TTFN, Ta-Ta for Now!

Day 16:

I hope at least one person will understand my Winnie-the-Pooh reference title…but alas, as it says, this will be my final post for a little while. I need time to revise and complete my final project, but hopefully afterward, in summer, I’ll come back and keep writing!

The first poem I gave you all was Ungenerous, about the reason I write. This new one is along the same lines, concerning how I feel about reading my work out loud…enjoy! I love you all!

Indian Giver

When I write,

or read what I’ve written down

while pressed close to

a screechy mic

smelling of coffee breath and stale saliva

in a shadowy cafe

filled with smoke

and breathing,

I attach a little part of my heart

onto each syllable,

seasoning it with understanding

and a pinch of soul;

I let it linger

in their great blinking eyes

long enough that they feel

as if we are one…

and snatch it away

before they decide to keep it forever.

Because if I am careless

and leave that fragment of me

to fester within their ribcage

like an open wound,

it’s that much less I have left inside myself

to piece together

these long, long chains

of dangling words

which may briefly act

as someone else’s lifeline

and when I draw it close to me again

so that it coils around

the very core of me where

there is not a heart

but an alpine swift

who flaps his tapered wings

to send waves of pinetree air through my veins

and trills through his sleek throat

and makes me dream,

(but I digress)

When I draw that chain in

I know it will either

slip through the listener’s fingers

and abandon them to their own smothering confusion,

or lead them to dry land

so that they can gasp in comprehension

and the enlightenment

they imagine they’ve gained from my poetry.

I let them fantasize about

how I wrote those lines

solely for them,

so long as I get the stanzas back,

regain the sentences

and line breaks

to reconnect with those torn-off corners of my thoughts

and be complete again.

 

(c) 2011 Marie KR

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This doesn’t count as a day since I’m not posting any of my own writing…no, I’m sorry, not tonight. I’m feeling a little under the weather and worn out from a jam-packed weekend. Also, my next poem will be the last (for a little hiatus while I create my anthology and tidy up loose ends) until summertime, so I want to make it a good one. Right now I’d say it’s about 44% finished…

But, just so you won’t be bored, check out this video! It’s a new style of poetry writing/reading called ‘Spoken Word’, and I for one think it’s great!

The Penultimate Post…AKA Crazy Sixes

Day 15:

Yes, I know there was no new post yesterday, and I apologize. I actually did write one, finished it around 12:30 this morning, but then fell asleep before I could write a post to go with it. In my defense, before writing it I worked for 7 hours straight at the restaurant so it’s admirable that I even managed to finish the poem.

Anyway, this is a Sestina; the half-cousin thrice removed of the Villanelle. The Sestina has six stanzas of six lines and a final stanza of 3 lines. There are six different words which are repeated at the end of each line in different patterns per stanza. It’s a little confusing, but I had a special template-thing to help me figure out which line/word goes where. It’s very fun to write, yet again, and I find the template to be more like helpful guidelines than restrictions. Enjoy!

Oily Smoke and Orange Zest

I watch as he slowly peels the orange

and its skin falls in lopsided rings

carved out by the nail of his finger.

They tumble into the ashy fireplace

and in its heat the edge curls,

the same peppery color as our old cat

So the cat

stares down at the orange

where it lies in empty curls.

High above an echo rings

down the hollow tunnel of our fireplace,

as against the table I tap my finger

And I wave my shaking finger

toward the old grey cat

as it spits into the fireplace

and stares up at the flames glowing orange

in twists and loops and rings,

at the smoke which rises on the air in thin curls.

In the heat my partner’s dark hair curls

and he winds it around his finger

so that it lies on his scalp in lovely rings.

Still the old weathered cat,

with his tongue a soft peachy orange,

tastes the fruit we left in the fireplace.

My great-grandfather built that fireplace

surrounded by stone and wood shaving curls

and munching a plump new orange,

band-aids on every finger

from angering the cat,

whose fur back then still showed patterned rings 

And on my hands are many rings

which I plan to drop in the fireplace

or throw at the grouchy cat

on the rug where he always curls,

one at whom I can point the finger

when someone steals my juicy orange.

