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Week 171 (June 18th-25th) Poems. Topic: Inheritance.
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Birds Will Have Dominion When I Take Swallow FormBureaucrats tell me I am no longer
a citizen of my country of birth. My papers
prove my umbilical cord is now tied
to a distant border post.
To stay as long as I want
in my mother’s house, to look
for the crayon sketches I had scarred
on the walls of my old room
would be a violation of a national decree.
With special rubbers they have erased
my footprints on the roads I used to roam,
filed away all records of my life
under: ALIEN.
An ambassador friend says it’s all my fault,
pledging allegiance to another country,
but that it’s cheap and easy
to repurchase citizenship.
I wonder if I can get one
slightly used.
-o-
this poem will appear in my new collection, SOUND BEFORE WATER (UST Publishing House, Manila, 2013)
Hahaha, Jim that last verse is so funny. "I wonder if I can get one slightly used." Great!Here is one I wrote I while ago, I don't know if it is the one I want to enter, but I would love to get some feedback on it.
Dreams in the wind
Black ink on white paper
Lines made of blue
Book covered in leather
And always on the move
This way and that,
From west to east,
Down low or up high
It can all but fly
This book contains
Dreams of every kind
From pirates and indians
To escaping the defects of time.
From person to person
It has been passed
From father to son
To the future from the past
One day the journal was dropped
And the pages tore free
All the dreams blow away
Wild on the breeze
And there go my dreams
My father and me
All our hard work
Blown away, finally freed.
Belly- such a humorous little piece, and yet sadly true in many cases. Sort of points out the irony of reality if that makes sense...Jim- Very clever take on the topic! Great story and images.
Christa- I love working with simple verse forms like this. I think you executed it well. And I love the last verse where you turned an event that might be sad into something wonderful: a loss became a freedom. Very nice.
Ahoy me mateys! I give thumbs up to all poems so far. Since I don't have any good thumbs to speak of that is an ambiguous compliment. Consider it a good one though. I remind myself of "Begging Strips!" I'd do it myself but I don't have thumbs! Oh well. I'll have my own entry later. Maybe even a SS! Don't faint. . .
hmmmm, I'm really attracted to this topic and want to write something. I have some vague ideas floating around my brain, but nothing concrete is coming to me right now...All I have at the moment is a list of words related to 'inheritance' with circles around my favorite ones...
I'd love to say "You asked for it!" But none of you are that stupid!My Thoughts on Inheritance
What could I ever claim as mine?
Except my own behavior.
“The devil made me do it!”
Has no valididitty to it
It's no “Get out of jail free” savior.
If wise ones ever crowned me Queen
and willed me a zillion dollars
What it bought I'd never own
Fool's gold would comprise the throne
From where I'd rule such idiotic scholars.
For the only things that can pass on
Go not from one to another.
The soul departs the body -
Be it elegant or shoddy
And leaves it in a place to grow grass on!
From the first line to the last one
Of this chef d'oeuvre on inheritance
You know “The devil made me do it!”
That line's got validdiditty to it.
And I ain't got nothing worthy to be passed on.
I have finished this week's duty
Since you've read it you deserve
The distinct and utter pleasure
Of knowing that its measure
Makes you closer to this week's pirate booty!
*****
God help you all! Even I have had enough. . .
I miss you too Al! Nashville is pretty good. Still getting into the swing of things and getting to know people better. My body is definitely sore and achy, but after this first week, things should get better. I do feel myself improving though, so that's good! It's a bit nerve-racking though working and living side by side with the people I'm competing against for a job...
