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Progress Report

OK, I lied, there'll be two more posts:  this one and one more posting the URL of the new place.

I've bitten off a bit more than I can quickly chew, but I'm chewing as fast as I can, I promise.  If it's any consolation, while I am building the new place I am also finding a little time to be doing some posting, too, so when I do finally open the doors (think: Willy Wonka), there'll be plenty there already just waiting to be discovered (there are hundreds already).

A hint:  It's not like a normal blog.  It's not like a normal 10 blogs.  It's not even like a normal 26 blogs.

To those of you who've dropped me emails or left comments checking in on me, please know that I appreciate your words. 

Bear with me a little longer, it's going to be worth it.

Pantoum Mine

androgynous gave me: 

• Yes words = mistress, confliction, frost, cedar, hidden
• No words = up, on, I, proud, quiet
• Form = Chef's Choice (I went with a Pantoum)

I've been wanting to try a pantoum for a while now, and this seemed like the right time.  Pantoum is a French form adapted from a Malay form.  The gist of it is that the second and fourth lines in any given quatrain have to be the first and third lines of the next. And then you can also end with the third and first lines of the first stanza as the second and fourth of the last so that it's got a nice cyclical closure, but that's optional.  Rhyme is generally considered optional in English, too.  Holy smoke the International Poetry World sure does cut English-speakers a lot of slack.  Maybe I'll win a medal for not opting out where opting was offered.  Mine goes like this:

Mistress Cat

The mistress sits with her cats in her lap,
her left hand absently thumbing a stone.
The stone stands for confliction. And the trap
that is the cats? That's our own flesh and bone.

Her left hand absently thumbing a stone
with a friction that melts frost, there's a sound.
Is that the cats? That's our own flesh and bone,
thumping along the stairs. She won't be found.

With a friction that melts frost, there's a sound
like snow's hush as it falls from the cedar
thumping along the stairs. She won't be found.
She closes her eyes, makes her hair neater.

Like snow's hush as it falls from the cedar
her cats become stone to appear hidden.
She closes her eyes, makes her hair neater,
because he does what she wishes he didn't.

Her cats become stone to appear hidden.
The stone stands for confliction, and the trap.
Because he does what she wishes he didn't,
the mistress sits with her cats in her lap.

dgw 05/03

PenUltimate

PenThAng gave me: 

• Yes words = tomb, rot, cavity, corpse, decay
• No words = love, heart, the, very, of
• Form = a love poem

How Arrogant of Me

How arrogant, to claim you for always,
I must be insanity at its height.
My eyes can't survive without you in sight,
Forever is a flicker in your grace,
I can't crave life without you in my days.
Most are content to play in morning's light,
I won't quit this until I get it right.
I'm not interested in mortal praise,
I call language a tomb I'm forced to use
In my quest to beat time's rot.  With my faith
I can fill that cavity.  Who would lose
With you for a prize?  My corpse's last breath
Smiles its mock at decay.  If I so choose
I can write a passion to outlast Death.

--dgw 05/03

Well, for a love poem you pretty much start thinking sonnet right out of the chute.  But I've done a bunch of sonnets already...though only one Italian sonnet...hmmm. 

In poll after poll, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee?" lands at or near the top in the category of Best Love Poem Of All Time.  And it's a type of Italian sonnet...hmmmm. 

So, here's what I did...I took Browning's poem and I used not just her scheme (abbaabba cdcdcd), and not just her line-ending rhyme words, but, I used her line-beginning words, too.  And the challenge words, of course.  And made a love poem.  I don't think it's going to unseat EBB's poetry, but, then, she didn't accept the challenge of using PenThAng's words, either. 

So, now, for comparison purposes:

How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Counting Down...

CatThang gave me :

• Yes words = greenwood, joyous, benediction, feathered, archaic, soil
• No words = no restrictions
• Form = Sestina (the reason for six Yes words)

There's nothing wascally in this one (I figure Ms. Thang's got that covered by her wascally askilly for a form that required six words instead of the offer of five), but there is a little added bit worth sharing.

One reason this took so long is that I spent a lot of time really looking at the form of a sestina and went down some very exciting side roads, some of which will be brought to fruition at a later date.  Different Bat-Channel, Different Bat-Time.  As a teaser:  that guy Raymond Queneau, with the "Cent mille milliards de poèmes"?  A patzer by comparison.  Gonna make him squeal Uncle to me.

But for now, I give you a simple sestina:

Benediction

Your touch is the only benediction
I need to feel blessed.  My wings are feathered
with words.  The day I slept in the greenwood
beneath your pen, beside our picnic, soil
scent seeded my dreams; the ants' archaic
dances, to my dreaming eyes, were joyous.

The sunlight spotlight flicked through the joyous
upraised arms of birch, their benediction
of yellow leaves plashed out an archaic
song of sibilance.  The dreamtime feathered
into real time, red wine dregs kissed the soil
in a toast between us and our greenwood.

Three seasons later I pass that greenwood
five days a week.  I am half as joyous
without you, though drunken leaves guard the soil
where we spilled our liquid benediction.
This distance burns like I'm tarred and feathered,
half-banished, or something more archaic.

Letters I wrote then, now seem archaic
and bear false resemblance to that greenwood.
I gave the ripped strips to crows who feathered
their nests with words you whispered were joyous.
Wind off the mountain wrawls benediction
to the dust of a love which once was soil.

Here I am, up to my elbows in soil,
the rhythm of sweat is an archaic,
ancient, atavistic benediction
whose blessings can't exorcise the greenwood
from my bones.  We defined the word "joyous,"
taught Cupid how quivers should be feathered.

I miss your eyes when your fingers feathered
back my hair, I miss lugging potting soil
up the hill behind you and your joyous
descriptions of plants and their archaic
myths.  I miss holding you in the greenwood,
I miss your lips' sipped benediction.

Our words were feathered, all things archaic
were new, with tired soil we grew a greenwood
whose leaves breeze joyous our benediction.

end
dgw 05/03

Thank you, CatThang, for the words, the challenge, and your patience.