Whoops! I almost forgot. It’s Saturday, and that means it’s time to post my week’s worth of poems. In case you missed the previous posts, you can find Week One HERE and Week Two HERE. And don’t forget to check out Jamie’s poems HERE.
Without further ado, POEMS!
Poem #15
The Monotetra can have any number of stanzas of four lines each, but must have at least two. Each stanza contains a mono-rhyme, so that the pattern is aaaa, bbbb, cccc, and so on, and eight syllables, and the last line of each stanza has a repeating four-syllable phrase, like an echo, to make it look like a refrain.
The Price to Pay
The wind is from the west today
I stand and watch the branches sway
a storm is coming, so they say -
perhaps it may, perhaps it may.
But wind and rain are not what wait
for one like me, no it is fate
upon my soul it’s hunger sate
so filled with hate, so filled with hate.
I dabbled in what I should not
never thinking I’d be caught -
it’s not as if I’d not been taught
but I forgot, but I forgot.
There always is a price to pay
for those who once were made of clay
but changed to stop life’s slow decay
to my dismay, to my dismay.
I come to you, confess my sin
remind you all of what has been
the world around me starts to spin
please let me in, please let me in.
It doesn’t matter anyhow
alas there is no succor now
for those who broke a sacred vow
the end is now, the end is now.
Poem #16
You know, you’d think Sunday’s poem would be easier because I’m not following a specific form, but I still have to come up with a subject, and my brain feels like it’s full of sawdust.
I Make The Plans
I make the plans and then I watch
as plans go all awry
all that time gone with a splotch
and all I can do is sigh.
I make the plans and then I see
other things to do
I go upon a cleaning spree
and then I sit and stew.
I make the plans and then I find
a web cam on the ‘net
I watch the feed ‘til I’m near blind
and so the pattern’s set.
I make the plans but never seem
to stick to them, I guess
plans for me are just a dream -
they only cause me stress.
Poem #17
Naani is one of India's most popular Telugu forms. The name means “an expression of one and all”. It consists of four lines, with a total of 20 to 25 syllables. The Naani has no rhyme scheme and there is no set length to each line, nor is the poem is not bound to a particular subject. My kind of poem! It was so much fun I did three of them. :-)
I offer you a cup of words
take what you want -
the rest will fly free
like dandelion seeds on the wind.
Look up, look up
into a clear blue sky
where thoughts and dreams drift
in the shape of white clouds.
Ink spills across the page
needing the mind’s eye
to decipher the meaning
of the poet’s thoughts.
Poem #18
The Ochtfochlach (points if you can pronounce it) is from Ireland. It has 8 lines, any consistent number of syllables, and the rhyme scheme is AAAB CCCB.
Split
There is a darkness deep in me
Down where no one else can see
Filled with all of life’s debris
and what I perceive is pay back.
Sometimes I let the darkness out
but only when no one’s about
and then true evil starts to sprout
and there’s no turning back.
Poem #19
The Pensee is a syllabic form with five lines. The structure is as follows:
Line 1: subject – 2 syllables
Line 2: description – 4 syllables
Line 3: action – 7 syllables
Line 4: setting – 8 syllables
Line 5: final thought – 6 syllables
Titles are optional, but I titled mine and did two of them because they’re short.
Magic
faeries
in the moonlight
flittering and dancing free
in the hidden magic forest
make me feel young again.
Depression
journey
into darkness
the black dog is chasing you
to the edge of the mind’s abyss
the dark night of the soul.
Poem #20
I had a lot of choices for the letter Q and in the end I chose my two favorites.
A quinzaine is an unrhymed verse of fifteen syllables. These syllables are distributed as follows:
Line 1: Statement of 7 syllables
Line 2: Beginning of question with 5 syllables
Line 3: End of question with 3 syllables
I always expect the worst -
why do I do that?
I don’t know.
The flapping of wings fills the air.
Where do ducks come from?
Will they stay?
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
A Quatern is a sixteen line French form. Rhymes are not a requirement and if one is used the rhyme scheme or rhyming pattern is entirely up to the poet. The Quatern:
1) Must have four verses.
2) Each verse must have four lines.
3) Each line must have eight syllables.
4) It must have a first line which is a descending repeated line.
Magic Rare
A quality of magic rare
dwells within the most worthy souls;
a hidden essence sometimes shown
but only to those who believe.
