PWoF 2016 - Topic 07 - Sept. 28

[rayheinrich]

Sorry, had a pet emergency. Good news: Cat's going to be just fine. Bad news: Emergency vet cost $350



        PWoF 2016 - Topic 07 - Sept. 28


        Standard instructions:
       

         You should attempt to write a poem inspired by this topic -- not a derivative, literal
         interpretation of the topic.   Create a poem that reflects your own true self.
         
         --> Since the officious rules of PWoF 2016 stipulate that you can submit more than
         one poem; may I suggest, if the fit strikes you, that you include, after your major work,
         a second poem consisting of a bit of transient doggerel, a limerick, or a trenchant
         end-rhyming nonsense poem that somehow reflects the intention of this topic.
         
         (And for anyone who's a bit uncertain about starting out here: Ignore my bullshite and
         just string some words together (that's what everybody else is doing ).  
       

        Topic 7:
       

Robert Frost once remarked: "Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down."
Years later Brigitte Oleschinski, a free verse poet, disagreed: "I think Frost's tennis analogy
is a bit off; it's not that the net's lowered, it's that the ball's missing."

So where does prose-poetry fit into either of those analogies?  Is writing prose-poetry like playing
with the net part way down, or is it like playing without rackets? Or maybe prose poetry is video
tennis; it exists in your head, not in your hand. Or maybe it doesn't exist at all, it's just poetic prose
or de-formatted poetry. Or maybe it's the historically original form of free verse and the stuff we
think of as free verse now-a-days is a mixture of it and formal verse?

But luckily, we don't have to worry about any of that.  Yes, the topic today is to write a prose poem
(your definition); but if you don't think it exists, you're home free.  

For the rest of us, here's the topic:

Write a prose poem about images that won't go away, dreams that won't stop:
Like a tiger's mouth inches away from your face - something truly terrifying -
where you were sure you would die or be crippled, disfigured, ruined in some way...
Or just write about a cute kitten.
Or write about a cute kitten that turns into a tiger and rips your face off.
Or a tiger that turns into a kitten and pees in your lap.

And, if you're interested, you'll find a good overview of prose poetry right here.

[just mercedes]

Ouch. Still it's better than the alternative. I'm just back from an open mic night at the local pub. One other poet, lots of musicians. An 18 year old girl blew me away with her guitar playing - she works in the pub's kitchen. I know I'm going to be saying 'I knew her before she was famous'.

Damn. Prose poem. I'll sleep on this overnight I think. Although last night's dream could maybe work ...

[Quixilated]

I am weeping.  Saltwater runs down my face in torrents, but dries the moment it leaves my skin.  And the little creatures (they are so tiny) they wait below with expectant eyes. Hopeful eyes.  Accusing eyes.  You see, I promised them an ocean.  And I am weeping.  I am.  You can see it on my face, so much so that the salt is crusting in my cracks and crevasses. And, though I have been weeping these ten long years, still they have not been able to collect one drop.  But they wait.  They are always waiting.  And they look.  They are always looking too. At me.  And the looking makes me weep. And the weeping give them hope.  But still there is no ocean.  There will never be an ocean.

 

the rules of prose poetry confuse me, if I did this wrong please let me know and I'll try again.  

[rayheinrich]

Ouch. Still it's better than the alternative. I'm just back from an open mic night at the local pub. One other poet, lots of musicians. An 18 year old girl blew me away with her guitar playing - she works in the pub's kitchen. I know I'm going to be saying 'I knew her before she was famous'.

    That sounds so cool!  Something right out of my fantasies.

(I once went to an open mic at my local library.  There were no musicians, of course, just six wannabe poets.  
The first five read poems that were either cliché-riddled paeans to Christ or jingoistic praises of Amerika's majesty...
I didn't read my poem, I pretended I'd just come to listen. Texas.

Damn. Prose poem. I'll sleep on this overnight I think. Although last night's dream could maybe work ...

    Finally!  No excellent poem produced in under an hour to haunt me.
    - Schadenfreude Heinrich  

I am weeping.  ...

    Oh, just great, I no sooner get rid of merc than you step in to fill the gap.
My haunting returneth.

the rules of prose poetry confuse me, if I did this wrong...

