National Poetry Writing Month

All posts tagged National Poetry Writing Month

This She Gives To Me

Posted by Raivenne on April 17, 2021

Posted in: National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry. Tagged: National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry. Leave a comment

I based my life in such firm resolve
Some say in dull absolutions
This she gives to me, to live life free
Moments sans my strict resolutions

Question everything was my style
Live a little is her ploy
To live life free, this she gives to me
I never knew the worth of such joy

Dread portent to step out my box
Thus thing is such a far cry
This she gives to me, to live life free
Not to wallow in the what or why

She dons life in ever changing modes
Restraint’s the garment I wear
To live life free, this she gives to me
That life has joys, not just pains to bear

I knew she could rein herself at need
I needed to be set free
This she gives to me, to live life free
To heave it all sometimes, just let it be

Reminds me that stars are behind the clouds
When my life seems so unsure
To live life free, this she gives to me
Be not afraid of the life’s contour

My soul shines in the depths of her eyes
Hers reciprocates in mine
This she gives to me, to live life free
Such I’ve learned in this love divine

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 17 trying to get muse to post something less maudlin for today.

Flashback Friday: April 16th

Posted by Raivenne on April 16, 2021

Posted in: Flash Back Friday, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry. Tagged: National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, poetry forms, Quartern. 1 Comment

Being that it’s National Poetry Month / National Poetry Writing Month it makes sense that today in 2011 I posted “Why?” a brutal little ditty I wrote.

Why did he have to raise his hand?
His mind just must have upped and gone
I’m not the type he could command
Forget about put his hands on!

Forgot who he was married to?
Why did he have to raise his hand?
It was a stupid thing to do,
Picked the wrong girl to make a stand

And had the nerve to say demand!
To me! A cleaver yielding cook!
Why did he have to raise his hand?
For just one swipe was all it took

For there it was, hand on the floor
And finally, he understands
The only thing you knock are doors
Why did he have to raise his hand?

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 16 shows what happens when things cascade in the form of a Quatern.

The Quatern is a French form. It consists of four stanzas of four lines, or sixteen total lines. The Quatern is a syllabic form, meaning that there are a required number of syllables per line. In this case, there are eight (8) syllables per line (or tetrameter, to those who want to get all technical), but it does NOT have to be iambic!!

The other trait of the Quatern is that there is a repeating refrain, similar to a kyrielle. In this case, the refrain is repeated one line lower in the poem in each stanza until in the fourth stanza it’s the fourth line, like below…

Line 1 (refrain)
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Line 5
Line 1 again (Line 6)
Line 7
Line 8

Line 9
Line 10
Line 1 again (Line 11)
Line 12

Line 13
Line 14
Line 15
Line 1 again (Line 16)

In Fate and Time

Posted by Raivenne on April 15, 2021

Posted in: Just Me, Being Me, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry. Tagged: Glosa, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, poetry forms. 1 Comment

I did not know that time could be heartless
In its impatient flight… how sad it is
I never knew the worth of you until
You slipped away one day on quiet winds
Myrna / “On Quiet Winds”

How quickly love can fill an empty space
Your presence oh so loud within my heart
If I became unglued, your love the paste
We’d have forever, if time played its part
Even with life’s curved balls that we would face
I worried not in those times of harshness
As moth to light you’ve always come to me
And for you here I’ve been and thus would be
In trust I closed my eyes to the starkness
I did not know that time could be heartless

We who are young think not of life’s avail
That Clotho’s thread will never come to end
Treating life as an ever crawling snail
The next adventure’s just around the bend
Day, week, month, year, how quickly it can sail
We don’t hurry, ignorant in our bliss
Thinking “I’m running as fast as I can”
But Father Time will merely shrug and scan
The sands that flow in that great glass of his
In its impatient flight… how sad it is

The only one of them that truly knew
Lachesis crossed two most unlikely strings
And begged unto us love, so deep and true
Despite our worst, to steer us clear of things
That did drive many who we’ve known in two
And love we did have, love beyond our fill
You did not believe in blessings and such
Not channeled by remote, I guessed as much
I knew we were blessed, but even still
I never knew the worth of you until

I felt that first graze of empty down deep
My face became a moon to absent suns
At brink of the final task left to keep
And knowing the effects once she is done
I think even Atropos dared to weep
Equal to lives saintly or ones that sinned
She cannot cater to the whom or what
Within her hands the strings of life are cut
Now silence reigns in my heart where you dinned
You slipped away one day on quiet winds

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 15

A return to one of my favorites the Glosa (classic).

Yet to Be

Posted by Raivenne on April 13, 2021

Posted in: National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, The Funny SIde. Tagged: National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, poetry forms, Rime Royal. 4 Comments

Who am I to be? I deign not to ask

A decision not mine to make alone

An ovarian joins to complete that task

I lay dormant in a state of my own

Not yet of flesh, sinew or even bone

I’m half the potential that’s yet to be

For now frozen in anonymity

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 13 brings hope of life in a Rime Royal

The Rime Royal or Rhyme Royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is ABABBCC.

Of Loneliness

Posted by Raivenne on April 12, 2021

Posted in: National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, The Past. Tagged: National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, poetry forms, Villanelle. Leave a comment

Abstract artwork of one pale figure alone amongst an array of dark figures.