Like a ghost on the earthly plain,
a quality of magic rare
is often sensed rather than seen
like a will-o-the-wisp at large.
A moonlit path of fairy dust
that shimmers and glows will lead to
a quality of magic rare
for those who have the eyes to see.
With pen and ink I start to write
trying to capture the coy words
and wish that somehow I could find
a quality of magic rare.
Poem #21
Like so many other French forms, the Retourne is all about repetition. It contains four quatrains (four-line stanzas), and each line has eight syllables. It’s kind of like the Quatern in that it has a repeating line, but in this case the second line of the first stanza becomes the first line of the second stanza, the third line of the first stanza becomes the first line of the third stanza; and the fourth line of the first stanza becomes the first line of the fourth stanza.
My Path
I walk a path that no one sees
It takes me to unknown places.
I see things most others cannot
I hold the magic in my veins.
It takes me to unknown places
This path of mine I walk alone
Though others are free to follow
If they truly wish to do so.
I see things most others cannot
Which is disconcerting at times
But oh, the beauty in the world
So often overlooked by man,
I hold the magic in my veins
And walk a magic path of words.
As hard as it is, still it’s mine
And I wouldn’t trade for anything.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
And there you have the poems for week three. Next week is going to be challenging because I’m getting into the harder letters of the alphabet. And seeing as April ends next Sunday, that’s when I’ll be posting the final week’s worth of poems. Don’t forget to check back!
Showing posts with label a week of poems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a week of poems. Show all posts
Saturday, April 22, 2017
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Week One of the Jamie and Carol PAD Challenge
As you know, my best buddy Jamie and I challenged each other to write a poem a day for the month of April. I’m following an A to Z theme of forms while Jamie is working from prompts supplied to her from a workshop she participated in.
We emailed our resulting poems to each other on a daily basis and today we’re posting them on our respective blogs.
Poem #1
My first poem is written in the Abhanga form. It’s a four line stanza with a syllable count of 6,6,6,4. Lines 2 and 3 rhyme:
Magic burning brightly
the heady perfume scent
of power in assent
filling the air.
A thought, a word, a spell
the magic works its will
and power rises still
to reach the end.
Poem #2
Since April has 30 days and there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, I’m going to take a page from the A to Z thing and do whatever turns my crank on Sundays. This is a poem I’ve been meaning to write for a long time that’s part of a book I haven’t worked on in years (because it needs to be totally rewritten). It’s supposed to be more like a nursery rhyme.
Beware the Myste that shifts your way flee as quickly as you may;
the Myste, it winds through time and space,
danger’s found in its embrace.
White the Myste that grasps your hand and takes you to another land.
Yellow Myste, the years will fly -
forwards, backwards, not knowing why.
Blue the Myste, transforming skin
into things that have not been.
Green the Myste you’ll lose your head;
Red the Myste, you’ll end up dead.
Beware the Myste that shifts your way flee as quickly as you may;
the Myste, it winds through time and space,
danger’s found in its embrace.
Poem #3
The Balassi Stanza is named after the Hungarian poet Balint Balassi. It consists of nine lines with the rhyme-scheme AABCCBDDB and a syllable count of 667667667.
My escape is a dream
on a silver moonbeam
a gift from the stars so bright.
I can fly if I will
even go further still
and soar far into the night.
I can change how I look,
take the road no one took -
wherever fancy takes flight.
I can be anyone,
I can lay in the sun,
or swim in an ocean blue.
I can step in a book
maybe just for a look
or see the story comes true.
I would live in a dream
all my life it would seem
if choice was in my purview.
Poem #4
Choka is a form of Japanese long poetry pre-dating, but related to, haiku. As with haiku, the lines of a choka should not rhyme but should follow a syllabic pattern (onji). The most widely accepted pattern for the Choka is to start with a katuata of 5-7-5 syllables and continue in a 7-5 syllable pattern. It can be any odd number of lines and finishes with a 7-7 syllable count.
Gun metal grey sky,
clouds weeping for lack of sun,
chill dampness seeping
into the pores of the earth,
no ending in sight.
Boiling rivers and streams, dark
with mud and debris
rushing to leave us behind;
wash away our sins.
Like divine retribution
prayers go unheeded.
In the uncaring darkness,
voices turn to smoke.
Like a prophet false to truth
the dark continues
eroding creativity;
a slow death of the spirit.
