Category: Book 1

Caveat: Poem #620 “Demonstrated wisdom at age 13”

A Daily Poem / Blank verse / Book 1 / My Poetry & Fiction 
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I put her there, in front of class. I said,
"You're teacher - boss!" The boys in back were bad,
They joked, and made the rudest sounds. She stood,
With folded arms and grave aplomb and verve:
"If you don't mind, I'd like to go on now."
For all the world an old hand at these things.
In fact she showed more wisdom than I do,
In such soft voice, at such an age - thirteen.

– some lines of blank verse (iambic pentameter).

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Caveat: Poem #619 “Things the weather’s changes bring”

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / My Poetry & Fiction 
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Two days ago, there was snow.

A freakishly dry and feverish wind thrust hard from the west.
Early spring blossoms fled torn from their hospitable branches, disconsolate.
Young men strode uncoated, with wild hair flailing like cut tentacles.
And garish bits of paper breathlessly licked at the sides of insentient buses.

Four hours later, there was a warm drizzle falling.

– a free form poem.

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Caveat: Poems #614 and #615

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / Found Online / My Poetry & Fiction / Not My Poetry 
There once was Moby, a white whale
and some narrator named Ishmael
and these guys on a boat
that soon failed to float
with digressions, and prose that was stale.

– this is my own “retelling in limerick form” of a well-known work of literature, quite inspired by this post on the languagehat blog, in turn inspired by some discussion on a site called wordorigins. I spent a good hour browsing the comments and links for these two sites. Entertaining. My favorites, seen at those links:

There once was a girl named Lenore
And a bird and a bust and a door
And a guy with depression
And a whole lot of questions
And the bird always says “Nevermore”

… and:

“Utnapishtim,” cried Gilgamesh, “Why
Do you get to live, while I die?”
“I can see that you’re vexed,”
[There’s a gap in the text]
The walls of Uruk are quite high!

I also enjoyed this observation, by a commenter named Trond Engen:

“A limerick needs a dose of offbeacity or else it will often sound flat.”

That comment, in turn, inspired another work of my own:

If you want limericks to have a capacity
to show anything more than verbosity
and to thusly afford
some readers unbored
Then they'll need to include some offbeacity

Caveat: Poem #609

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / My Poetry & Fiction

Aochra fought his way across the steppes,
Not once pausing. Sand and stones just watched.
Fearsome was his wrath where'er he stepped:
Each one killed, his counting stick was notched.

Caveat: Poem #608 “First stanza”

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / Couplets and Quatrains / Kiamonic Quatrains / My Poetry & Fiction

Kiamon never once thought on her fate
Grimly she battled to push down her hate
Hoping perhaps to at last find her goal
Kiamon willingly gave up her soul.

…Recently I tried something new. As some of you know, I have a rather wide set of “novels in progress,” none of which actually progress, much. I’m bad at these wider, longer-scale projects. So I decided to take this slightly more successful short poem-a-day concept and “hijack” it for the novel thing. I have been writing little “character-building” quatrains, where I try to encapsulate some aspect of a story’s character. This is one of those. In general, don’t be surprised to see the names of fictional beings begin to populate some of my poems.

[daily log: walking, 1km]

Caveat: Poem #605

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / My Poetry & Fiction

Thirst.
Some nights…
I wake up
from restless dreams,
my mouth dry, broken.
So I get some water,
and pace my apartment's floor,
digesting the dissolving webs
of grimly inchoate chimeras.

Caveat: Poem #600

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / Internet & Blogging / Language & Linguistics / My Poetry & Fiction

my nam yu no
alligaytur
i want tu ete
a mungki, shur,
or stoodents, yum,
in ther nise haus
but meenwile tho
i lik the maus

– This poem is in a completely new form, recently emergent from internet memedom, called "bredlik." In fact it's a pretty structured form, with requirements of rhyme, meter, theme and even a kind of anti-spelling convention. You can read about it here - linguists have been observing its development. As that summary notes, the misspellings are not meant to seem illiterate or childish, rather, they in fact somewhat emulate the fluid orthographies of Middle English. I would add that the deliberate misspelling also successfully conveys the orality of the poem in the context of the overwhelmingly textual medium of internet-based forums and chats. So I decided to make my own, about my classroom ubiquitous alligator character.

Caveat: Poem #595

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / Englyn / My Poetry & Fiction
I'll write this "englyn penfyr" for Dylan:
may this young man know no fear,
may his wisdom grow each year.
 
This englyn was written to commemorate my nephew's upcoming graduation from 8th grade.
 
[daily log: walking, 2km]
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