A swan song is a person’s final performance before retirement. Since this is an acrostic poem, there’s a hidden message spelled out by the initial letters of each line. Peace to your ♥ !
Swan Song
Forever. To go on and on and on And on (my finite life a Father’s loan). Redeemed from gravity—the earth’s, my own. Euphoric! So what, that we’re here and gone, When hope like this exists to dream upon? Each night I’ve found my heavy wings now grown Light-feathered, strong, and through the darkness flown, Long-necked and honking madly, toward dawn.
Poetry crops up in unexpected places. When my youngest daughter hosted a sleepover, we bought Birch Benders gluten-free pancake mix because one of her friends is gluten-sensitive. On the back of the bag is a paragraph about how the company’s founder used to bend birches as a boy; it closes with a reference to Robert Frost’s poem “Birches” and quotes the line: “One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.” Even better is the blurb at the top, which states, “We start with a perfect blend of wheat-free flours, then add our signature Oregon hazelnut meal, resulting in, dare we say, pancake poetry.” I love it!
In the spirit of pancake poetry, I’m posting a breakfast poem.
Morning: My Breakfast
Mornings my breakfast was oatmeal made with milk, walnuts,
wheat germ, banana, microwaved in a hand-thrown bowl
stained rust, tan, deep blue— earthy hues for a hearty meal.
A staple for years, it sustained me body and soul
till I found I had a severe, somehow symptomless,
sensitivity to casein (protein in cow’s milk);
also nuts, maybe wheat. I was in fight-or-flight mode
24/7 years (decades?) without knowing it.
Overnight, breakfast bottomed out, first casualty
of my dairy-free, nut-free life. I still have oatmeal,
but my daily bowl’s now water- based mush not even
a ripe banana can rescue. I eat to sustain
my body; my soul starves meanwhile, mourning my breakfast.
NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 1 - Write a single lune (a three-line form having a 5-3-5 syllable or word count) or a poem composed of multiple lunes.
Thankfully, time has a way of healing things, and I don’t feel nearly as negative about my oatmeal now as when I wrote the poem three years ago. Happy breakfasting to you, and peace to your ♥ !
Have you ever looked back at a poem you wrote, that you thought was a finished poem, that you liked well enough at the time, and found it disappointing? The poem below–well, let’s just say it came across as bland and lacking in rhythm when I reread it. So the dilemma becomes, do you revise it or not? Is it worth the time and effort? In this case (six years after the fact), I decided it was. Peace to your ♥ !
Dilemma
Do I or don’t I want to go? I wish it were a simple yes or no. Let’s say I don’t—that suits me fine, Except they’ll think I’m snooty to decline. Maybe I’ll pop in and out, and yet, Mingling makes me break out in a sweat. All I want’s a choice I won’t regret.
Those who are word nerds like me, or who recall their grade-school English class well, will immediately notice that I’ve misspelled alliteration. Never fear; all is well. I purposely spelled it that way for the greater good of poetry.
Alitteration
Pages of poems partially penned are prone to proliferation, producing plentiful piles of pieces of paper and a plethora of alitteration.
Playing with words this way is, for better or worse, how my mind works. I recently saw the word unintentionally misspelled illiteration, and I began toying with turning that into a poem. “Sharon has the sniffles / Miles has the mumps / Daniel’s dachshund is down in the dumps….” It’s not much of a leap (for me at least!) to considering “Oblitteration” as the title for a poem about incinerating trash found on a daily walk. The English language can be frustrating–I still get mixed up over two r‘s or two f‘s in terrific–but also loads of fun.
I’ve never specifically tried writing abstract or sound poetry, where the emphasis is on sound rather than meaning, until now. It tops Robert Lee Brewer’s list of 100 poetic forms, which I’m using as poem prompts. I experimented with two poems. You’ll see that I loosened up quite a bit with the second. Applesauce, by the way, is slang for nonsense–pure serendipity. :) Peace to your ♥ !
With today being the birthday of the USA, I thought I would post this birthday poem I wrote many years ago. If you’re celebrating the Fourth of July, have a happy one! And as always, peace to your ♥ !