Poem #5
Despite being called the Diminished Hexaverse, this form has nothing to do with the number six. It begins with a five line stanza of five syllables in each line, then a four line stanza with four syllables each, then three, then two, then one. Rhymes are to be avoided in this form and you can give it a title or not, as you wish.
Creativity
The glide of a pen
A soft muttered curse
A brushing of paint
A starting over
Persistence is key
A finished poem
A finished song
A painting done
Satisfaction
Creation
is never
that easy
but still
we do
it.
Poem #6
This form is the Etheree, which is similar to the Diminished Hexaverse only longer. This one is ten lines long. The first line is one syllable, the second line is two syllables, and so forth until the tenth line of ten syllables. You can also do it in reverse, going from ten syllables to one.
I
write of
things unseen
and often things
hidden in the dark
abyss of a twisted
imagination - nothing
is planned, words flowing outward
and spread across the page in a pattern
that weaves the story that’s trapped within
But the spinner spins and the weaver weaves
and sometimes thread-thoughts become tangled
and I stare at the empty screen
waiting for inspiration
waiting for ideas
that might never come -
still I persist
until the
tale is
done.
Poem #7
The Flarf is an internet dependant form that combines unusual phrases from Google searches. It takes its raw material from a search involving wildly different terms, like "anarchy + tuna melt" or "exquisite + corpse." A poem is created by cutting and pasting words from the search results page (none of the website links are followed). You can also pull lines from your Facebook or Twitter feeds, but I chose the traditional Google search. :-D
The Ugliness in Beauty (revised)
Humans can be very conflicted
when it comes to the concepts of beauty and ugly.
Is Ugly the New Beautiful?
These are two variations of the same concept,
which, when literally translated, mean pretty-ugly
and beautiful-ugly, respectively.
Note the proportion of beautiful words to ugly ones.
What are we to define ugly?
We all enjoy beauty.
But an appreciation of ugliness is necessary to it.
The Beautiful and the Ugly are One Thing
Ugly is just another form of beauty,
Without ugly we would have much less,
Because even the ugliest thing has helped something.
How beautiful am I?
The beautiful and the ugly are not opposites,
but aspects of the same ...
Better to see the beautiful, ugly truth of the cosmos.
There are no certainties here, only struggle and contingency
In the natural world, beauty can be many things
Why am I ugly?
or not pretty enough?
It’s a pretty person’s world
I'm ugly, and I know it.
Stop telling me I'm 'beautiful'.
I'm ugly. It's fine.
The Beautiful Ugly. 143 likes
Heartbreaking, terrifying, thought provoking
Just who are these sinners
that are so ugly on the inside?
And the LORD God said unto the serpent,
Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle,
and above every beast of the field; ...
Existence can be beautiful or ugly.
It can be lonely. Chaotic. Terrifying.
What matters is how you see it.
“EVERYTHING burns,”
says the Joker in the Dark Knight
Am I ugly?
And there you have it. The first week’s worth of poems. I hope you had as much fun reading them as I did writing them. And hey, it’s National Poetry Month - why not give one or more of the forms I’ve included a try?
We emailed our resulting poems to each other on a daily basis and today we’re posting them on our respective blogs.
Poem #1
My first poem is written in the Abhanga form. It’s a four line stanza with a syllable count of 6,6,6,4. Lines 2 and 3 rhyme:
Magic burning brightly
the heady perfume scent
of power in assent
filling the air.
A thought, a word, a spell
the magic works its will
and power rises still
to reach the end.
Poem #2
Since April has 30 days and there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, I’m going to take a page from the A to Z thing and do whatever turns my crank on Sundays. This is a poem I’ve been meaning to write for a long time that’s part of a book I haven’t worked on in years (because it needs to be totally rewritten). It’s supposed to be more like a nursery rhyme.
Beware the Myste that shifts your way flee as quickly as you may;
the Myste, it winds through time and space,
danger’s found in its embrace.
White the Myste that grasps your hand and takes you to another land.
Yellow Myste, the years will fly -
forwards, backwards, not knowing why.
Blue the Myste, transforming skin
into things that have not been.
Green the Myste you’ll lose your head;
Red the Myste, you’ll end up dead.
Beware the Myste that shifts your way flee as quickly as you may;
the Myste, it winds through time and space,
danger’s found in its embrace.
Poem #3
The Balassi Stanza is named after the Hungarian poet Balint Balassi. It consists of nine lines with the rhyme-scheme AABCCBDDB and a syllable count of 667667667.
