Future – A Sonnet to Think On

Future

The future is a foggy mist waiting
And like water it slips through our fingers
Opening drawers of thoughts of waking
A landscape of ideas that will linger

Dare I attempt to write the things over
An elegy here and a ballad there
The ballad first, an elegy slower
Maybe I should just write the prose to compare

Poetry is in my future plans I know
And the past mistakes will fade in time
Time always fades the mistakes I know
New horizons are in the coming rhymes

I shall miss the companions I write with
But life will go on for I am a word smith.

 

 

Hello all you wonderful people I connected with in the Commons.  This is my last *sob* assignment. A sonnet on the future.  What a perfect way to end the course.  I attempted to stick with a Shakespearian sonnet in style  abab cdcd efef gg, and along with the iambic pentameter.  I’m not sure I managed that perfectly, but I have not had a lot of luck with sonnets.  (@BenHuberman I knew you were going to throw a sonnet at us!)

I thought it might be nice to include bits of the themes from the past two weeks. Water, fog, drawers, landscape, ballad, elegy….  And I think it actually turned out rather well. I have been wanting to work more with sonnets, especially since reading Edna St. Vincent Millay‘s sonnets this last year. She has some stunning poetry.

I also want to say that one of the best ways to write poetry has been using the McGill Dictionary of Rhyme program. It is this rhyming dictionary with the space to write your poetry. It gives examples, a thesaurus of sorts, and the schematic of certain poetry forms, including sonnets, since there are several variations.  You might want to check it out if you are like me and have issues rhyming. That being said, I still use my rhyming dictionary more often, but this is nice.

So, I will probably write one more post on this whole experiance, but for now last assignment down, and what fun this course was.

Passionate Perspective – A Found Poem

I think I was limiting myself to what I could write about by using fashion magazines. 😛 but still, it turned out rather well if I do say so myself. And it was fun snipping and pasting with tweezers… My father said I would be terrible at ransom notes due to fingerprints on all the words…. Well, since I won’t be attempting to ransom something, I should be fine. And I loved finding a landscape picture to paste the words on.

I think of this poem as more of a metaphor. I do have my camera, and the photographs of the country are this story of a landscape. Something to escape and dream about. It’s semi vague, but isn’t all poetry sometimes?

I liked trying to find different sizes and colors. I don’t know if I got the whole theme of enumeratio. Did I use enough “and’s”? I liked starting every other line with one.  I’ve been wanting to do this type of found poetry for a while now. Is blackout poetry the same? I kind of think it is. I’ve wanted to do a piece of found poetry using the town bulletin board at the post office. With all its flyers, it’s a treasure trove of found poetry just waiting to happen.

And if you can’t read the poem, here it is again in print.

in my camera the photographs of country light
   and stunning grace and freedom
is a passionate perspective
   and reaching across the fair northern sky
a new direction, a breath of fresh air
   and spectacular joy and living
fall color and strong white light
   and look to move forward to
Fling open the door
   and see a day of dreams.

Odes to Things in Drawers – Wooden Spoons & Handkerchiefs

Ode To a Wooden Spoon
Lying in the dark drawer, but not alone
The wooden spoon waits for the moment to come alive
Bursting with possibilities in the mixing and stirring

In your tireless waiting for mixing don't bemoan
You are meant for than mixing and whirring
It is in the kitchen you are meant to thrive

Oh spoon, you are forgotten with the bamboo 
But you are lovelier and stronger than most spoons
How will I ever exist without your strength as I stir?


Ode To a Lace Handkerchief

Forgotten lace lies within the scented drawers of oak
Scraps of muslin and linen so fine and soft
Delicate for a woman's hand or purse

Carried in the past by ladies of fine lives evoke
Thoughts of Knights past in there bravery were never scoffed
A symbol of devotion in song and verse

Oh delicate handkerchief you are lowly to some
But you hold a touch of gentry to your humbleness
And I sing to you and your usefulness in verse

 

I actually want to keep writing odes to things in my drawers. Now, I am no Keats, who wrote magnificent odes to urns and nightingales, but I think these turned out okay.  I was talking odes with my family last night and my father came up with Ode to a Wooden Spoon. I’m not sure this is what he was going for, but I have only so much I can work with.

I was first thinking of handkerchiefs since I use them regularly. I have some lace ones, some quite utilitarian and boring. But they are all rather wonderful.  And I wanted to write about sweaters, and jeans, and pencils and scissors, and stamps, and various other things I keep in drawers.  Can we do an Ode to a Paperclip?  This was fun, and today I checked out some more books on Odes and Ballads and other various poems.  I liked poetry enough, but with this Blogging U course, I am full of poetry!!!!