This one's quite good... I love your extended/extensive metaphor.

Don't worry, prose poetry is a slippery beast, but it's easily caught.
That overview* I included a link for has some good examples if you want to look,
but I think you've got the hang of it.


*That overview of prose poetry can be found here.

[Quixilated]

 In the dark of too-early morning, still wrapped in my sleep warmed cocoon, I cracked open bleary, still-dreaming eyes and forced them to focus on the microscopic hieroglyphs carved within the depths of my tiny idol, and saw that none had yet laid down an offering before the ever-hungry god.  In that moment only one thought consumed me, I must be first.  Even if it meant disaster. Even if I must drown in the depths of abject failure, I had to be first.  And so I cut open the first vein I could find, sprinkled my life-blood into the little god's outstretched arms, then closed my eyes, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

[just mercedes]

Damn. I wrote this, then went and checked the examples again, and read the Fire one, which I guess I must have read somewhere before. So this looks very derivative. Now it's 1am and I'm going to bed.





Lush, your warm hair as it tumbles down over us, full of shocks your gypsy lips finding mine, full as your body which is all brimming harvest fruits combined. You are the wildfire that races to claim mountains, beautiful and deadly. You are the trees that grow only to burn, and the timeless rock of the land, you are the sky that arches above. You are the thundering storms and floods that follow. You are the first shy green of new growth. I tongue salt from your sun-warmed shoulder, feel white sand gritty between us as we move, your fingers like a singer, crooning. We claim our bed between a vast seamless ocean and a jungle’s perfumed growth; a garden of new beginnings, the way the world starts again each time for lovers. Warm shadows stroke the hills, the secret mossy springs, birds sing from hidden shrines. Wind and waves, blood pulse and breath, ebb and flow. The stars change places in their eternal waltz as we dance our flesh tango. You make me whole. We’ll sit here again, facing the sea as the earth turns away from the sun, breathing the waves, the song of our touching, the taste of salt on your shoulder, the touch of sand-dusted skin. Your warm cinnamon hair.

[Keith]

The Knackers Yard

There's a sad knowledge in the ponies eyes, he stares through the rain from under a heavy oak. A yard prisoner I found battered and broke, his grey patched back all scratched and bitten by horse flies, a poor pot belly trembles as he tries to move towards my hand. Just a touch or the softness of my stroke, his head lifted in response as I spoke. I command the clouds to drift away bring sunlight down to fields and trees for painful bones I wrought a warm southern breeze. Coiled the barbed wire from drystone walls that dug so deep his flesh could only heal until the next time. I slipped inside the field, straddled the five bar gate my voice as low as my posture. The rain disobeyed me and began to pour from his eyes,it was all washing away, the mud soaked ground the grey stones from the wall, branches falling in browns and greens all swirling and fading into water colour. As my hand traced the curve of his back he turned to face me and I was gone. Thundering across the fields, my hair moving in time with my body a huge heart pounded under each step racing towards the gate never slowing. As I took to the air the top bar just touched my feet but I was free heading for the next field, I could have run forever. The pony blinked and I was back under dripping branches watching the rain flatten his mane onto his eyes, he pushed his nose between my arm and torso and we held each other for a moment. He slowly walked away his knees trembling once again as he reached the grass less patch under the oak. I decide not to climb the gate and slipped the nylon rope that holds it shut, it swings wide open and I walk on through then up the hill. I feel him through the ground, slow at first breaking cover then faster and faster he flashes through and races on field after field, muscles moving, burning breathless. I don't need look back and neither does he.

[dukealien]

Confetti


In a tiny frame of sky squared by horizon, wire, and poles, just for an instant white confetti flashed a hundred glints and vanished; seconds later flashed again like silent fireworks.  When hawks do this it’s called a kettle, swinging all together like the eye-wall of a hurricane but when they’re white it’s pelicans.   I’ve spyglassed them for minutes turning all together, only when they bank throw sunlight from their wings.  It’s just massed day-star twinkling, nothing really seen:  could be angels but you’d hear their caroling.