Birthday Stuff
Tomorrow is my birthday A very special date I’ve got my plans all ready And I can hardly wait. To start I’ll have hot chocolate And doughnuts on a plate Eating only things I love That’s how I’ll celebrate. Mac-and-cheese for lunchtime On that’s there’s no debate Then either grapes or raisins No peas at any rate. And for a snack some brownies Two, or four, or eight Fresh and warm from baking Who cares if I gain weight? For dinner down a burger With curly fries (not straight) A milkshake, thick and creamy That will be first-rate. I’ll finish up with chocolate cake And I won’t hesitate To lick each luscious crumb up Oh boy, will that taste great. Tomorrow is my birthday The next day I’ll sleep late And say, as I did last year “I think I overate!”
You see them on their lounge chairs, lined up in a row like fish sticks. Or perhaps hot dogs, complete with “grill marks” from the chair when they get up for a swim. But maybe it only similes that way to me. :)
Cookout
Bronze bodies poolside, Julying in the sun: Coat both sides with sunscreen; fry until done.
Although I generally wait until I’m inspired to write poems, there have been two exceptions. I regularly submit children’s poems to Guardian Angel Kids ezine, which has themed issues such as Conservation for Kids, Hidden Treasure, and Hot Summer Nights. Also, I’ve participated in National Poetry Writing Month (April) since 2016, responding to daily prompts from Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo site. After my first round of poems, I summed up the experience:
NaPoWriMo Conclusion
Yeah, me! A month of poetry Goes into the binder, A timely reminder That a little prompting Can be a good thing.
Prompts and themes are like seeds. The poet’s imagination and effort are the sun and water that help the seed grow into a mature plant. You may end up with tomatoes or an orchid or a palm tree. That’s where the (ad)venture comes in.
Now that I’ve started blogging, I’m thinking I should challenge myself to write poetry more regularly. I’ve decided I’ll use Robert Lee Brewer’s list of 100 poetic forms as prompts, aiming for two new poems a month (the four-year plan :) ). Peace to your ♥ !
Hold out your hands to feel the luxury of the sunbeams.
Helen Keller
Isn’t that a lovely thought? Ever since I wrote Helen Keller’s observation in my notebook of quotes, I’ve wanted to use it in a poem. Despite being intangible, sunbeams have a way of draping themselves across your body as cloth does. The contrast between brocade’s heaviness and the lightness of sunbeams works, for me, because of the connecting “thread” of luxuriousness (couldn’t resist that :) ).
Brocade
Sometimes you have to make your own sunshine. You have to roll out the gold gossamer-thin To feel the luxury of sunbeams on bare skin.
I would be a far worse poet without my trusty companions: The Scholastic Rhyming Dictionary by Sue Young, published 1994, for ages 8 and up (and up! did the publishers ever dream it would be used by a 50-plus-year-old?); and The New American Roget’s College Thesaurus in Dictionary Form, revised 1985.
As you can see, I actually own two of the rhyming dictionaries and two of the thesauruses. (Thesauri is also correct, but it sounds too refined for humble paperbacks.) They’re handy reference guides, and you can’t get any handier that having one at your fingertips upstairs and another at your beck and call downstairs. (Click on the link and the eggcorn link within it for some fascinating reading.)
If I’m honest with myself, I don’t need doubles. I bought the second copies when the first began showing signs of wear. Not to panic or anything, but I really, really like these specific editions, and I wouldn’t want all the used copies to get bought up and leave me stranded for rhymes and synonyms. Several years back I did buy a large-print thesaurus–my eyesight, always bad, is steadily getting worse–but it was a bust. I hated the format. If, down the road, I have to crouch over the pages of my tried-and-true thesaurus with a magnifying glass, so be it. :)
Peace to your ♥ !
Three Cheers for Mr. Roget
Hip, hip, hooray for Mr. Roget For creating the thesaurus for us. Any writer who wants that perfect nuance, Variation, modulation, shade, subtlety, nicety, Fine point, distinction, suggestion, innuendo or hint Has only to look in Roget’s treasure book— Three cheers for him and his synonyms.
Serendippity 