Category Archives: Just Me, Being Me

Year of Loving Dangerously

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You warned of this sun solstice start
In you, I should not place my heart
Fault mine, to cry piteously
For soft like autumn leaves I fell
A spark winter kindled to swell
I did not heed seriously
My heart grew sore, as spring returned,
With summer’s kiss, I now stand spurned
Year of loving dangerously

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Today the idea of this challenge is to substitute words of our own into the well-known titles of novels or movies and write a poem from there. I played with The Year of Living Dangerously by Peter Weir.

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With Real Toads | In Other Words

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National Poetry Month Day 14

Today I write dangerously with a Nove Otto.

The Nove Otto poetry form  is a nine-lined poem with 8 syllables per line. The rhyme scheme is as follows: aabccbddb

Pages Left To Turn

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Waiting for the day when I was too old to scold
Not knowing such a time would never come my way
My younger years once spent being reckless and bold
Those pages burned away in such furious blaze
In fantasia that thirty is considered old
Oh how the numbers changed as I added on days
Now I’m the one telling, instead of being told
Back then are not the words I’d thought so soon to say

Now I wonder if I will reach a point of sage
To look back upon the times of my days before
Some tales I have told in this pen and pixeled stage
Some tales are only known in memory to store
Should older me still have plenty of time to gauge
This life I’ll live from babe to days of hoar
I’ll fill these lines with joy before I turn the page
‘Till the pages left for me to turn are no more

My dossier holds Raivenne-lations nevermore

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Today I have something of a trifecta:

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1. At dVerse Lillian challenges us to create a poem that includes the word fantasia, phantasia, or fantasy. The word can be used in the title or the body of the poem itself.

dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics – Fantasia

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2. At Real Toads Kerry provides us the side inspiration of writing about living through the years.

Real Toads | Open Platform Tuesday

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3. National Poetry Writing Month – Day 12

It is still NaPoWriMo and today’s form is: The  Lucubration

The Lucubration is a form by Amanda J. Norton. It has two octave (eight line) stanzas, followed by a single line for 17 lines all together.

It has a rhyme scheme of abababab cdcdcdcd d.

The poem’s title must be a 5 syllable title. The two octave stanzas have 12 syllables per line. The final line must be 12 syllables in only 5 words and in italics.

This Is What It Sounds Like

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I woke early this morning to birdsong. But not the trills that come with morning light. This was a lone note deep in the darkest before. I waited as the call went out. Then I waited some more.

Avian fantasia surrounded me as the bird voiced itself again. For somehow I knew it was the same lone bird and same lone note, perhaps calling out a name. Or was it a call awaiting response? I wondered if it was a mating call. Was there was a partner to answer?

Or was that the cry of the forlorn?

Try as I might, it sounded like crying; the gut wrenching sob of one trying to hide the pain. Is this what it sounds like when doves cry? I felt as though I was somehow intruding on something private, by just listening. As my alarm went off I rose knowing I was listening in vain. I did not hear the call again.

Just the memory of that note in the dark of night lingering on my psyche in the light of day.

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Let’s see how others are slicing it up today…

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Slice of Life Weekly Challenge | Two Writing Teachers

In Deep Repose

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Dressed in Luna’s glow
Fingers following her thoughts
Loving in deepest repose
Where Sol cannot see

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National Poetry Writing Month 2016 – Day 10

The Jue Ju

This Chinese style poetry is one of the oldest of the Chinese patterns and in the 3rd century AD the Jue Ju was very popular. Jue ju meaning curtailed or frustrated verse, does not aim to tell a story, but to create a mood. Often carrying “suggestively erotic themes” it does in the most frugal way imaginable, and with a high tone.

A jue ju is only four lines of five or seven syllables each where lines should be same length and is
often erotic.

Too Early

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With vernal equinox comes joy
I smile at the new buds it brings
Beauty to see walking the park
Belies the chill in sharp employ
I’m not ready to feel such sting
Much too early for autumn’s bark

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Walking in Central Park felt more like October than April.

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National Poetry Writing Month 2016 – Day 9

Today I bring an Italian Sestet

The original version of the Italian Sestet had no set meter, but after Spenser introduced it into England, eventually the poets there began to use iambic tetrameter or pentameter.
The rhyme pattern example is as follows (Using iambic tetrameter)

Policing the Uterus

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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/indiana-has-now-charged-two-asian-american-women-feticide-n332761

I literally saw red as I examined the above article.  I felt my blood pressure spike at the thought of this. I mean are you fucking kidding me?!?!

Granted laws make exceptions for when a woman has a miscarriage–but only if there is no human intervention involved. Had it not been for the shame of pregnancy, Ms. Patel did not receive professional medical attention until after the miscarriage occurred, and her situation grew dire, she likely would not be facing jail time.  The shame of the pregnancy kept her silent, that silence meant when she realized she was in the midst of a miscarriage, she tried to hide it. Her trying to hide it snowballed in this craziness here.

