Tanka Poem

[Tzara]

How little fabric
in this small scrap of black lace,
yet how well it slips
up her legs, over her hips.
How sweetly it slides back down.

 

[AlinaX]

where is the spider
that wove this gossamer web?
I’m caught already
let me kiss your thighs, and breathe
fragrant anticipation

 

[AlinaX]

I dish out advice
ladle it into a bowl
with old caveats
do people still use soup spoons
to eat such allegories?

 

[Tzara]

Gray sky, steady rain,
and I haven't heard from her
for over a week.
Even my coffee is cold.
Was she angry when she left?

 

[liChat]

Gray sky, steady rain,
and I haven't heard from her
for over a week.
Even my coffee is cold.
Was she angry when she left?

I read poems like an engineer (please, remove my post if I am off). First two lines:

​

Gray sky, steady rain,​

and I haven't heard from her​

​

-- the engine hums smoothly, great. We get a feel of space and time ("steady").

Line:

for over a week.​

throws a monkey wrench into the engine, we already got time -- extra optional hardware hurts; especially word "over", engineers like straight reliable information rather than unclear as "over". The same about the superfluous nothing-word "Even" in the next line:

Even my coffee is cold.​

I don't know too much about tanka but I like my engine more like this:

Gray sky, steady rain,
cold coffee.
I haven't heard from her,
Was she angry?
Is she OK?

Tzara (a variation)

This was my naive engineer-like reaction.

 

[WCSGarland]

I read poems like an engineer (please, remove my post if I am off). First two lines:

​

Gray sky, steady rain,​

and I haven't heard from her​

​

-- the engine hums smoothly, great. We get a feel of space and time ("steady").

Line:

for over a week.​

throws a monkey wrench into the engine, we already got time -- extra optional hardware hurts; especially word "over", engineers like straight reliable information rather than unclear as "over". The same about the superfluous nothing-word "Even" in the next line:

Even my coffee is cold.​

I don't know too much about tanka but I like my engine more like this:



This was my naive engineer-like reaction.

Ah... well.... as an engineer, I'd think you would rather pay attention to the form parameters... Tanka Form

 

[AlinaX]

Gray sky, steady rain,
and I haven't heard from her
for over a week.
Even my coffee is cold.
Was she angry when she left?

In the spirit of engineering unnecessary rewrites, how about:

Gray sky, steady rain,
Was she angry when she left?
I haven't heard from her
My coffee is cold

 

[Tzara]

I read poems like an engineer (please, remove my post if I am off). First two lines:

​

Gray sky, steady rain,​

and I haven't heard from her​

​

-- the engine hums smoothly, great. We get a feel of space and time ("steady").

Line:

for over a week.​

throws a monkey wrench into the engine, we already got time -- extra optional hardware hurts; especially word "over", engineers like straight reliable information rather than unclear as "over". The same about the superfluous nothing-word "Even" in the next line:

Even my coffee is cold.​

I don't know too much about tanka but I like my engine more like this:



This was my naive engineer-like reaction.

Hi, liChat. Thanks for your comments.

You suggest that "steady" provides sufficient information about time such that line three is superfluous. My concern with that is that without the qualification "for over a week" the reader has no information of the length of time that has passed since the narrator has heard from the "her" of the poem. Perhaps this is my sense of how long a "steady rain" lasts in my part of the country (the Seattle area), but to me the duration of a steady rain is, at best, only a few hours. I wanted to convey that the time elapsed was significant (meaning longer than a week, but not so long as, say, a fortnight, month, year, etc.). This may not be optimally expressed, but that is why line three is there.

The following line, "Even my coffee is cold," is a bit of a leap as it is intended to imply a link with the preceding lines: the coffee has grown cold over a period of time just as the implied relationship with the "her" of the poem has apparently cooled. As you suggest, this may not work very well.

For my part, the line I'm most unhappy with is the last one: "Was she angry when she left?" because it is too literal and, I think, rather cliché. My current preference would be to simply leave it off the poem.

I think some of what you are reacting to might be "padding" to fit the form requirements. A tanka (at least the conventional English language form of the tanka) is five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. Some of the words you are objecting to (e.g. "even" in line four) might be thought to be there because of forcing the number of syllables to the expected number. I don't think that's what I'm doing, but I can see that others might interpret it that way. I was also thinking of the relation of the upper section of the poem to the lower section. Edward Hirsch, in his brief discussion of the tanka in The Poet's Glossary states: "The tanka is sometimes separated by the three 'upper lines' (kami no ku) and the two 'lower ones' (shimo no ku).... the turn from the upper to the lower lines, which often signals a shift or expansion of subject matter, is one of the reasons the tanka has been compared to the sonnet" (631). So what I was trying to do was set a mood in the first three lines and then comment on that mood in the last two.

So I can certainly see that last line as being there to satisfy form requirements. As I said, I think I'd rather just remove it or, to keep the tanka form, change it (though I'm not sure what I would change it to).

Anyway, thanks again for your comments and thanks to those of WCSGarland amd AlinaX as well.

 

[liChat]

Tzara's kind comment honored this newbie greatly, and suddenly made me respond:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

spring sun​

i bought new clothes​

new people say hi​

i say hello​

green leaves say hi​

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you, Tzara -- liChat

 

[AlinaX]

we had sun today
a last reminder of warmth
before the snow falls
or the memory of snow
the cold is more bitter now

 

[SmilingLez]

Eclectic poet
stacking words like bright toy blocks —
small towers of joy.
A child’s hands in every line,
building meaning as they rise.

 

[SmilingLez]

The body won’t wait,
Thoughts clash in a restless mind
Desire and doubt,
Pressure builds with every glance,
Fingers tremble, shadows close in.