Category: Poems

We grabbed sounds from the air,
stuck them together, draped
language around actions,
tethering ourselves to history
inscribed in vellum, barked
and trumpeted for all to hear.

All this tonnage… it seems like magic.

We learned to tell convoluted
tales, twisting facts like
movements in a bellydance,
sapient and seductive.

What is that mist out there?

We carved the world like onion slices
to be devoured one-by-one,
ignoring the other passengers’
wrinkled noses.

Hold my hand.

Thumbing through the final pages, I skimmed
the moribund bibliography of My Heart:

Bark, Vellum K. Tether the Bellydancing. New Drape City: Moribund Hand, 2003.
Trumpet, J.J. “Tonnage.” Devouring Convoluted Onions. Mistburg: Sapient & Sons, 1993.

Fasten your seatbelt.
The plane will be landing soon.

—

This is for Read Write Poem’s wordle prompt (#79). The idea is to write a poem using a given set of words. All of those words comprise the bibliography portion of this poem.

Whispers flicker in the void, explaining
each color present and how it combined
absent light with permanent darkness.

Overpowering and blinding,
a quasar burns static and noise.

Here, we don’t need sound;
we imagine music and try to sing.

That radio sun burned out ten years ago.

Or so they tell us.

—

This is for Read Write Poem’s Opposites Attract prompt. The idea is to write 2 poems each dealing with opposing elements, experiences, memories, or whatever. Then alternate the lines between the 2 poems to create a single poem.

This was an interesting exercise that went in an unexpected direction. I started with the ideas of darkness and light. Sound crept into both freewrites, thus creating a third layer of opposites. When I combined them, it seemed that the opposing forces in the poem shifted to light and sound rather than light and dark. After combining them line-by-line, I started fiddling with the lines to get a smoother flow from one thought to the next.

Below, I’ve included the original drafts so you can see how the poem developed.

Darkness draft:

In perfect darkness
Whispers flicker in the void, explaining
the absence of light, the permanence of darkness
a radio sun, burning static and noise
we hear music and try to sing

Light draft:

In perfect light
Each color present, combines
Overpowers and blinds
Here we don’t need sound,
The radio sun long ago burned out.

First Combination:

In perfect darkness
In perfect light
Whispers flicker in the void, explaining
Each color present combines
the absence of light, the permanence of darkness
Overpowers and blinds
a radio sun, burning static and noise
Here we don’t need sound,
we hear music and try to sing
The radio sun long ago burned out.

Update: Changed the first line from “Flickering whispers fill the void” back to the original “Whispers flicker in the void.” I think I like that better. Thanks Julie for making me think about whispers and flickering.

“Discrimitive insight”
(viveka)
is the enemy of avidyā
and therefore the chief instrument
to disentangle us from
the force
of the gunas.

It cuts through tamas
and rajas
like a knife, opening the way
to realization
that the core of our identity
is separated
by
a
wide
gulf
from the continuous ebb
and
flow
of the tendencies that capture
the attention
of the usual individual
and are everywhere
regarded as pertaining to the
Self.

—

I have no idea what this is about. I tried a Read Write Poem prompt called Thirft Store, where you arrange found lines into a poem.

The basic strategy is to find a passage of prose, keep it exactly like you find it, but change the line breaks strategically to call emphasis to the aspects of the passage you find poetic.

I decided to get a book from my library that I haven’t read (yet) open it to a random page and grab the first two sentences my eyes fell on. This is from page 304 of Philosophies of India by Heinrich Zimmer.

The end result is more of an exercise in line breaking than an actual poem, but it’s a useful exercise, I think, since it allows me to experiment with creating the look of a piece with total objectivity rather than having to battle preconceived notions when adjusting the line breaks in one of my own poems.

So, here it is, for what it’s worth.

Dreams, like dew in the early morning,
drip from a shipwreck survivor’s rag.

Each glistening drop a chance, hope
against another day of slow gnawing

thirst.

Dreams are dew in these latitudes—precious, scarce.
To cling to one is to forsake the other.

Staring at the dew collected on his faded rag,
he squeezes it above his mouth.
Each drop a moment’s

relief.

In the blistering afternoon,
dreams of early morning dew
fly off like the shorebirds
he imagined yesterday.

He marvels at each drop,
each perfect liquid globe,
like the one surrounding him,
that only delays

thirst.

In these shimmering drops,
he sees sharks and a noose
tied by his own hand.

Each dream falls due
against the night,
the moon’s reflection,
endless rolling waves

fade
like dreams,

like dew
in the early
morning.

—

This is for Read Write Poem: It’s all about the First Line. The idea was that participants would contribute a line of poetry and then choose someone else’s as the starting point for a poem based on freewriting from the borrowed line.

This was heavily influenced by Jules Verne’s The Survivors of the Chancellor, which I read last week as part of my Lost reading project.

The first line, “Dreams like dew in the early morning” was provided by Sam at thinking cities… Make sure to pay him a visit and read some of his poetry. It’s good stuff.