#25

Just Remember

When everything is over and gone, remember me.
When our hearts are left without a song, remember me.

I wish you well for all of your days, whether we're together
or apart you will always belong in my memories, remember me.

No matter how frail our minds might become
my love for you wills always be strong, remember me.

I hope our friendship last throughout our life's time
but if it does not I long for you to please, remember me.

If you and I age quickly and our minds begin to waver
in and out of reality, prolong forgetting, remember me.

When you can no longer withstand losing memories,
losing us, I will be there chanting on, remember me?

My attempt at a ghazal stinks. Help anyone.

#27

Aubade by Philip Larkin

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
-- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused -- nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear -- no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realization of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

This poem is pretty long but well worth reading. At first,
I was trying to figure out how this is an aubade but after
reading through a second time I realized that it is possible
that he is a lover of life and that he speaks of his inevitable
departure.  Any one else have comments on what this piece may be
about?

#26

Elegy for My Angel

Her eyes dimmed as though the
Kerosene in her had lessened
and then the light left.

It was fall of 1994, the world was full of
change. The foliage was slowly losing its color;
The world, losing its Saint.

I had foreseen her departing, her wings in sight.
They had always been there, tucked away
by the teal of her housecoat.
They were not covered in feathers,
but by the selfless deeds she had completed.
Gracious smiles and tears of gratitude
glistened amongst her back.

I would see the pain leave her face, her genuine smile returning.
The pain that had always been there, tucked away
by the lightheartedness of her laughter.
Her truth, eventually exposed by the deterioration of her own
gritted smile.
Without pain her smile would return to
its brilliant innocence.

But it didn't seem fair.

She would have given the world everything
she had. She would have given the blue of her own eyes.
She was beautiful in blue.
She was beautiful in anything.

The same world that she loved so much, expelled her love.

She loved her Gardenias, planted there near the porch.
She loved Jesus and the hymns that were sung on Wednesday.
She loved sweet tea.
She loved me, and I her.

But now she flies.

This is the elegy that I wrote this week. As always any suggestions are wanted and appreciated. :)

#25

Russell Edson's Ape

You haven't finished your ape, said mother to father,
who had monkey hair and blood on his whiskers.

 I've had enough monkey, cried father.

 You didn't eat the hands, and I went to all the
trouble to make onion rings for its fingers, said mother.

 I'll just nibble on its forehead, and then I've had enough,
said father.

 I stuffed its nose with garlic, just like you like it, said
mother.

 Why don't you have the butcher cut these apes up? You lay
the whole thing on the table every night; the same fractured
skull, the same singed fur; like someone who died horribly. These
aren't dinners, these are post-mortem dissections.

 Try a piece of its gum, I've stuffed its mouth with bread,
said mother.

 Ugh, it looks like a mouth full of vomit. How can I bite into
its cheek with bread spilling out of its mouth? cried father.

 Break one of the ears off, they're so crispy, said mother.

 I wish to hell you'd put underpants on these apes; even a
jockstrap, screamed father.

 Father, how dare you insinuate that I see the ape as anything
more than simple meat, screamed mother.

 Well what's with this ribbon tied in a bow on its privates?
screamed father.

 Are you saying that I am in love with this vicious creature?
That I would submit my female opening to this brute? That after
we had love on the kitchen floor I would put him in the oven, after
breaking his head with a frying pan; and then serve him to my husband,
that my husband might eat the evidence of my infidelity . . . ?

 I'm just saying that I'm damn sick of ape every night,
cried father.

This is one of the few prose poems that I actually like.  I hope my prose poem turns out
this interesting.  Enjoy!

#24

So, I've tried to begin working on my prose poem for next week and I seem to be stuck. I'm so used to writing poetry in poetry form that I don't know what to do. The minute amount of work I have accomplished so far, just seems like a regular poem to me. I'm going to be honest I do not like the form. I think poetry should be poetry. "The best words in their best order" The the language of poetry should also be condensed. I do not do very well writing stories anyway, so I am terrified of next week. If anybody has any suggestion on how to make this any easier... POST IT. Ha-ha.

#23

OVERVIEW

Students compose found and parallel poems based on descriptive literary passages they have read. Students first select a passage and then pick out descriptive words, phrases and lines. They then arrange and format the excerpts to compose their own poems. Students create found poems (poems that are composed from words and phrases found in another text) as well as parallel poems (original poems that use the same line structures as another poem, but focus on a completely different topic.) This process of recasting the text they are reading in a different genre helps students become more insightful readers and develop creativity in thinking and writing. Since students are primarily identifying nouns and verbs for use in their poems, the lesson also provides a relevant opportunity for a grammar review of these two parts of speech.

I found this article on the internet when searching found poems. I thought it was an interesting take on the things we learned about found poems this week.

I'm thinking of doing something like this for this weeks found poem. I have so many ideas I'm not sure where to start. So, I will start with the idea of finding lines from books and fitting them together and if that doesn't work out the way I hope I will move on to the next of my many ideas.

#22

Sestina for the Frightened

When darkness falls and the owl speaks,
the floor boards squeak and I become nervous.
Every sound, sight, and shadow makes me jump.
On the couch, blanket pulled up high, I lie fallow
but I cannot protect myself from the thoughts planted
by my overly imaginative mind.

My cat wants my company and I don't mind.
For he speaks
to me in his planted
purrs and my nervousness
begins to fall fallow.
Then the house moans and I jump.

From the couch to my feet, I instantly jump
and thoughts of doubt invade my mind,
it is no longer fallow.
I laugh at myself and speak
to my pet, of my silly nervousness.
But because of my fright he has planted

his claws into the plant
that stands beside me. When I jumped
it made him just as nervous
but now he won't mind.
I calmly speak
to him and ask him to lay fallow.

As we lay fallow
my fingers, his claws planted
into the plush cushions. I speak
to my beloved and ask him not to jump
but to mind,
so that we might contain our nervousness.

I truly would like for my nerves
to be fallow
and for my mind
to be implanted
with realistic thoughts so that I do not jump.
So with great intention I speak:

That I will no longer be nervous; I will keep my body planted
firmly on this couch, while my mind lies fallow. I will no longer jump.

I made the revisions on my Sestina and here is what I came up with. I feel like I have somewhat accomplish the Sestina and am happy to say that I will not be writing any others. Thank you all for the suggestions. Oh, and about the 3 lines at the end... I could not seem to make it work out, so it made it my own and omitted the 3rd and used it with greater attention in the stanza above. However, if anyone has a suggestion on how to work it in so that is doesn't sound crazy I would be willing to look at this stupid thing one last time. Ha!