So flees the cat when the doorbell rings

and I leave my orange lying above the fireplace

while sickly smoke curls between my fingers.

 

(c) 2011 Marie KR

PS: I’m going to be leaving my blog for a little while in order to have time to create my final anthology. I’ll be selecting my favorites from these 2 weeks of blogging, revising, and binding them in a book of their own. I’ll make sure I post a good-bye poem before I do that, though!

Enough to Make my Voice Shake

Day 14:

Two whole weeks, success!

So tonight I overcame a little of my stage fright by reading at a small open-mic night at a cute local pizza place. I probably would not have done it if a friend hadn’t called me out on the microphone and made me read…it was my first time reading in front of an actual audience of people who I didn’t know, and during the first time my voice was shaking and I felt myself blushing. I sat and watched for a while, then gathered enough courage to return and recite the other two which I had brought. They seemed to go down nicely, and I’m quite proud of myself.

Anyway, today I tried a little Villanelle writing! The Villanelle is a unique, structured poetry form with a rhyme sequence ABA for 5 stanzas with the final being ABAA. There are two repeating lines, a common theme, and some of the best are in iambic pentameter (groan/ eyeroll) but I did it, and it was fun, and this is what came out of it!

Insignificance

The world is large and in it I feel small,

How can the cosmos deign to notice me?

A spider slowly creeping ‘cross the wall.

The cloak of stars, it swallows up my call,

My tiny call which sounds more of a plea.

The world is large and in it I feel small.

And I know not if I exist at all,

A grain of salt within the tossing sea.

A spider slowly creeping ‘cross the wall.

It feels that if I let go I shall fall,

Fall, into the wildly tossed debris.

The world is large and in it I feel small.

The movements of this whirling earth enthrall,

Imagine yet how fragile life can be.

A spider slowly creeping ‘cross the wall.

So here before me hills and canyons sprawl,

And their destruction I shall never see.

The world is large and in it I feel small,

A spider slowly creeping ‘cross the wall.

 

(c) 2011 Marie KR

Heart of a Heat Wave

Day 13:

Wow, it is hot outside today. Somewhere in the 90s most of the sunlight hours, I believe. These days I can’t stand the heat and humidity; just like everyone else, I complain about frizzy hair and sweat stains and clothing sticking to my skin, instead of enjoying the lovely weather and a definitive end of winter. But I wasn’t always this normal; from kindergarten until grade 6 or 7, I would spend all summer outside regardless of the temperature, humidity, how I was dressed or how I looked. My best friend lived two houses down the street, and we’d spend entire days together getting into trouble, getting dirty, and imagining an idyllic world around us. We don’t talk anymore, and in fact we’ve become very different from each other; I worry about her and miss our time together, but it doesn’t look like we’ll be repairing our relationship anytime soon…this poem is for Bug.

Torn in Two

I remember

those sweaty summer days spent

at your house or mine,

climbing trees and conspiring trouble

and dreaming

of how we’d be best friends

forever.

We catapulted through the woods,

knees and faces and hands turning Indian-brown

and whippy branches leaving bitter

claw-marks across our pre-teen arms.

We ran together,

filled with hope and freckles,

until our feet bled with

thorns and bumblebee stings.

In your scritchety garden

we bruised the mint leaves

between our teeth and

stroked the murmuring mullein leaves,

‘rabbit’s-ear’,

running their pale nap

over sunburned cheeks

like a child’s comfort-cloth.

Now we do different things

with leaves;

my tool a forgiving pencil

and yours, betraying flame.

Our arms have unlinked,

feet facing different paths

and when I twist to look upon yours

my throat rasps on tears

to see obstacles

much worse than thorns

before you.

And darling little Bug, you will

choose that shattered glass

and twisted metal

over admitting

that the mud we first tasted together

has covered your freckles;

the branches have cut you too deep

and won’t let go,

you’re falling out of our tree

and I can’t help

without falling too…

 

(c) 2011 Marie KR