This could be the day
when the words run away
and the poetry gets ugly ‘cause
there’s nothing left to say.
So I’ll try to keep it short
and I’ll try to keep it sweet
but I can’t make any promises
I’m not equipped to keep.
I didn’t promise gems
I only promised poems
and sometimes though the lights are on
there’s really no one home.
In the top of my dome.
#68
‘You here again? I just gave you a poem yesterday.’
“Yes, but I did make that promise about one every day.”
‘You could have discussed this with me first, and this year is a leap year too’
“Sorry. Maybe just a haiku or two?”
‘Haiku are tricky. How about a limerick?’
“As long as there’s no reference to Nantucket, I guess that would be alright.”
‘There once was a poet from BC,
Who was constantly bothering me.
For sonnets and ditties
and verses so witty
to blog with. Now go drink your tea.’
“Um… okay. Sorry for being so demanding, Brain.”
‘Ah, that’s okay, kid. I’ll try to work out something better for tomorrow.’
#59
Lately I’ve been writing more songs than poems. I never have much trouble distinguishing one from the other because songs ususally come with a melody. There has been the occasional time when a poem has crossed over and become a song, but not often (for me anyway). The way poetry and songs are presented seems to me to create a definite distinction in how they’re written. Songs are written to be listened to, poems are written to be read. Poems can be longer, can be lingered over, and can impart impact through line enjambment and other more visual effects. Songs, with some exceptions, are usually within the two and a half to four minute presentation, must grab the listener’s attention, and are supported by the musical accompaniment, the vocalist’s inflections, etc… So two very different forms. And yet sometimes they merge. I find poems more challenging to write; possibly because of the ‘stand alone’ nature of the beast; the words must carry the message on their own. Lyrics share the burden with music and vocal interpretation and that presents another set of challenges.
PS. After a little more research, I find that I am NOT the originator of the anagram poem. In fact there are people so masochistic out there that they have not only written anagrammatic poems, the poems even rhyme. That’s a challenge for another day, I think.
I like challenges.
Fishbone Melody
Like small plastic fishbone tag tethers
That lurk in the necks of new sweaters
Melodies wait to surface and nag
Till both of my hands hold grocery bags.
When both my hands clutch the truck steering wheel
Melody fishbones begin to reveal
Snippets of songs with potential to be
The number one hit that’s the making of me.
But when the truck stops and my sweater’s removed
And the grocery bags are all emptied of food
And I eagerly reach for my pen to write down
The tune that followed me home from downtown
Like the empty bag that lies on the floor
Of the truck and waits till I open the door
It leaps and it stumbles as if it’s possessed
By a drunken magpie in search of its nest
And my number one hit floats away on a breeze.
I guess some songs aren’t meant to be written by me.
Entropy’s Call
You are the day, I am the dawn
who lays her light across your lawn.
The gilding touch you cannot feel.
Ether’s fleeting ghost revealed.
You are the night I am star beams
caught in branches of your dreams.
Struggling for freedom, yet
returning nightly to your net.
You are the forest, I the river
Who murmurs deep and makes you shiver,
Till your darkness echoes long
within the passion of my song.
You are the sea, I the track
of Moon and Sun upon your back.
A crooked, coruscated skein
that leads you home and back again.
You are the mountain, I the crown,
of ice and snow that cool your brow.
Frozen symbiotic rime;
Your diamond till the end of time.
You are, I am, we are as two
until the world is made anew.
Till rivers turn and run uphill
And dreams of valour and free will
leach into cracked and rusted soil.
Till mountains melt and oceans boil.
Till sun is ice and moon enkindled.
Till all that was divine has dwindled.
Till Aurora snuffs her fire.
Till snow burns and all desire
descends to ash; entropy’s call.
I am, you are, my end, my all.
Many thanks yet again to my writing group for the input that helped me revise and polish this poem, and to my partner for inspiring it.
Between Forever and Long Ago
Between forever and long ago
There’s a song I used to know.
I sang it loud to calm my fears
Or soft to cushion tears.
Between forever and long ago
There’s a word I used to know.
Forcing me to make a choice
To stand and raise my voice
Between forever and long ago
There’s a path I used to know.
Clear and smooth or full of stones
It always led me home.
Between forever and long ago
There’s love I used know.
From life to life I followed him
To meet and love again.
And the song I sing is the beating of my wings
And the word I cry is freedom.
And the path I choose is the one less used
And the man I love’s the reason.
Between forever and long ago again.
I showed up at the usual meeting place for my Saturday morning writers’ group only to find that I’d gotten the dates wrong. As I sat drinking my Market Spice Tea and nibbling on my fresh baked tea biscuit (Faking Sanity yummies) I connected to the internet with my netbook and tried to track down my writing buddies. I tried Facebook and email etc… no one was online! Finally I just phoned someone and confirmed my suspicions that I’d managed to be a week early!
Because I had another appointment later that day, I decided to get another tea and just do some writing – any kind of writing. What I ended up with is a six verse haiku lament about not being able to locate someone online.
Cyberspacial Limbo
Where are you now, friend?
