But sometimes, I just can't put it on paper. I've been working on the Guinevere poem for awhile now, but I just haven't been able to make it what I want it to be. However, I like what I have enough that I'll post it here and take a break before having another crack at it. Sometimes, you just need to let things go.
The other poem, Metamorphosis started with the last two lines and turned out rather different than I expected, but still good. It started with an idea I had after reading The Little Prince for the 250 billionth time. You see, I'd identified with so many of the characters on different readings. Sometimes I was the pilot, sometimes I was the fox, sometimes I was the lamp lighter, sometimes I was even the prince. But I was never the rose. Seeing as my name is Rosanne, I've rarely felt particularly rose-like. I liked briar rose, and rose red- both both had an idea of wildness and thorns to them. I never really felt like a sweet or romantic type rose. When my sister was talking about the kind of wedding she envisioned for me, she wanted dozens of roses and crystals and sparkles and faries... not really, but that was the vibe. Me? I always wanted orchids and bright colors and woodsy. She wants the fairytale palace, I guess what I want is the enchanted forest. I love my name, but someties I feel like the least rosey-rose of all time. But about a week ago, I read the little prince again, and I was the rose. I feel weirdly like I've entered a new era of life... but I doubt you'd get that from this poem ;)
Also, just so you know, I'm aware that I sometimes repeate phrases in poems. But I only do that until I put a phrase I like in a poem I think is good enough. The rest of the poems with that prase I probably have an issue with and won't really use for anything if I ever manage to publish (without Extensive re-tooling at any rate).
Guinevere
At my feet you lay the blame
for the breaking of your dream
for your failing hero's hearts
and the loss of Camelot.
Nevermind the hurt, nevermind the pain
of a husband who never comes home
who loves his kingdom, loves his creed
more than the woman he promised to hold.
Foreget the friend who forgot his brother,
the knight who betrayed his king
Laud the skill and laud the honor
Of the man who gave dishonor to me.
Oh, if knights were true and kings were wise
they would tell you I'm not the sole reason
but they remain silent, I take the blame
for their faling heros' hearts
for the loss of Camelot.
Metamorphosis
I've been a tree
grasping the sky
I've been a cloud
swimming in lakes
I've been the wind,
the air in your lungs
I've been the earth
under your feet
I've been the masses
crowding the streets
I've been an island
lost in the foam
I've been the dreams
of the always asleep
I've been the wanderer
waiting on home
but this morning
I woke just a rose.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
What a week!
It's been quite a week. I broke my toe. As a dancer, that breaks my heart. I don't just dance because it's fun, I dance because I need to. Even before I started Lindy hopping (<3) I had to move to music to be happy. When I'm angry, I have to dance. When I'm sad, I have to dance. When I'm happy I have to dance. My movement expresses and releases my emotion in the same way my poetry does, but in a way it is the first, most raw expression. To write good poetry, I have to be in a place where my head is clear enough that I can articulate my emotions and thoughts. I when I dance, I can express things I haven't yet figured out how to say. So, the frustration I have with my broken toe is very hard to express without dancing. Ick.
But my dear friend (who this blog is for) talked me down from my anger and sadness and got me to a place where I could write. Necklace I wrote last week, but never put up. Resigning and Turning Pages were last night's projects. Let me know what you think!
Necklace
I love to watch you holding,
softly as a new father,
the thin gold chain of my life.
I love to watch your eyes,
full of wonder, marveling
at its' shining fragility
lying dwarfed in your hands.
Resigning
I could leave you
one day you may wake up
and as your dreams fade
you will find emptiness-
a dent in the pillow where my head
always rested,
never again.
I could leave you
one afternoon you may call
with absent minded fingers
my worn number
and hear only the sound
of a nameless operator's
pre-recorded platitudes.
I could leave you
one night you may go to bed
and find only chilly
straigtened sheets
to welcome your worn body
and there will be nothing
to hold.
I will leave you
Someday soon you will blink
and I will be gone
leaving, like the gost of lilacs,
a dull sweet ache,
empty as your eyes
when they look at me.
Turning Pages
I count my life in books,
in the pages of old friends
who sit on my shelves
never higher than I can reach
standing tip toed on my desk chair.
I count my life in stories,
in characters I become
and the secrets they whisper
that tell me who I am today,
yesterday and tomorrow.
I count my life in pages
in turning and discovering
in the drawn out moments
of simple scenes rich, always,
with elegant lines of meaning.
I count my life in writing,
in old sentences that fill my heart
or empty it- leaving clarity,
replacing confusion and doubt
left in the wake of evanescent speech.
But my dear friend (who this blog is for) talked me down from my anger and sadness and got me to a place where I could write. Necklace I wrote last week, but never put up. Resigning and Turning Pages were last night's projects. Let me know what you think!
Necklace
I love to watch you holding,
softly as a new father,
the thin gold chain of my life.
I love to watch your eyes,
full of wonder, marveling
at its' shining fragility
lying dwarfed in your hands.
