This week’s form challenge, posed by our friend Peter at dVerse Poets, asks us to write something with a “turn”. Most of us are familiar with this technique in sonnets, but I thought I’d try it with a Terza Rima.
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The Price We Pay
The way we choose is often hard and long but still we choose to go there anyway and end up where there is no love or song
or love songs–no nice place to be, or stay. Instead, we make our choice and stand our ground and face the music, come whatever may.
There must be more than days without a sound.
—————[|||]————— dVerse Poets Meeting The Bar ~ Middles and Turns~ ———[||]———
I’m trying out a new (for me) form here for this week’s P/SU Scribble. Invented by fellow poet Candace Kubinec, It’s called a Waltmarie. I don’t know where the name came from, but the rules are these:
>> 10 lines >> Even lines are two syllables in length, odd lines are longer (but no specific syllable count) >> Even lines make their own mini-poem if read separately >> No other rules for subject or rhymes.
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About Vanishment
Everyone you know or will know is always going where you may not follow. They travel unaccompanied by friends who care, alone. We may spy them, standing in the distance but they are gone forever. Nothing else matters.
—————[|||]————— Poets And Storytellers United Weekly Scribble #58
~ Two Into One Will Go~
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My primary poetic inspiration / guru has died, one month short of his 102nd birthday. You can/should read his full obituary HERE. You’ll note that he was far more than merely a great writer, and that the planet has suffered a tremendous loss, humanitarian-wise.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is the reason I started writing over a half-century ago. About 7 tears ago, the (now-defunct0 online journal Clapboard House published my poem entitled “Grace” in which I enumerated all the many things I’m thankful for. (If interested, you can read it HERE). It concludes:
Thanks for the moon reflected in windshield raindrops, and for midnight mushrooms, Day-Glo under blacklight, mescaline boogie, acid rock, and acid. But mostly thank you for ’68: Danny Riley and his floral necktie finishing up his student teaching, smiling and handing me books, saying Oh man, you should read some Ginsberg, or Brautigan, maybe. No; here, I got it. for you, Ferlinghetti.
Next month Jambu Press will be releasing a Ferlinghetti Tribute anthology that’s been in the works for quite a while now, and I’m greatly honored that one of my poems (“Candy”) was selected for inclusion. I‘ll fill you in on all of that later.
It’s Quadrille Monday again at the dVerse Poets Pub; time to create a 44-word poem using the word (or encompassing the concept of) “Gone”. Thanks to De (aka whimsygizmo) for hosting and getting us started.
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Remainder
I looked out the window and knew I couldn’t stay
I think she already knew I thought I was already gone
Sometimes I only think I know what I think I know
Several short decades later, same window, same thought
A year from now will be the perfect 10: Two, five times: 2.22.22.
But that’s still a year away, and today, considerably less auspicious, is only just another Monday.
But on the bright side, at least it’s the last Monday of the month; the final Monday of the worst month ever.
Even he can’t see into the future, but he’s learned a few things from his past and he knows from bitter experience that it’s never wise to look forward to anything, especially to a February.
Still, he’s got a good feeling about all those twos strung together.
Here’s one from the Works-in-Progress File, revised yet again and ready (I think) to be moved to the Almost-There File…
Fourish
He wakes up briefly twice and both times he’s someone else.
First he’s top-hatted Charlie McCarthy, the bow-tied and monocled loudmouth, speedy comebacker to Edgar Bergan’s rational and baritoned straight lines, clearly begging for a well-deserved but always undelivered face slap.
Later, though, he’s older than Edgar ever thought of being; older than The Sun King’s scepter, older than The Sun King or The Sun King’s father; older, even, than the sun itself, which does not shine at 4 AM, will not shine no matter how long he waits in bed.
He goes back to sleep. It’s not quite four o’clock yet, but suddenly he’s…
—————[|||]————— Poets And Storytellers United Writers Pantry #58
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Whatever happens after the bell’s third chime, if anything happens after the bell’s third chime, is almost never what he’d come to expect, almost never something that comes easily or flows like it should after the third chime fades.
Whatever it is that used to hurt still hurts. New hurts arise but old hurts never fade. Nothing that’s new stays new forever, so all new pains must do what all new pains must do: age and fade but never disappear.
Temple wisdom fails. Chime after chime, page after page after chapter after book, no new wisdom makes itself known.
