewn with spit and scraps
if you once should turn your back, slip
to the fridge to slice up more
they will swoop in to attack, strip
plates or knock them on the floor
but you stick to please and thank you,
loud, bright wit and quiet tact
or else people who outrank you
will read you the riot act
train up in this cheese procedure
act as though you have a choice
maybe it's fair trade--you need your
paychecks, and they need your voice.
Oh, quick poetry note. Rhymed quatrains fall into normal English speech patterns much, much more easily if you alternate between even and odd numbers of syllables per line. This poem goes 8-7-8-7 which is an extremely comfortable line length for your everyday poetry writing needs. Short enough that you never feel like you have to add in extra words to make it come out right, long enough that it takes only the most perfunctory vocabulary gymnastics to trim a long thought down to size.
This does not, by the way, fulfill my intention to write more poems about cheese. Certainly this poem *mentions* cheese, but it's essentially me complaining about sampling events. As such I don't think it's an especially good poem, only a couple notches above the little "buy some soup and a sandwich" songs I make up at the sample table. Hopefully, though, these are complaints with which others who've worked in retail or customer service can identify. Perhaps it will comfort or at least amuse!
Customers, bah! Who needs 'em? (Er...other than, y'know. Everyone.)
XD
train up in this cheese procedure
hold the wheel against the blade
all those corporate sponsors need your
help to feed what they have made
to each doubtful, hungry shopper
who must lay some fruits aside,
skimp on cream, or simply drop her
list to buy what you provide
train up in this cheese procedure
you'll cast orange cubes like darts
customers, pierced through by greed for
flavor, will clear out their carts
fill them up with cheese, with crackers,
all the things you're charged to sell
retail jobs were made for slackers
as some two-bit public hell
where each wedge you slice, so careful,
is inhaled by passersby
who won't stop to get an earful
of your sales pitch, or who try
hard to get your phone and address
knowing fully well you're trapped
smiling, talking, standing at this
table strewn with spit and scraps
if you once should turn your back, slip
to the fridge to slice up more
they will swoop in to attack, strip
plates or knock them on the floor
but you stick to please and thank you,
loud, bright wit and quiet tact
or else people who outrank you
will read you the riot act
train up in this cheese procedure
act as though you have a choice
maybe it's fair trade--you need your
paychecks, and they need your voice.
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