Resigning
I could leave you
one day you may wake up
and as your dreams fade
you will find emptiness-
a dent in the pillow where my head
always rested,
never again.
I could leave you
one afternoon you may call
with absent minded fingers
my worn number
and hear only the sound
of a nameless operator's
pre-recorded platitudes.
I could leave you
one night you may go to bed
and find only chilly
straigtened sheets
to welcome your worn body
and there will be nothing
to hold.
I will leave you
Someday soon you will blink
and I will be gone
leaving, like the gost of lilacs,
a dull sweet ache,
empty as your eyes
when they look at me.
Turning Pages
I count my life in books,
in the pages of old friends
who sit on my shelves
never higher than I can reach
standing tip toed on my desk chair.
I count my life in stories,
in characters I become
and the secrets they whisper
that tell me who I am today,
yesterday and tomorrow.
I count my life in pages
in turning and discovering
in the drawn out moments
of simple scenes rich, always,
with elegant lines of meaning.
I count my life in writing,
in old sentences that fill my heart
or empty it- leaving clarity,
replacing confusion and doubt
left in the wake of evanescent speech.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Procrastinating is good for poeming
More Poems! I got this stuck in my head the other day, and I finally stole a moment to put it on paper:
Sinking Sand
My life is made of sinking sand,
but I intend to float
my open hands are paddles
this empty heart the boat.
Within the limitless lake of dust
I glide, a glinting mote
I've build a mast of stubbornness-
the sail I'll weave of hope
Though I may never find firm land
within this desert remote
I'll keep my soul light and free
for I intend to float.
I've been reading a lot of Sara Teasdale (And I strongly recommend you do the same). She's a poet after my own heart, a lot of her stuff is short, it's rich and often has a twist to it. It doesn't feel didactic or preachy, but it does say something new. I was excited to find that she wrote a lot of poems about April (Being born then, I've always been partial to it) and I started thinking about why she would write so much about that month particularly. I love April, but while it's the first month of spring, it tends to still be chilly and often dreary. You want flowers and sun, but you get mud and rain. The world is starting to wake up, but it isn't dressed yet and it certainly hasn't done it's hair or make up. (Hum... I like that... it may show up somewhere else someday :) So then I wrote this poem (But that sentence may be better than the poem, now it's gonna have an inferiority complex, poor thing ;)
April
April is the beginning
that hasn't yet begun
a promise not yet broken
because it hasn't yet become
It's the question to an answer
that hasn't yet appeared
it's waiting for a wish
we've dreamed of in our tears.
Sinking Sand
My life is made of sinking sand,
but I intend to float
my open hands are paddles
this empty heart the boat.
Within the limitless lake of dust
I glide, a glinting mote
I've build a mast of stubbornness-
the sail I'll weave of hope
Though I may never find firm land
within this desert remote
I'll keep my soul light and free
for I intend to float.
I've been reading a lot of Sara Teasdale (And I strongly recommend you do the same). She's a poet after my own heart, a lot of her stuff is short, it's rich and often has a twist to it. It doesn't feel didactic or preachy, but it does say something new. I was excited to find that she wrote a lot of poems about April (Being born then, I've always been partial to it) and I started thinking about why she would write so much about that month particularly. I love April, but while it's the first month of spring, it tends to still be chilly and often dreary. You want flowers and sun, but you get mud and rain. The world is starting to wake up, but it isn't dressed yet and it certainly hasn't done it's hair or make up. (Hum... I like that... it may show up somewhere else someday :) So then I wrote this poem (But that sentence may be better than the poem, now it's gonna have an inferiority complex, poor thing ;)
April
April is the beginning
that hasn't yet begun
a promise not yet broken
because it hasn't yet become
It's the question to an answer
that hasn't yet appeared
it's waiting for a wish
we've dreamed of in our tears.
Monday, August 1, 2011
I'm trying to really start working on "my novel" which seems like a horribly pretentious thing to say I'm doing. I've always been a bit shy of showing my work, and it seems kind of arrogant to think I have that much to say that anyone else will want to hear. But, I talk A LOT and people still like me, so maybe this is kind of like that ;) Anyway, I think that as an English major, I am doomed to eventually attempt this, so better sooner than later. In consequence, my poetry may slow down (or speed up as I have something bigger to procrastinate on) but, I want to go back and work on some of the poems I talked about but never finished. Like the stuff from the Bach concert. And the feminist one (I really want to see where that ends up). So hopefully August will be full of book writing and poetry.
To start it off, here's last month's poem. The word was miscommunication:
Miscommunication
Between my lips and your ears
words war their way through
a no-mans-land of mines and booby traps
their disfigured bodies, unrecognizable,
whisper through death, caught in their throats,
the lies they’ve learned on the way.
Then I wrote a poem using a list of somebody's 10 most beautiful words in the English language (chimes, dawn, golden, hush, lullaby, luminous, melody, mist, murmuring, tranquil). Pretty words are kind of boring to work with, so it isn't my favorite. Also, they are kind of similar. Boring. But I wrote it because I challenged myself to, and it turned out alright after all:
Poetic
In the golden hush of dawn
before the waking wind
sweeps away the final chimes
of midnight lullabies
the luminous fingers of dawn stroke
languid latitude lines, strumming
the murmuring melody of mist
as it presses itself into the tranquil earth.