This is something I need to address
To find the words to make it clear
I want…a way out…of loneliness

Surrounded in the city’s excess
I’m screaming but no one seems to hear
This is something I need to address

My soul, before, I’ve tried to undress
For a solace that does not appear
I want…a way out…of loneliness

And further on me it seems to press
Try as I my might to find a way clear
This is something I need to address

And so, I’ve come here to confess
That death is the only cure I fear
I want…a way out…of loneliness

I long to be free of this distress
Get back to the things I held dear
This is something I need to address
I want…a way out…of loneliness

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 12

Another Villanelle

I heard the line on loneliness in a video yesterday and Muse flew with it.

Every Second

Posted by Raivenne on April 11, 2021

Posted in: Just Me, Being Me, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry. Tagged: love, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, romance. 2 Comments

Bored ambivalence was the word of the day
Decided I was going to go home the long way
It’s only curiosity, was the cool wind blowing around me
Seemed like a day just like any other one
But then a curve ball was thrown into the mix hon

There she was the new big city kid now in a small country town
Sitting on the fence by the creek, so all alone and looking down
Didn’t take a psychic trick, to see she was homesick
I had passed by, but Fate triumphed and I came back after a while
And the reward I reaped was to see beauty in the light of her smile

Every day she smiles it’s just pure elation
Every hour she laughs I can’t help but laugh too
Every minute we kiss it’s an inspiration
And every second she breathes — I thank the heavens it’s true

I tried to descend from the fence, but my foot wasn’t quit clear
And yeah, she laughed as I fell in the water dead on my rear
But she was quick to quell, any hurt feelings and that was swell
By the time I walked her home as first stars shone bright
I was dry and she knew everything was going to be all right

We became friends who flitted twixt that love or the other
Took two years to learn that we were only meant for each other
The great gift I was to find was to let me live inside her mind
What wisdom knew back then, that one act of kindness from me,
Would ascend to a love for you that’s here for all eternity?

Fate stays unconquered every time on the when and where,
We only knew we had arrived once we got there

Every day you smile it’s just pure elation
Every hour you laugh I can’t help but laugh too
Every minute we kiss it’s an inspiration
And every second you breathe — I thank the heavens for you

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 11

The Space

Posted by Raivenne on April 10, 2021

Posted in: National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry. Tagged: National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, Space. 2 Comments

The space between us
that once only measured with microscope
is now spanned miles
even though you lay beside me

The space in arms that hold myself
where they once held you
in laughter in comfort
or just for the sake of holding

The space in my heart
that overflowed with joy
now filled to the brim
with heartache

The space in our conversations
say more than what’s spoken
we ignore the silence
civil words cannot hear

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 10

Coming of Aging

Posted by Raivenne on April 9, 2021

Posted in: Just Me, Being Me, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, The Funny SIde. Tagged: aging, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, poetry forms, Tritina. 2 Comments

I’m not questioning Mother Nature deciding
That the zipper of my favorite jeans parting
Is the result to my refusal of publicly farting

Father Time’s clock’s jingling, its hand landing
On where my body temp starts its constant revising
Between suddenly dropping and suddenly rising

Miss Clairol’s been looking more and more inviting
‘Cause not a word you say will be convincing
When the grays come in packs, I’ll be rinsing

Elastic is my friend while I’m weighting
And I carry a fan or a cloth for wiping
I’m content for now to cease my griping

I’m in no way catering to the act of aging
I’m simply deciding that the act of coping
Is more preferable than the act of moping

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 9

I’m taking a trip down the lighter side of life even as I acknowledge that my trip is more like a prat fall – enjoy!

And today’s poetic form I tackle a Tritina

The tritina is a reduced version of the sestina written in iambic pentameter, which uses 3 repeated end-words (i.e. the final word of each line is repeated as the final word of each line in subsequent stanzas, just in a different order) and 3 three-line stanzas with a concluding one-line coda that must contain all three repeated words in order of their original appearance. The pattern/order of the repeated end-words is:

a
b
c

c
a
b

b
c
a

a–b–c

Pick-a-Laugh

Posted by Raivenne on April 8, 2021

Posted in: National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, The Funny SIde. Tagged: Laughs, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry. Leave a comment

Is a distinguished hearty-har,
More fun than a simple guffaw?
Care to tell a chortler
Their tones are that of titterers?
The ground rule is a simple one:
The volume rises with the fun!
Come point out an open chuckle
From sniggers that burst a buckle.
But pick a laugh it’s yours to call
‘Cause I’m about to slip and fall!

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 8 brings some giggles.

Days Versus Nights

Posted by Raivenne on April 7, 2021

Posted in: National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry. Tagged: alone, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry. 2 Comments

The days I survive
It's the nights I dread
When faced with the emptiness
of our bed
 
The day I spend madly
running to and fro
coming home only once I've
exhausted every other place to go
 
Under the guise of being busy
Under the prayer, I'll quickly sleep
 
Stretched out in a space
unnaturally wide
I can't enjoy it
you're not by my side
 
You're out on the road
and not just for a small while
I'm faced with the reality
of not seeing your smile

For each eternity I lay awake
gets closer to the tears I'll shed

Yes, while your voice on the phone
makes the moment feel alright
once we hang up, it's just me
Just the emptiness, just the night
 
The days I survive
It's the nights I dread
When faced with the emptiness
of our bed

National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 7 finds me pondering the lamentations of a long-distance truck driver’s spouse in free verse.

Raivenne-lations

Doing what you like is freedom; liking what you do is happiness.