Does my email languish in
your full spam inbox?
My friend request lost
In cyberspacial limbo?
Twitter me this, dear.
Why stumble upon
My space? I hear your word press
Against my ear, dear.
Well, Skype my I M !
Your broken link can’t find the
Internet Highway.
I spell your name – search,
But the way back machine lies,
As though you’re still there.
I Google you now.
Your SEO has fallen
From grace, you diggit?
Here it is! this poem was a group creation. Rebekah and I cut out words and phrases and put them into a bag . Then the audience at the February Peace Region Songwriters, Coffee House at Faking Sanity Cafe (Dawson Creek, BC) selected snippets randomly. We then put the snippets together into this poem. (a little ‘poetic license’ was used by using the ‘you’re’ as ‘your’. Yes we are aware it’s the wrong form of the word for this context, but hey, it’s a ransom note poem!)
DaDa Poem
You’re period of mourning uncovered death in the fifth position.
Illuminate yourself.
Morning. slipped into her robe
and heard a masculine voice say: “What can we do?…especially if he’s innocent,
Stronger than a season
Between home and night that never slips away
moment by moment, slowly, looking,
do you look inside the flowers blooming last.
It is either very profound or very bizarre, or perhaps a bit of both but it was fun to do and it brought up some interesting images. Images like ‘morning slipping into a robe’ and ‘a season between home and night.’ I like these images and perhaps they, or modified versions of them, will eventually find their way into my poems. You’ll never know until you look inside the flowers blooming last…
Great Coffee House at Faking Sanity Cafe! As the final stop on the Spirit Arts Festival tour the ranks of our audience were swelled by some wonderful, arts lovin’ people and we were also pleased to have a new face front and centre with Lana Sloane and her very entertaining cowboy poetry. We hope she will come back and read again soon!
Our featured performer was Karen McGowan, who performed both cover songs and her own original music. Karen’s sense of humour is a treat; she really knows how to entertain an audience! An interesting note for those of you who may not know: Faking Sanity Cafe used to be called Under the Willow and was started by Karen. It passed from Karen on to Jennifer Singer, Karen’s daughter , and then to Angele and Cindy, the present owners, who changed the name to “Faking Sanity”.
At last month’s coffee house, we created a pantoum poem from suggestions from the audience. This month we had our audience participate in creating a Da Da Poem (or as I like to call them, ‘ransom note poems’!) We cut out words and phrases from discarded books/magazines, threw them into a bag, then the audience drew out the ones we’d use for the poem. It’s always quite amazing, and often a little odd, what you can make out of these snippets. I’m getting the original poem scanned and I’ll include it in my next post.
Bill Studley held the audience spellbound with his incredibly fast rendition of ‘I’ve been everywhere’.
Wayne Ezeard not only played and sang but also regaled us with some poetry from his book ‘Where Eagles Soar’. Rebekah Rempel-Chorney and Marilyn Belak read several selections from their exceptionally fine original poetry.
Dave McGowan, the man whose voice I’ve often referred to as “sounding like melted chocolate”, delighted us with some old favourites.
As MC I spent a lot of time trying not to place my foot squarely in my mouth but I also had time to play a few songs. I’ve included a video of my redition of Siúil a Rúin, an old Irish traditional.
As always, I received some very insightful feedback from my writing group on Saturday! I submitted ‘Goddess in the Garden’ for them to critique and was inspired to do a rewrite. Rebekah mentioned that, although I include references to ‘singing to’ the ‘sun’, ‘stars’, and ‘ocean’ as well as to the ‘earth’, most of the poem seems to talk about the earth only. She suggested that I expand the poem, and I think she was right.
I am including the rewrite here but the first draft is still in its original post if you want to compare them. The rewrite is obviously longer, but it also explores the Goddess in her relationships with these other elements.
Goddess in the Garden
Goddess-Spirit-Essence-Kernel-Seed-Sow-Propagate-Grow-Garden
The Goddess in the Garden is not afraid of snakes.
She strides barefoot, browned by sun, washed by rain.
Nakedly unashamed of the miracle, she lies
upon the open ground and leaches her essence
into the greedy earth, renewed, reborn through a million petals unfurled.
Burgeoning in tempting fruit and wanton weed alike
she sings the earth a song of plenty
The Goddess in the Garden is not afraid of the light.
She sways, heliotropic, eyes wide to the sky.
She steams from Earth to arc in apogee
to turn, prisms tangled in her hair.
Becoming the light and flooding back to Earth
she sings the sun a song of power.
The Goddess in the Garden is not afraid of the dark.
She dances to the rhythm of the moon, lambent steps
through dusky depths undaunted.
Limned with icy fire she spins the long night
into blessed dreams.
And smiling sweet abandon
she sings the stars a song of wonder.
The Goddess in the Garden is not afraid of water.
Dissolute she melts into the tidal swell.
Cradled in creation she floats in seaweed,
Hair streaming out behind.
A perfect balance of blood and brine and breath,
she sings the ocean a song of life; deep, immortal, ancestral home.
It is no sin to sing.
Linda Studley 