Next, a poem using Edward Sheldon's ugliest words in the English language (funeral parlor,galluses, housewife, intelligentsia). Which was the second part of my challange. I figure if you can make a poem out of pretty words, so what? But ugly words, that's something. And I like this one a lot better :)
Prose
He walked, head down, shoulders slouched
into the funeral parlor on the fourteenth of May.
The only thing about his person that did not succumb
to the day's gravity were his pants,
prosaically supported by old, brown galluses.
She was just a housewife, and he was no intelligentsia
but the picture of him, stooping over her
worn and hollow was the most perfect thing
the photographer had ever snapped
(but was not included in the next day's paper
Due to the stunning indiscretion of a Notable socialite).
And life has been really good lately. I'm still getting better, still finding my way towards the happiness I used to find so easily. But I've turned another corner and it's been huge for me. I keep thinking, in a way, that this is it. That I'm finally back, and it feels like that this time too. Partially because, I think, I know I'm not going back to what I was. You can't. Your physical body turns over, new cells replacing the old, so that you can never be literally the person you were, even when you are "all grown up." So instead, I'm finding the things I used to love and putting them together with the lessons I've learned about life and together, it's making life beautiful again. Beautiful in a way that makes me catch my breath at random moments because it just hits me how beautiful that moment is. I'm glad.
But whenever I feel happier, whenever I move a little further on, I miss Angel a little more again. I've been thinking of her a lot this weekend, and some of the memories that felt like they were fading came back, really strong. So I have a weird combination of the sadness of missing her and the gladness that even if it makes me sad, I still have her. But the poem that came out about her today is kind of sad, but it's something I think about. So here that is:
Bereavement
Every death is yours.
The tombstones crumbling
with a hundred years decay
are memorials of your passing.
Obituaries in daily papers mark
Your sweetness, missed.
Even deaths, splashed across
wide screens of make believe
Are yours.
You die with the day at every sun set.
And I love every death for you.
Anyway, Now I should really do some book-work. See you later!
To start it off, here's last month's poem. The word was miscommunication:
Miscommunication
Between my lips and your ears
words war their way through
a no-mans-land of mines and booby traps
their disfigured bodies, unrecognizable,
whisper through death, caught in their throats,
the lies they’ve learned on the way.
Then I wrote a poem using a list of somebody's 10 most beautiful words in the English language (chimes, dawn, golden, hush, lullaby, luminous, melody, mist, murmuring, tranquil). Pretty words are kind of boring to work with, so it isn't my favorite. Also, they are kind of similar. Boring. But I wrote it because I challenged myself to, and it turned out alright after all:
Poetic
In the golden hush of dawn
before the waking wind
sweeps away the final chimes
of midnight lullabies
the luminous fingers of dawn stroke
languid latitude lines, strumming
the murmuring melody of mist
as it presses itself into the tranquil earth.
Next, a poem using Edward Sheldon's ugliest words in the English language (funeral parlor,galluses, housewife, intelligentsia). Which was the second part of my challange. I figure if you can make a poem out of pretty words, so what? But ugly words, that's something. And I like this one a lot better :)
Prose
He walked, head down, shoulders slouched
into the funeral parlor on the fourteenth of May.
The only thing about his person that did not succumb
to the day's gravity were his pants,
prosaically supported by old, brown galluses.
She was just a housewife, and he was no intelligentsia
but the picture of him, stooping over her
worn and hollow was the most perfect thing
the photographer had ever snapped
(but was not included in the next day's paper
Due to the stunning indiscretion of a Notable socialite).
And life has been really good lately. I'm still getting better, still finding my way towards the happiness I used to find so easily. But I've turned another corner and it's been huge for me. I keep thinking, in a way, that this is it. That I'm finally back, and it feels like that this time too. Partially because, I think, I know I'm not going back to what I was. You can't. Your physical body turns over, new cells replacing the old, so that you can never be literally the person you were, even when you are "all grown up." So instead, I'm finding the things I used to love and putting them together with the lessons I've learned about life and together, it's making life beautiful again. Beautiful in a way that makes me catch my breath at random moments because it just hits me how beautiful that moment is. I'm glad.
But whenever I feel happier, whenever I move a little further on, I miss Angel a little more again. I've been thinking of her a lot this weekend, and some of the memories that felt like they were fading came back, really strong. So I have a weird combination of the sadness of missing her and the gladness that even if it makes me sad, I still have her. But the poem that came out about her today is kind of sad, but it's something I think about. So here that is:
Bereavement
Every death is yours.
The tombstones crumbling
with a hundred years decay
are memorials of your passing.
Obituaries in daily papers mark
Your sweetness, missed.
Even deaths, splashed across
wide screens of make believe
Are yours.
You die with the day at every sun set.
And I love every death for you.
Anyway, Now I should really do some book-work. See you later!
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