Because the Uterine Police, not just the law, also investigates miscarriages, and whether in a hospital or without medical assistance, it must be reported and a fetal death certificate issued. If the cause of death is unknown, it must be investigated.  If the woman can’t, or won’t, tell how it happened, then the Uterine Police can ask family members and friends how.

Even if a woman has made a decision to abort, but miscarries before she can act on that decision, experiences some heartbreak.  There is no best of circumstances for a miscarriage, it rends. Now imagine going through that physical trauma and then having the Uterine Police interrogating your family, your friends and maybe even your colleagues trying to dig up dirt to punish you for it. Because in this increasing culture of “Better the mother dead, than the fetus” not all states will recognize a woman choosing to save her own life when the fetus she is carrying can very likely kill her, such as the case with some ectopic pregnancies, as valid.

The Uterine Police will search your computer, your internet history, your online purchases to use it against you if it can.  Just ask Ms. Patel.

It is not a coincidence that this has happened to two Asian-american women. Their conservative culture making them easy prey for those in the Uterine Police, who could not care less about their right to their own bodies, let alone their right to privacy. They needed scapegoats to make examples out of and these two women fit the bill. And let’s call a spade, a spade here. This likely would never have happened to a white female.  Yet even that is rendered near irrelevant in this.

Because once again, this is mostly men, (ab)using the law, using their personal ideologies to control every woman’s uterus.

Every session someone tries to introduce a bill that would outright make abortion a criminal act.

This bullshit here is one step closer to it.

Those Things That Are Expected

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One
Day
Perhaps
When I’m sage
The old rocking chair
May have a place in my life when
I have gray hairs and the wrinkles aplenty you know
Those things that are expected then
Once I reach that stage
When I’m more
At still
Yeah
But
But
Right now
It is such
A long way off from
Those things that are expected then
For they most certainly do not apply to me now
Wherein the only things that rock
Are my jewelry
My music
And of
Course
Me

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National Poetry Writing Month 2016 – Day 6

Today’s form adds up to the Fibonacci Spiral

The Fibonacci Poem, or Fib Poem for short, is a single stanza poem based on the first 7 numbers of the Fibonacci sequence 1,1,2,3,5,8,13. The first and second lines are one syllable, the third line two syllables, the fourth line three syllables and so forth following the Fibonacci sequence. It traditionally ends at seven lines (13 syllables), but some have taken it longer following the sequence.

The Fibonacci Spiral poem is a more structured poem with two stanzas.

The 1st stanza has 13 lines, the 2nd stanza has 12 lines. The last line of your first stanza is repeated to become the first line of your second stanza with no gap between stanzas. Repeat the syllable count to form the spiral for a total 25 lines altogether. If this confuses you just look below.

The syllable counts must be as follows:

stanza 1
1st line – 1 syllable
2nd line – 1 syllable
3rd line – 2 syllables
4th line -3 syllables
5th line -5 syllables
6th line -8 syllables
7th line -13 syllables
8th line -8 syllables
9th line -5 syllables
10th line – 3 syllables
11th line – 2 syllables
12th line – 1 syllable (word must be at least 4 letters)
13th line – 1 syllable
stanza 2 (remember there is no space between the two stanza)
14th line -1 syllables
15th line -2 syllables
16th line -3 syllables
17th line -5 syllables
18th line -8 syllables
19th line -13 syllables
20th line -8 syllables
21st line -5 syllables
22nd line – 3 syllables
23rd line – 2 syllables
24th line – 1 syllable
25th line – 1 syllable

The poem should be Centered.

Can You Feel It

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I was reminded of a word I’ve rarely seen in use, but have known for quite time now Duende.

At its most basic definition, duende is used to describe a mythical, sprite like entity that possesses humans and creates the feeling of awe of one’s surroundings in nature.

“Beautiful doesn’t begin to describe it. A flower is beautiful. But this is beautiful the way that a person is beautiful – terrifying with its jagged edges, yet seductive with its crevices that hide so many secrets.”

The author of the above spoke of the Grand Canyon. Suffice it to say that moment was duende in the traditional sense.

Like most such words duende’s meaning has evolved over time and now mostly refers to the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person.

The phrase “work of art” loosely infers painting and sculpture. I would like to expand that definition to also include the use of words – written, spoken or sung. Have even read a poem or a passage in a novel that gave you pause? Heard a song, lyrical or instrumental, that moved you deeply?

Duende.

To those of you who know, and like I cannot resist, the drum solo of Phil Collins “In the Air” that pull you feel in your core
— when you hear those opening notes?
— that make you stop everything and raise your imaginary drum sticks in anticipation?
— and even if it’s only in your mind, that pull you feel before you let loose…?

That’s Duende darlings, in its modern sense.

When you feel it to your core, when it makes you stop…

Stop to look, stop to hear, stop to touch, and if the work of art is food, stop to smell and taste it.  When it makes time, and you, stop – it’s duende.

So I task you with this today, that which moves you, natural or man-made – go find it. Spend a few moments to feel it to your core and just enjoy it.

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Day 30 – the next to the last day of this challenge – let’s see how my fellow slicers are faring through it….

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Slice of Life Writing Challenge Day 30 | Two Writing Teachers