007 Challenge

[Angeline]

Well - that statment's rubbish.........lovely poem T. I thought Angelin'e Terza great too. Makes me want to try forms again.

I still haven't forgotten your double acrostic. Got for it gf.

Thank you, m'dear, but that poem is not a terzanelle. It's a quasi-villanelle, since I don't really repeat the lines exactly. The forms are very similar, in some ways, but I seem to find it (relatively) easy to compose villanelles and Angie seems to find it relatively easy to compose terzanelles. I think we both find the other form (villanelle vs. terzanelle) more difficult. Certainly I find composing terzanelles more difficult.

I'm not sure why. They're really quite similar, but for some reason, the evolving (linked) line scheme is a problem for me.

Of course, I fudge the repetons of the villanelle. Modern practice. 'K?

I suppose I should link in the relevant Wikipedia articles, but I am feeling lazy.
You should. Form makes one think much more, even obsess, about word placement in a poem, which I think is a good thing.

Pat would disagree with me, of course. I really miss him.

You're right. It should stand to reason that if I have a fairly easy time with terzanelles, villanelles should be equally pain-free for me, but they're not. I think the first villanelle I wrote was teriffically difficult for me, and I still have some sort of mind block about them.

I miss Pat, too, among others I'd loooove to see writing here again. But I think he's wrong about form poetry, too. I'm with you that they help one discipline oneself in various poetical ways.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

007

Open Letter to the Principal

Now we are a community. Now
that the boulders are rolling
toward the village

toward your fine new house
then some of ours,
too. Now we are

a family. As if we are
married to the same
vision of "respect for all" and
all including teachers.

As if we are truly planning
to leave no child behind and not
simply moving the moveables
out of the way or
back up the hill, partway up

anyway. We all got the agenda and the memo and
the prepared answers in case we are asked after
you said answer the questions and then
gave us the "right answers" that is
the ones you thought

would best appease the two
who, at long last,
are grading you.

 

[Angeline]

Esquire Swank

Past his scufflin days he eschewed
pavement and even road. Only
tracks would do, whoosh in the night
a private car velvet curtains and my

dear whiskey flowed like laughing,
like ice peals notes sound random
piano horns and the singular tenor
timbre of the human voice. Thin

and rumpled dapper suit foppish
hair each figure an insouciant
jaunty nod, tip the baton or touch
the keys everything was satin

and tails first class that genteel
duke his long fingers precise
saturated in blue ringing side
ways rhythm of that century.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Fuckin' A!!!

". . . tip the baton or touch
the keys everything was satin"

Gorgeous, Ange. Really hot.

 

[Tzara]

005

the plum trees are nearly blooming
at the end of february

and here I am, still sloth,
wrapped in the warm blanket of inepitude

and torpor
could I still emerge as the sun?

 

[PandoraGlitters]

I feel so much the same, Tzara. Trying to make myself get out of bed and shake off Winter. Good poem.

 

[Angeline]

Tillie had six sisters. The bereft
like us can't imagine but they
were a family of heels, fox stoles
and lilac perfume late of Delancey

Street they regentrified the tribe
from the Bronx to Passaic. Sonny
with all your aunts you couldn't

find a family that stuck, and you
the adored golden boy teetering
on water towers, all freckles
and stickball, a secret lover

of opera burlesque theater Madame
Butterfly and HMS Pinafore one day
we saw hundreds of people patient
in the rain waiting on Judy Garland

at Radio City and you didn't blink
an eye. I could feel Tillie, Ida,
Rose all those girls clicking by, marble
floors and the taste of snow on the air.

 

[Tzara]

006

The Creation of Eve
Fra Bartolomeo, c. 1510, in the Seattle Art Museum

The all-mother climbs out of his side
at the command of her colorful God
emerging into the desert that is Eden. They are both

the color of clay, as if made unfired pottery
left to cure on a long grass plain.
Adam is pained by her birth,

losing more than a rib, it appears.
One wonders if his role as spear
in sex is partly vengeance.

