ㅁ I placed my words upon this blog for all. Some people read, and others didn't care.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter).
Category: Book 2
Caveat: Poem #1364 “Dirt vs Wind”
ㅁ Wind blows the rain at the earth, which resists: the dirt insists on its worth, with cold mirth.
– an englyn cil-dwrn
Caveat: Poem #1363 “A garden’s genesis”
ㅁ I built a greenhouse on the corner; my garden isn't very big. I just laid out plastic tubs, and filled them with dark soil. I planted some seeds, water daily, keep watching, shoots sprout, grow.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #1362 “Always just starting things”
ㅁ Easy to start things... Harder to make some progress: Other things get started.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1361 “Sixteenth stanza”
ㅁ Not-a-Wolf found out a path for his hopes, walked up and down the cold shore. Misanthropes told him their lies but his dream opened out, showing his ancestors dancing about.
– a quatrain in a defective dactylic tetrameter. Not-a-Wolf is a fictional character in the alternate-universe place called Makaska.
Caveat: Poem #1360 “Árbol”
ㅁ árbol abre corazones árbol come toda tierra árbol espera de paso árbol sopla gran verdor
– un cuarteto de métrica romance
Caveat: Poem #1359 “A diagram of the local weather”
ㅁ gray skies calm skies brooding skies intermittent drizzle damp ground seeping ground squishy ground drifting mist rocking trees steadfast trees green trees steady rain you watch out the window awaiting something which remains undefined yet urgent focused thoughts observational thoughts random thoughts meteorological meditations
– a quennet
Caveat: Poem #1358 “Fifteenth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon tried to retrieve her lost soul, searching the forest and hunting a role. Slowly her hope drained away, till at last, Only a ghost trod the earth. She had passed.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter
Caveat: Poem #1357 “What lines will do”
ㅁ The lines had minds, expressed their deepest thoughts, and curved, and took the long way round to maps.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Poem #1356 “Last night’s detour”
ㅁ Most nights I sleep fine. A quick trip from dusk to dawn. Then, last night, awake.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1355 “Fourteenth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon went on refusing to fight, peering around in an eerie half-light, kicking at dirt and escaping her friends: heartless and actually seeking her end.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter
Caveat: Poem #1354 “Anti-Chomskyan”
ㅁ And still my luck was green and colorless and dwelt among ideas like a ghost.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter). This obliquely references the famous Chomskyan composition which he used to demonstrate the distinction between syntactic well-formedness and semantic well-formedness.
Caveat: Poem #1353 “The rainforest’s shore”
ㅁ The rain had returned. A luminous dusk showed mist. The sea tasted rocks.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1352 “Thirteenth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon drifted, as drifters will drift, taking in scenery, hoping for lift. Nothing appeared, though, and life carried on. Sighing, she wandered... evading the dawn.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter
Caveat: Poem #1351 “Mental health”
ㅁ I dreamed I was on a train... on the roof, looking for proof that my brain takes the strain.
– an englyn cil-dwrn
Caveat: Poem #1350 “What the stones do”
ㅁ The stones deceive. They lie in wait. They sleep. A road goes past, and cars and trucks don't see.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter).
Caveat: Poem #1349 “The beast outside”
ㅁ I got up early. The purpleness of pre-dawn Groped my windows.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #1348 “What they said about Michelle”
ㅁ The trees surround us. "Find your way," they say. The stones are singing, night and day, they say. They sing their geologic dirges, then. They grasp the roots of trees and play, they say. A raven might make signs across the sky. That kind of bird can't see the gray, they say. You waited but refused to change your mind. Your ghost just watched and didn't say, they say. I saw it once out on the tidal flats. You'd hoped that I could learn to pray, they say. The orange-hued bits of sun revealed your face. It seemed to you I'd lost my way, they say.
– a ghazal with six couplets. Ghazal is an originally Arabic poetic form, later popularized and spread through the old world by the Persians. It has a long history of adaptation into different languages, including into English. I was struck by the repeating identical refrain of the second line of each couplet, and I felt it demanded an adaptation to the “second-hand-orality” (my own term) that I’ve seen in a lot of translations of classical Haida and Tlingit literature here in Southeast Alaska. Aside from constraints on theme and voice, and of course the repeated rhyme and refrain, there seems to be some freedom with respect to meter – it only demands that it be in some kind of consistent meter – so I’ve chosen iambic pentameter as fairly appropriate for an English adaptation.
Caveat: Poem #1347 “The thing about these daily poems”
ㅁ The thing about these daily poems, you see, is sometimes they're alright, and sometimes not.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Poem #1346 “Winter’s not over yet”
ㅁ Again some snow has stippled frozen ground; again the sky broods gray and hides the sun.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Poem #1345 “Parataxis”
ㅁ With paratactic words, I shall proceed: the rain returns; I sip some coffee now.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Poem #1344 “Slow photons”
ㅁ The light lingers late, but the cold remains. There is a kind of lag from sun to warmth.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Poem #1343 “Unfinished business”
ㅁ The winter had unfinished business here. It tossed out falling flakes of snow with wind.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Poem #1342 “The deck is stacked in time’s favor”
ㅁ The trees put up resistance, fighting time with outspread branches. Still, old time will win.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Poem #1341 “Fighting beasts”
ㅁ The ideologies began a feud, and stalked each other through the icy wood. They leapt small streams and danced from stone to stone, but failed to solve the wheel of human pain.
– a quatrain in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Poem #1340 “Weird is okay”
ㅁ Is Linux really weird as people think? I guess it is. My weirdness makes me glad.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Poem #1339 “Unexpected events”
ㅁ I pulled the baby tree up by its roots. I put it in the ground again nearby. The tree perhaps was stunned by such events. But life adapts to things. The rain still fell.
– a quatrain in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Poem #1338 “The sacred text”
ㅁ He knelt down, worshipping the words themselves - a selfless act of epeolatry.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Poem #1337 “The road untraveled”
ㅁ No person walked that road bestrewn with holes, nor stumbled on the stones awaiting there.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter)
Caveat: Poem #1336 “Immolation of the self”
ㅁ negativity infests the mind with grim thoughts but serves no purpose
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1335 “Gone viral”
ㅁ The virus makes claims against people's awareness, but I'm just the same.
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1334 “Waiting underground”
ㅁ my greenhouse awaits A sunny day to warm it the radish seeds sleep
– a pseudo-haiku
Caveat: Poem #1333 “The lost continent”
ㅁ The land was missing, Sunk like some vast Atlantis or a lost disk file
– a pseudo-haiku