fallen verses

Synonyms for “Tom”

Today’s synonym: glutton for punishment. On top of getting extra-special fun projects at work to be completed in addition to my normal full-time job, on top of the kind of phone call you expect and you wait for but still really sucks when you get it (vague, I know, but too bad), I wrote another villanelle. If that wasn’t masochistic enough (how many form poems do you get before your free verse cred is used up?) I wrote this one to turn in for class! This instructor does not dig the tom style (such as one may be roughly condensed) so much as very imagistic, modernist verse. And there is nothing wrong with that style at all. But this one… It’s a good thing I’m not graded on how well he likes the poems. Something to bear in mind: he was hard-pressed to name three good villanelles in English, not that I could do much better. For all of you out there is blog-o-land, enjoy as you will.

“Just to live in a dream…”

I lay kisses on your back as if gold
needed further adornment, or even
met the value of your austere hold.

A spring garden blooming against cold
in your agate eyes. Like dew when
I lay kisses on your back as if gold

fought against frost and this bold
poet was an April sun, who then
met the value of your austere hold

in his ink-stained palms. Lines sold
as merit, planted like orchids. Can
I lay kisses on your back as if gold

ink was on the page? This spine folds
across the glue of jasmine. Profane
met the value of your austere hold

in this kiss: lips, skin, passion- told
it was sacred: this angel tipped pen.
I lay kisses on your back as if gold
met the value of your austere hold.

Head over to ReadWritePoem and grab a drink and a sonnet or a business card or something… anyway, Go!

I willfully mix cultural references:

Wanton Tides

Jittery like the suns rays
with timidity over the horizon:
my kisses on your neck
like summer dew, summer mist;
your body an expectant blossom.

This the season of siestas,
the late sunset accompanied
by sweet wine and jazz.
The nights obscured
by the moon in your eyes.

Come, nereid, from your oceans
into these seas of wanton desire;
the sheltered cove of my bed
a garden of ephemera.
And the tides, the tides.

Refrains ahoy!

I don’t know why, but I seem to have this strange and unhealthy fascination for villanelles recently. (<digression>Unhealthy because they rhyme. Rhyme is bad! Very bad! Like… eh, forget it. Rhyme is fine, I guess. </digression>) Which means you all get to read them. Lucky you.

Villanelle Redux, Redux

The crimson of lips and rose petals seem
strangely warm, like breath, like light,
piercing the awful gray of urbanity.

Perhaps the color rises like cream,
like blood to the skin’s sight,
the crimson of lips and rose petals seem

The flush of cheeks. Breath hasty
in the thought that this sensuality might
pierce the awful gray of urbanity.

The darkness, clearly not a dream,
awake, yet surreal; this night
the crimson of lips and rose petals seem

Preternaturally alive, shimmering: key
in that this fantasy’s flight
pierces the awful gray of urbanity.

In this desire I am burned clean
as if by Ceres. A consecration, a rite:
the crimson of lips and rose petals seem
to pierce the awful gray of urbanity.

Courtesy of the Academy of American Poets.

Video: The Gift Economy of Poetry
by Robert Hass
From the inaugural Poets Forum, presented by the Academy of American Poets on October 20, 2007, at Marymount College in New York City. On the second panel of the day, Robert Hass, Galway Kinnell, Nathaniel Mackey, and Ellen Bryant Voigt answered questions about “Aesthetic Lineage and Originality” from critic and founding editor of Parnassus, Herbert Leibowitz.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbUbEA-nWRM]

Waves. Fire. But not waves of fire, yet.

While… entertaining myself at work, I found myself reading some Anne Sexton. From “Admonitions to a Special Person,” I was struck by the following stanza:

Love? Be it man. Be it woman.
It must be a wave you want to glide in on,
give your body to it, give your laugh to it,
give, when the gravelly sand takes you,
your tears to the land. To love another is something
like prayer and can’t be planned, you just fall
into it’s arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.

Shortly afterward, I wrote this poem. Not necessarily any relation or causative inspiration, just a tidbit of fact.

Glory

You come to me, naked but for the gold chain and cross.
You said it was I who should have been crucified,
my strong ribs would have held the world better,
broad like a turtle’s back and legs like muscular elephants.
I wonder if it is a competition, between Christ and me.
Like two knights competing for a token, a trinket,
a chaste kiss, but no. I am no innocent dove.
I would not die for your sins, but take them
and forge them into armor for your soul.
As I hold you it is clear I am holding flame.
Worship a poor fuel next to adoration,
you burn so much brighter in my presence, as I do in yours.
An uneven balance, this flicker of passion against eternity.
They will sing the good songs for us:
one life with you more glorious than Heaven.

Friday night + coffee + deliberately not doing Latin homework = ?

No, you’re not gonna get the answer just yet. First, rambling! I’ve realized that coming home guarantees I will not be doing homework. There are way too many blog posts to read, too much fun stuff on Wikipedia and just too much to do at home to distract myself from homework. Honestly, the poetry writing homework, that’s more interesting to tackle and I gladly bend my awesome research skills to it as necessary. The rest of it… So I was at Borders for four hours and got a fair amount done. ‘Bout the end of the white chocolate mocha and I was sitting there coffee-high, I wrote this (please, if for some reason you’ve stumbled here by accident, do not judge my poetry by this example. just don’t.)

Villanelle Number 4

Refrains repeat in the villanelle
And many, many rhymes.
And when it’s silly, you can tell.

It’s a hard form for a hard sell,
Regardless of the times.
Refrains repeat in the villanelle

Over and over again- a knell,
A toll, the same lines,
And when it’s silly, you can tell.

Go for the rush, pell mell
Into the land of mimes;
Refrains repeat in the villanelle,

Like boxed gestures, cages still
Invisible like spoken rhymes.
And when it’s silly, you can tell-

It’s a bitter and telling smell,
Bad poetry, like coffee grinds.
Refrains repeat in the villanelle,
And when it’s silly, you can tell.

Totally Optional Evocation

Spring’s Dream

Flowers rained from the sky.
Sunlight waterfall of daisies.
Sweet kiss of rose petals
my crimson shroud.
Stricken from confession,
I lay prostrate, wasted.
And honeyed-dew
coated the iris as it fell.
Beauty is no elixir for the soul.
I weep. There are tears of lilies
mourning your departure,
fair company, indeed,
in your absence.

I’ve been getting Ubuntu set up on my laptop. I originally installed the 64bit version, but there’s virtually NO software that runs, so I had to download the 32bit version and do the entire install over again. So, one hour to go, can Tom get a TOP Evocative poem written? Same bat time, same bat channel…

I’ve been doing the internet thing since it was a geek thing.  No youtube, no myspace, not even a google.  But this week was the first time I got myself a domain.  Took me long enough to get around to it, but now fallenverses.org is mine and is the new url for this blog.  The wordpress faq assures me all the previous links should work, so hopefully there will be a seamless transition for what readers I have.  And, conveniently, this gets to be my post for the day. Go NaBloPoMo-ers!