Okay, I’ll calm down.

Kate

Fingers That Linger – Prose Poetry

I wish my fingers were slimmer and thinner than they are. For they are far from elegant, since they are short. A friend had thin fingers that were so slim and pretty. Mine are rather ordinary with nails that break, even if they are painted in shades of pink. Though I like to wear silver rings in them, which is pretty in it’s own way. But my fingers can linger on a man’s skin; gliding over rough, smooth, and stubble. A whisper of sin is in my fingers. If you get me started I am not prim and proper. I can play one’s skin like a violin, singing and skimming over the surface like a nymph. And with a pencil I can will  my missives to be in tune with my mind. Without my fingers, imagination wouldn’t be on the paper. Things I think would be left in my mind, and wouldn’t it be much better if they were able to be read? Even if I am the only one reading them. I can’t dismiss my fingers, even if I wish they were more than they are. One day my fingers will write something incredible, and in that moment, I won’t wish they are thinner and slimmer and different than they are.

 

I have never quite understood prose, and recently I attempted to figure out what prose is exactly. I’m still not sure. I’m not even sure this qualifies as prose. (If you know, please comment) I love assonance because of the subtlety of the sounds.  Because ‘finger’ was ‘lingering’ in my head, the short ‘i’ sound is hopefully noticeable.  Yes, I am telling you because even I might not notice it.  See, there are a few more ‘i’ sounds.

I think I would like to attempt more prose, and in the past, I think what I wrote as prose is in my flash fiction moments. How do you know?  Well, either way, I liked this assignment for today.

A Ballad of Cowboys in Books – Poetry

I was born and raised to love cowboys
From Duke to Eastwood for sure
John Wayne was always my guy,
And Eastwood I would hate to endure

I loved every Zane Grey I read
And Louis L’Amour was the same
Fair ladies to save from the rustlers
And the cows headed home on the range

As I have grown much older and wise
I still have cowboys in dreams
They’re rough and they’re tough
And in books they’re my favorite theme

Right now I’m reading a western story
Of love,riders, horses, and life
The cowboy is handsome and smart
And the lady he’ll win for his heart.

This is my current book to read and review. How could you not love a cowboy that looked like this?

I know I don’t have the meter quite right, and some of the rhyming is off, but after thinking about what a ballad should be about, and the fact that I love cowboys, this seemed like the ideal hero.  While I don’t actually think that much about cowboys, occasionally I just want to sigh with longing for a good John Wayne film.  I am actually reading this silly Christian romance book with a gorgeous cowboy. It puts me in the mood for anything western.  A cowboy up on a horse saving the fair maiden…. or rescuing her as she gets into a pickle…

I could not even attempt Anaphora/Epistrophe.  I’ve never been good with they rhyme thing anyhow, but I think I would like to attempt to try it sometime.  It sounds like a really fun device for writing poetry.

So, cowboys and westerns for my hero ballad. It’s a start that I think I want to improve upon.

An Elegy of Online Dating – Poetry

Dante wrote about Purgatorio and the mists below
While you compared it to Silent Hill
I wondered could we escape the games and forgo
All the pain this dating is uphill.

We tried to become something more impossible
And I got lost in how you talked
Sometimes two people are not possible
A romance that is over talked.

A murkiness obscures my sanity
I’m left wishing it was done
Shrieking out fits of profanity
While you are sulking in your fun.

I was hopeful this  thing would work with you
But you have made me shy away
It seems a waste of time so hard to do
And I want you out of my life today.

Should I give this online thing another try
Trying men on like endless shoes
Or should I hide and back away to cry
Or dust of  my heart that’s bruised?

Okay, this was one of the harder forms. I don’t do elegies, and I’m not even sure this is an elegy.  I was struggling trying to figure what one even was, despite reading Tennyson and Emile Bronte. Both wrote elegies and I like them, but I rarely deal in sad rhyme.  But, it’s an attempt and I would like to branch out with this one.  Fog, I’m not sure the metaphor is there enough.  Fog was something this online guy and I were discussing and how Dante wrote about it in Purgatory (I’m reading the Inferno right now) and this guy compared it to the horror film Silent Hill, something I refuse to see.

Well, anyways, it’s an attempt.