Blew AwayHer hair clip was copper
Now green
Just dust
His wood pipe was clean
Now eaten away
With mites
Her old dresses
His old shirts
Memories so far
now pass day by day
Without a second thought
it all thrown away
The house blew away when I left it at last
She Left Me Onlythe garden snake
that, hanging from a low, sprouting twig,
placed a green comma
in a still dawn;
unwilling-to-listen irises
intruding their reds and yellows
in the ivied overgrowth
claiming the rotting bridge;
ash leaves guided by the fingers of autumn,
spelling impetuous endearments in their descent
to the lichened brick;
a knowing that life is a lovely ring,
engraved and old,
its prongs haunted by an impishly cut diamond.
M: This is a brilliant poem. The first verse is exquisite - wish I could write more praise for the poem - it just takes too long, and I'm too impatient. But, once again, BRAVA!Kristen: Thank you! Glad you got a laugh! I'm having a hard time being serious lately!
Rikki: you certainly left no chaos in the wake of this beautiful and very sad poem. A splendid job!
So much is compressed into Belly’s “The Dowager” that it’s hard to know where to begin a commentary! It’s a tour de force of economy. There’s not a wasted word. The title tells me the poem is about a widow who owns property. The poem, in a precisely-ordered image or idea per line, tells me her husband blamed her for everything, treated her as a servant, and left her in debt and probably with messes of other kinds to clean up.In Jim’s unmistakable style, “Birds Will Have Dominion When I Take Swallow Form” uses image and analogy to convey an instance of the state’s obliteration of the individual. A hard-to-define mood of commingled estrangement and familiarity pervades the poem: “they have erased / my footprints on the roads I used to roam . . .” Citizenship is something that can be bought back, as though it were title to a house; the important, personal characteristics that individualize it have meaning to the state only insofar as they pose a threat to domination.
Thanks, Christa, Kristen, and M especially.
Christa’s “Dreams in the Wind” comes across to me as sad and nostalgic, and conveys a sense of restlessness. Now the lined pages on which the stories were written are scattered.Paula writes meter and rhyme with such ease that it’s almost like reading casual conversation. She says the devil made her do it. Well . . . More than just fun to read, “My Thoughts on Inheritance” is thought provoking. The line “What it bought I’d never own” stays in my mind.
I like the mood of Rikki’s “Blew Away,” and the line “Her hair clip was copper” is a strikingly clear image!
Dear M:I suppose it's only proper now
to thank you most profusely
Even if it wasn't, I'd do it anyhow,
So thank you very much, M, to put it loosely.
But if you knew how much I long
to write like Frost and Dr. Seuss -
Just think how beautiful, wise, and strong
Their words are! But wishing's no excuse
for using lazy meter and rhyme,
written quickly and off-the-cuff
Honestly, it's a waste of the time
That I should be spending on serious stuff,
like learning to write! I'm often told that
I'm overly wordy, all tell, no show,
I'll never be published, I'm too old hat,
But when I hear that, I stubbornly throw
a childish fit, I' don't like minimalism,
so I go on and on, just proving their point
that my style of loquacious maximalism
isn't Frosty or Seussian, but out of joint. . .
I could keep going, but I won't, and I really do appreciate your very generous comments! I love words and language, and therefore I'm NEVER satisfied with any of my work - there is always a better word or expression of thought - whether it rhymes or uses a tight meter or not. But my dissatisfaction has nothing to do with show vs. tell. It has to do with the proponents of that minimalist style who refuse to accept that any and every style of poetry is valid, if it is well done (which I ache to produce one day! Oh! To be poet laureate doing it my way - LOL!))
I'll close this elongated reply with something I wrote some time ago that explains my feelings a bit better. It's called:
A Wordsmith’s Dilemma
I’ve heard it time and time again -
The bigger the word, the more the pain
To understand what one is reading!
I’ve always fought against such pleading.
I’ll never cease my valiant fighting
Not to simplify my writing!
Woe to all who’d put a hex upon
My complete and unabridged lexicon.
Such acts require the damnification
Of those with no verbal sophistication.
They think my language high-fallutin’?
My reply is “Yer darn tootin’!”
I use such words to avoid confusion
About my meaning or allusion.