My escape is a dream
on a silver moonbeam
a gift from the stars so bright.
I can fly if I will
even go further still
and soar far into the night.
I can change how I look,
take the road no one took -
wherever fancy takes flight.
I can be anyone,
I can lay in the sun,
or swim in an ocean blue.
I can step in a book
maybe just for a look
or see the story comes true.
I would live in a dream
all my life it would seem
if choice was in my purview.
Poem #4
Choka is a form of Japanese long poetry pre-dating, but related to, haiku. As with haiku, the lines of a choka should not rhyme but should follow a syllabic pattern (onji). The most widely accepted pattern for the Choka is to start with a katuata of 5-7-5 syllables and continue in a 7-5 syllable pattern. It can be any odd number of lines and finishes with a 7-7 syllable count.
Gun metal grey sky,
clouds weeping for lack of sun,
chill dampness seeping
into the pores of the earth,
no ending in sight.
Boiling rivers and streams, dark
with mud and debris
rushing to leave us behind;
wash away our sins.
Like divine retribution
prayers go unheeded.
In the uncaring darkness,
voices turn to smoke.
Like a prophet false to truth
the dark continues
eroding creativity;
a slow death of the spirit.
Poem #5
Despite being called the Diminished Hexaverse, this form has nothing to do with the number six. It begins with a five line stanza of five syllables in each line, then a four line stanza with four syllables each, then three, then two, then one. Rhymes are to be avoided in this form and you can give it a title or not, as you wish.
Creativity
The glide of a pen
A soft muttered curse
A brushing of paint
A starting over
Persistence is key
A finished poem
A finished song
A painting done
Satisfaction
Creation
is never
that easy
but still
we do
it.
Poem #6
This form is the Etheree, which is similar to the Diminished Hexaverse only longer. This one is ten lines long. The first line is one syllable, the second line is two syllables, and so forth until the tenth line of ten syllables. You can also do it in reverse, going from ten syllables to one.
I
write of
things unseen
and often things
hidden in the dark
abyss of a twisted
imagination - nothing
is planned, words flowing outward
and spread across the page in a pattern
that weaves the story that’s trapped within
But the spinner spins and the weaver weaves
and sometimes thread-thoughts become tangled
and I stare at the empty screen
waiting for inspiration
waiting for ideas
that might never come -
still I persist
until the
tale is
done.
Poem #7
The Flarf is an internet dependant form that combines unusual phrases from Google searches. It takes its raw material from a search involving wildly different terms, like "anarchy + tuna melt" or "exquisite + corpse." A poem is created by cutting and pasting words from the search results page (none of the website links are followed). You can also pull lines from your Facebook or Twitter feeds, but I chose the traditional Google search. :-D
The Ugliness in Beauty (revised)
Humans can be very conflicted
when it comes to the concepts of beauty and ugly.
Is Ugly the New Beautiful?
These are two variations of the same concept,
which, when literally translated, mean pretty-ugly
and beautiful-ugly, respectively.
Note the proportion of beautiful words to ugly ones.
What are we to define ugly?
We all enjoy beauty.
But an appreciation of ugliness is necessary to it.
The Beautiful and the Ugly are One Thing
Ugly is just another form of beauty,
Without ugly we would have much less,
Because even the ugliest thing has helped something.
How beautiful am I?
The beautiful and the ugly are not opposites,
but aspects of the same ...
Better to see the beautiful, ugly truth of the cosmos.
There are no certainties here, only struggle and contingency
In the natural world, beauty can be many things
Why am I ugly?
or not pretty enough?
It’s a pretty person’s world
I'm ugly, and I know it.
Stop telling me I'm 'beautiful'.
I'm ugly. It's fine.
The Beautiful Ugly. 143 likes
Heartbreaking, terrifying, thought provoking
Just who are these sinners
that are so ugly on the inside?
And the LORD God said unto the serpent,
Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle,
and above every beast of the field; ...
Existence can be beautiful or ugly.
It can be lonely. Chaotic. Terrifying.
What matters is how you see it.
“EVERYTHING burns,”
says the Joker in the Dark Knight
Am I ugly?
And there you have it. The first week’s worth of poems. I hope you had as much fun reading them as I did writing them. And hey, it’s National Poetry Month - why not give one or more of the forms I’ve included a try?
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