Over the shoulder of the anguished man
we see twins, his half-clothed wife,
a house. No crops, no goats,

no vines. Though God would not provide
more than misery for them
after their betrayal of His trust,

why was that forbidden Knowledge
so useless and unkind? Did they learn
nothing other than to twine

in frenzied congress?
The gray bands of sky suggest
that life is simply hard, and hardly to be blest.

 

[Angeline]

The Creation of Eve
Fra Bartolomeo, c. 1510, in the Seattle Art Museum

The all-mother climbs out of his side
at the command of her colorful God
emerging into the desert that is Eden. They are both

the color of clay, as if made unfired pottery
left to cure on a long grass plain.
Adam is pained by her birth,

losing more than a rib, it appears.
One wonders if his role as spear
in sex is partly vengeance.

Over the shoulder of the anguished man
we see twins, his half-clothed wife,
a house. No crops, no goats,

no vines. Though God would not provide
more than misery for them
after their betrayal of His trust,

why was that forbidden Knowledge
so useless and unkind? Did they learn
nothing other than to twine

in frenzied congress?
The gray bands of sky suggest
that life is simply hard, and hardly to be blest.

This is wonderful, Tzara. So well written and a narrative and metaphor at once. Can you tell I like it?

I am so using that Ekphrastic poemy idea. I loved that thread anyway.

 

[Tzara]

This is wonderful, Tzara. So well written and a narrative and metaphor at once. Can you tell I like it?

I am so using that Ekphrastic poemy idea. I loved that thread anyway.

Thank you, Angie. I hadn't seen this painting before (or, more likely, hadn't paid attention to it) and it really affected me.

I like writing ekphrastic poetry, though I worry that those poems don't always stand on their own. I have a book by Mary Jo Bang (The Eye Like a Strange Balloon) that is all poems inspired by specific artworks and I find it very confusing, in part because I know almost none of the paintings.

You and Dora are particular inspirations, by the way. Others as well, but you two especially.

 

[Tzara]

007

Whom I may love, I mayn’t win,
Engage with her in mortal sin

Because, of course, she could say “No.”
In fact, I would expect it so.

So I’ll content myself with this—
Imaginative carnal bliss

And floral metaphors enough
To drown in nectar Greyhound bus.

Her rain-slicked thighs I’d navigate
With shrieks defensive drivers make

When they have lost control and spin
Into a ditch and out again

As if her whirled and I were one,
Not just imaginación.

 

[greenmountaineer]

The Creation of Eve
Fra Bartolomeo, c. 1510, in the Seattle Art Museum

The all-mother climbs out of his side
at the command of her colorful God
emerging into the desert that is Eden. They are both

the color of clay, as if made unfired pottery
left to cure on a long grass plain.
Adam is pained by her birth,

losing more than a rib, it appears.
One wonders if his role as spear
in sex is partly vengeance.

Over the shoulder of the anguished man
we see twins, his half-clothed wife,
a house. No crops, no goats,

no vines. Though God would not provide
more than misery for them
after their betrayal of His trust,

why was that forbidden Knowledge
so useless and unkind? Did they learn
nothing other than to twine

in frenzied congress?
The gray bands of sky suggest
that life is simply hard, and hardly to be blest.

Fantastically ekphrastic.

Seriously, outstanding poem.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Fantastically ekphrastic.

Seriously, outstanding poem.

Agreed. Ange and Tzara, you two have been rocking this thread.

 

[Angeline]

Agreed. Ange and Tzara, you two have been rocking this thread.

As are yours, my friend. I came cuz you asked me to write with you. That's always a treat for me.

 

[Tzara]

001

Is here.

 

[Tzara]

002

Weekly Visit

My mother folds in on herself
like a crushed Kleenex,
her world a small, shrinking wad

of discarded tissue,
its few memories coughed up like phlegm
leaving her throat empty and dry

as the open aridity of the Mojave
where we've left her sitting on a log
waiting eagerly to die.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

001

If you had lived on my block we'd have
perched in boots and denim on sun
warm slabs canopied by the echos
of cars on the bridge whispering

it's coming it's coming.

We'd have whispered back
it's here.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

002

Shoegasm, A&S, Trader
Joes bags all slouch shadows
tossed against my wall.