Kate

A Concrete Herringbone – Poetry

herring                bone                   in                   the sky          a storm’s               coming

a storm               of long               ing                   for a              change              that won’t

come soon          enough             to suit                 me as           impatience            colors my

thoughts           and dreams         feel like               fantasy          and hope is            further away

than I                  thought             it could               be, but              I don’t want             to give up

so do I let the storm cover me over or do I break free and let the rain come down?

they say that salt water fixes everything; tears, sweat and the ocean…but rain is sweet

 

Okay, this isn’t specifically ‘animal’ other than herringbone, which is what the clouds looked like as I stepped outside tonight. I’m not good with concrete poetry since I have never played around with it much, butStephen Fry in his “The Ode Less Traveled”, talks about it in some very unique forms. It is also mentioned in Poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge. I love it and sometimes it is stunning. I have seen several pieces of this poetry come out of today’s challenge. I am suitably impressed. (I’ve linked a few at the bottom of the post) And you can see what the sky looked like below in the picture I took, which gave instant inspiration to this challenge

I love enjambment as it is so amazing to have that heart wrenching break. I really feel a twist in my gut  when I am jolted from a smooth, flowing line that stops! And I have to continue on the next line. It thrusts   me forward and I feel affected by poetry that uses this. I think Billy Collins is good at using it, and e.e. cummings was known for using it as well. (side note, I don’t like much e.e. cummings but a few)

Kate

 

Below are some of my favorites

• Fly   (prodgic.wordpress.com)

• No longer human     (janebasilblog.wordpress.com)

• A Kiss     (cnalfonso.wordpress.com)

 

Poetry – Distrusting Trust

Day three of the poetry challenge.  How The Daily Post seems to pick themes that affect me so, wonders me frequently. Other than I can find meaning in just about everything.  Today’s theme of Trust is rather apropos considering my feelings on it regarding someone in my life.

So here it goes

 

Do you see how you affect me?
Insecurity at your words
Standing here like a lost child
Tears have become my new friend
Reap the rewards of your cruelty
Unbroken is how you stand
Still I ache at what you said
Trust? What does that even mean now?

I can’t even attempt the device of inner rhyme. It’s not a method I like, nor do I want to really attempt to cultivate it much. I find it strange. But maybe somewhere down the line.

Kate

Poetry – Journey Limerick, Oh God

View image | gettyimages.com

(Because Limerick should stay a place, not be a poem!)

 

There was a young man on a journey
From Jaberwocky to Jamburry*
He jetted and jived
As he jolly jump dived
But he never went to see Journey.

 

There was a man on his travels
Whose sweaters always unraveled
But he carried some string
Some very fine thing
And knitted while walking on gravel.

 

I knew of a man from Kearney
Who said he went to see Journey
He wore crazy sweaters
Said they were better
And he did travel to Burney

*Not a real place, but who said these had to be real words?

Oh my gosh. I have never been a fan of limericks. Partly because they never turn out right in my opinion. And these are far from right. They are so out of left field. I wanted to write about journey as a metaphor. Partly because I am dealing with online dating. (that is so much of a journey) But I couldn’t get the word ‘journey’ out of my head. So these are really really bad limericks!  But how can you not laugh?

 

Enjoy. Maybe tomorrow will be better. And maybe I can play around with ‘journey’ as a metaphor later.

 

Kate

 

 

Unrequited Letters – Flash Fiction

He poured his heart and passion into the letters he wrote her. Long, romantic missives. Short, tiny notes folded into secret notes. He told her of his hopes and dreams. Of his delight in her newest dress or the remark she made as she conversed with the grocer. 

He had mounts of letters. Piled so high a slight breeze might disturb and send the snowy sheets into a cascade of drifts and eddies around his small study.

For he never sent her the letters. Always afraid of how she would respond to his devotion, he wrote letters till he died, always pining for her.

 

Letters, and specifically love letters, have been in my mind lately. I have been thinking about writing letters to lovers

Bright Star (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(not that I have any at this moment… and note the use of the plural. I’m laughing at that) Writing letters to friends and families. I love how John Keats and Fanny Brawne wrote letters, though that whole thing is rather tragic. We won’t go there.

 

I love letters. Have I mentioned that a time or two? *said with tongue in cheek* I’m sure you could search my posts for just letters and find all kinds.

 

I long to write a lover a love letter. Pull out my red wine ink and pen something that is romantic. And this bit of flash fiction made me think of that and unrequited love, which has hit me a time or two.