---

Falling Again



I’m a little penguin, black, white belly, tiny wings that end in points, featherless, slick, oily, thick and flat - flightless cartoon rendering.  Perched, balanced awkwardly on scaffolding that rings a giant methane storage tank, immense.  Looking down, so far, much too high, land and oceans flat, cloud-cottoned, thousands of feet up.  The scaffolding is made of cold, round metal pipes; inevitably slip and fall, terrified, not even hands to try and grip.  Falling faster, wings spread uselessly, wind rushes, would be screaming if I could but voice never works.  Then notice sea and land aren’t getting any closer - what’s the lesson here?  Pure fright can’t last forever?  No voice, falling, terror, clues click in: I’m dreaming.  Turn the page, this nightmare will recur.

No idea why the system combined these two - they were submitted separately   .

[Achebe]

Damn. I wrote this, then went and checked the examples again, and read the Fire one, which I guess I must have read somewhere before. So this looks very derivative. Now it's 1am and I'm going to bed.





Lush, your warm hair as it tumbles down over us, full of shocks your gypsy lips finding mine, full as your body which is all brimming harvest fruits combined. You are the wildfire that races to claim mountains, beautiful and deadly. You are the trees that grow only to burn, and the timeless rock of the land, you are the sky that arches above. You are the thundering storms and floods that follow. You are the first shy green of new growth. I tongue salt from your sun-warmed shoulder, feel white sand gritty between us as we move, your fingers like a singer, crooning. We claim our bed between a vast seamless ocean and a jungle’s perfumed growth; a garden of new beginnings, the way the world starts again each time for lovers. Warm shadows stroke the hills, the secret mossy springs, birds sing from hidden shrines. Wind and waves, blood pulse and breath, ebb and flow. The stars change places in their eternal waltz as we dance our flesh tango. You make me whole. We’ll sit here again, facing the sea as the earth turns away from the sun, breathing the waves, the song of our touching, the taste of salt on your shoulder, the touch of sand-dusted skin. Your warm cinnamon hair.

Robert Bly could not have done it better   ... Barring 'eternal waltz'

[just mercedes]

Hey thanks Achebe - first draft, dithyrambic love poems are a bit cliche anyway, but I'm a big fan of frenzy.

[kolemath]

Fly

Some migratory birds have a magnetic compass (a sense called Magnetoreception) to help them navigate, the Earth's magnetic field their guide. I don't have this sense but in my eye is a light-dependent magnetosensitivity. I think a metal plate is in your head because the second you surfaced from the horizon my eyes followed. I glided down the road in your direction and went to where you live. In a week I plumed into your nest, but shadowed winter came and so I left you with the eggs hatching. Not sensing Earth's magnetic field, I don't know where to go; I look back over my shoulder every day.

[RiverNotch]

The Lie

It is said a tiger's stripes bleed through the skin, unlike a leopard's. Bared of cream, your pitted skin remains -- as if you've lost all shame. Each pit once meant each spark of love, but now only disdain. How could I love a woman who is so true to herself? How could a lion love a tiger, his mortal enemy?

[Lizzie]

Unprepared

Backstage the actors wink at each other, and the actresses perfect their eyeliner. Flamboyant skirts, ruffled shirts bounce by me smiling and excited. I'm searching for a costume I've never worn, for a script I never read. No one sees me – they move seamlessly into their roles, speaking the words they've endlessly rehearsed. No one has a script when I ask, even the stagehand who says to me, "Why don't you know your lines?" as if I'm a ten year old still in diapers. I step out onto the stage, prepared to deliver a mediocre speech for some strict director, when I awake breathless, only seconds ahead of death.


*It's skeletal, but it's what I've got today. My creative juice is all gone – I should have gotten the triple pack from Costco.
*There's a phrase, "Life feels like a test I didn't study for," and it's so very true.

[Lizzie]

The Lie

It is said a tiger's stripes bleed through the skin, unlike a leopard's. Bared of cream, your pitted skin remains -- as if you've lost all shame. Each pit once meant each spark of love, but now only disdain. How could I love a woman who is so true to herself? How could a lion love a tiger, his mortal enemy?

I think you've got a good kernel of something here, River. I'd probably like it better as a good old fashioned poem, but I'd love to read more.