To do so, I search every day
For exactly le mot juste to say.
(And often, when I’m in a pinch
I will resort to using French.)
My verses of poetic creation
Are not a conceited affectation.
My aim is not perplexity
When I employ complexity.
To condense all words to just one syllable,
Like “cash is due” for “services billable,”
Would make my metaphors, I fear,
Uncouth, unartful, and unclear.
To simplify an expressive art
Would be to extricate my heart.
My poems can be complicated,
long, and unabbreviated.
My archetypal philosophy
Gives voice to my theosophy.
Trite and common words perturb me,
Irritate, nettle, rag, disturb me.
It’s mediocrity I fight,
In everything I say and write!
To satisfy my rhyming quest
I’ve always tried to do my best.
- YET -
Even though it makes me queasy -
I’ll search for words both short and easy.
But until I get the hang of it
You can expect me to harangue a bit!
Well, as you can see, I've gone and "told" them all again. . . Thanks for reading and appreciating my silliness and fun. Someday I'll have to enter some of the poetry I've truly labored over, and let you be the judge!
Paula
Through night's tunnel as the spirit floats,
The cask(et) anchored to day's hopes,
I realise then my true inheritance,
Life.
Roshan wrote: "Through night's tunnel as the spirit floats,
The cask(et) anchored to day's hopes,
I realise then my true inheritance,
Life."
Nice job, Roshan. One of the "minimalist poem" types that I am generally unable to write. I have to keep talking and talking. . .ask anyone who knows me! I seldom achieve a one-verse haiku!
Besides, I like the true message of your poem!
The crisp, new canvas of white is before his bony hands,
Midnight liquid spilling from the ink well,
Quill poised carefully above the paper but words will never be written,
His eyes cannot roam over the paper as they should but are locked in an eternal stare,
The rhythmic beat of his heart is lost,
The will is bare before the dead man's hands, his inheritance his son deserves is unrecoverable.
Just a random, on-the-spot poem. I don't even know if you could call it a poem!
Midnight liquid spilling from the ink well,
Quill poised carefully above the paper but words will never be written,
His eyes cannot roam over the paper as they should but are locked in an eternal stare,
The rhythmic beat of his heart is lost,
The will is bare before the dead man's hands, his inheritance his son deserves is unrecoverable.
Just a random, on-the-spot poem. I don't even know if you could call it a poem!
*For you, Dear Aunt Billie Jo*By Billie Jo
After you
I was named.
Because our day of birth
Was almost the same.
If I would have waited
Three more days
Then that day
Would be the same.
Because of days
So close yet so far away.
Me and you, dear aunt,
Have the same name.
I love you so
Even though we've never met
But that's okay
Just because that time was not yet.
I will see you there
Sitting high above the world
Looking down from Heaven
Where one day, I'll meet the Lord.
You are so dear,
To me in every way
And I know you can't be here
Because Heaven is just too far away.
But I love you lots,
I love our name.
And Aunt Billie Jo
I would never wish it another way.
I got my name from her and the poem tells why. Hope you like it. xD
Billie Joe that is so sweet. I loved it.
Thank you Christa.I wrote it a little while ago.
My second cousin, Fay, said when she read it, it made her cry.
:}
'Ello, me hearties!! This contest is officially over! Go vote for your favorite poems and stories here:Stories: http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/86...
Poems: http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/86...
La Winners:1st: Belly and Jim tied! (Congratulations you two!)
2nd: Christ and M
3rd: Rikki, Billie Jo, and Marija
4th: Roshan and Paula
Again, thank you for participation, guys.
Congratulations, Belly! Congratulations, Jim!
Please post directly into the topic and not a link. Please don’t use a poem previously used in this group.
Your poem may be any length
This week’s topic is: Inheritance
The rules are pretty loose. You may write a poem about anything that has to do with the topic. We do not care how, but the poem you post must relate to the topic somehow.
Above all, have fun!