It's crowded again because
resolve is thinned with panic:
I might need that

nylon string for boxes. I might
need those boots sooner than
it takes to pluck them out from

closet's clutch. One never knows.
I am camping out here, refugee
of 125th Street, ready

to battle. Dying Winter whispers
with his last breath. Now
open the window to Spring.

 

[Tzara]

003

I do not ply navigable rivers
for my trade, nor venture
far beyond an airport lounge,

their chain cafés,
the stores that sell one plastic shoes,
en route to each night's bivouac

in some bare brick box.
The only letters I ever send you are my voice,
even if they're left in the dustbin

of I am not at home to answer.
Do not come out to meet me,
even at the terminal,

for there is homework and yoga
and your own reports
always to be done. The dog needs grooming,

if nothing else, and I trust
were I to ever ask,
you would shear your bangs straight across.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

003

Little girl follows along
with quick eyes and small
steps asking what
are you doing? What
are you doing with that?

She's answered patiently
I am going to paint the bricks
or I am spitting seed shells
in the bag so they won't
spill or my cat needs
the vet. Oh, she says.

As you pass I am that
girl asking you twice
or maybe even more
often than that what
are you doing? What are
you doing with that?

And you patiently
answer, I am counting
the ampersands of my
entire lifetime or I am
rehearsing a step ball-change
or I am planning
my route to the airport
where I will meet up with
all the best Bettys.

And I say
oh.

 

[Tzara]

004

Love is too early a word
for my unsubtle stare,
though it is what my body thinks

when you walk away or flip your hair
idly over your coffee. How light
pools in the depths of your eyes

my body reads as love,
even if all it means is you can’t remember
if you left food out for the cat

or lost a towel at the Laundromat—
the mauve one that was so soft.
Only later, when we know how to talk

about baseball or comics or Keats,
will the word really fit, if it ever does.
For now, it’s simply Want,

where the camera of my biology
focuses your image in its lens
and snaps Love snaps Love snaps Love.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

004

Snapping dragons
scout the corner (4th and 8th)
which can only happen here,
crazy W Village intersection
where antiquity
triumphs over grid. Here
I remember joy

cannot be achieved merely by
avoidance of lack. Potholes pool
harmlessly and red is a constant
condition of balance. Joy
readies for blaze

which will send it rocketing
into every sky. Yours, mine,
mama's, papa's, and only
cats and soldiers will duck
when the pop pop pop
stutters our universe
with showering stars.

 

[Tzara]

005

Some days one feels like chewing gum—
Dubble Bubble, Juicy Fruit,

even Beemans for our older set
—laid down

on any open sidewalk in America.
At least there I can stick to your sole.

 

[Tzara]

006

guerilla radio

it isn’t just at night I hear her
but usually it’s clearer
when the world is but an open room
and anxiety its volume

she doesn’t so much sing as scream
for no lyric can convey
how much she really hates to seem
a rebel and a runaway

katie, let your tresses down
like you’ve always wanted to
kiss me like a groin kick
god, I’m really loving you

i slept through marx in poli-sci
and missed, I guess, the reason why
she sneered at me in seminar
revolutionary avatar

and now a minute forty-five
is all i can remember
confessing all at shrovetide
becoming dull forever

katie, let your tresses down
like you always wanted to
kiss me like a groin kick
god, i’m still in love with you

 

[Tzara]

007

Secret Admirer

In the old days she would have hidden a note
inked with dip pen in a skittish hand
under the top of his cylinder desk—

a single sheet of deckle-edged cream
creased neatly in half and slipped between
his routine correspondence, there to broach

her shy but fervent admiration. For what?
The cut of his cloak, his sleeve, his knack
for quite the elegant turn of phrase,

anything at all, in fact, that might attract
a woman’s secret, sidelong glance
and paint a rosy bloom across her cheek.

He would read the note with pleasure, scan
with studied casualness the common room
trying to divine which dainty hand

had written these few treasured lines,
while his sister, Lady Anne, essayed
the latest lilting piece by Mr. Field.

Such subtle games are lost to us.
At best, I hope for unseen blush
on skin fair named Anonymous.