Bonsai and Pantoum

Two poems tonight; please only read as much as you are comfortable with. The second is a pantoum, for Sam's prompt last Thursday.

Bonsai

         At evernoon 
the garden burns again

scorched by a sun no less denying

          than the coquette rain.

Only  fools

 grow roses in a desert.

Pressed and cut,
transplanted too much

in  seedling stage

nothing takes root;

                               matured, only a dwarf of

what was meant                         
                                                             twisted in miniature,
stunted to be

a curiosity.

Those with a taste

                                                 for the odd, the extreme,

occasionally collect it

but soon pass it on

                       as too difficult

to maintain.

~August 2012

Photo credits: header Bonsai importado, by Kenneth F Andrade

footer: Bonsai,M J Ambriola, both on flick'r both shared under a

Creative Commons license

Posted for   OpenLinkNight   at dVerse Poets Pub

 ~*~

For those who participated in last Thursday's FormforAll, Samuel Peralta hosted a pantoum session at dVerse. It took me awhile, but here's what eventually bubbled up, with a few liberties taken. As always, late to the party.

Three Egg Omelet

(A Pantoum)

Three blue eggs nestle

no one can see

deep within the thistle,

down among the rosemary.

No one can see

three words miscarry.

Down among the rosemary,

two lives we bury.

Three words miscarried,

the moment passed beyond recall.

Two lies were buried;

sun sets, moon rises, stars fall.

The moment passed beyond recall;

planes crash, trains wreck every day.

Sunsets blind highrises, curtains fall;

hearts bend, love ends, songs replay.

Suns crash, stars wreck every day

and fall into the thistle.

Hearts bend, lies end, songs replay,

three blue eggs nestle.

~August 2012

If you'd like to hear the poem read by the author, please click below:
three egg omelet by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Header image:Blue, by Jon Eriksen, on flick'r
Footer image: Robin's nest in trumpet vine, by b4b2, on flick'r
Shared under a Creative Commons License

Naked

Naked

A Pantoum

When you’ve made a three piece suit from your fear

it’s hard to learn to go naked.

When you’ve screamed so loud stones can hear

its hard to admit that you faked it.

It’s hard to learn to go naked

when you weave your own lies at the loom.

It’s hard to admit that you faked it

when you love your own prophecy of doom.

When you weave your own lies at the loom

your tongue wears them often and well.

When you’ve written your bible of doom

you have to keep preaching the sell.

Your tongue wears it all often and well

because truth has become too complex.

You have to keep preaching the sell

since it has what you want to come next.

Your mind will forget how to flex

and the soul will forget how to see,

because it’s all about special effects

making horseshit of reality.

The soul will forget how to see

when you’ve cried wolf so loud stones can hear.

You’ve beggared reality

when you make a three piece suit from your fear.

September 2011

Posted better late than never for   FormForAll   at dVerse Poets Pub

where Gay Cannon does an informative and impossible to resist exposition on the Malay poetry form known as the pantoum. It's a cascading form which uses repeating phrases, and you can find the full definition laid out clearly and succinctly with examples, including a great pic of Baudelaire with a cigar, at the link above.

(I've taken a few liberties with not reproducing the repeating lines word for word.)

Apples and Thorns

Apples and Thorns

A Pantoum

Love’s not an apple, plucked and discarded,

uneaten, Kallisti, some greed gloating prize.

Love’s a thorned angel, not a triumph awarded,

escaping from every trap that's devised.     

Uneaten, a  judgment, discord, greed's prize;

love is worth nothing, unless something tender

is running from every trap we devise

seeking that second of promised surrender.

Love is worth nothing without something tender.     

She knows that she comes to you only to go

seeking her moment of phantom surrender.

My love’s a burned angel colder than snow.

Knowing she comes to you only to go,

attainment’s a ballad for lunatic sailors

serenading burned angels lost in the snow

in pied tattered garments, since Harlequin tailors

attainments in ballads for lunatic sailors.

A song's not an apple, a swing and a miss

by fools in pied garments from harlequin tailors.              

Love’s a thorned angel with ghosts in her kiss.

A song not an apple, her swing and my miss,

for love’s a thorned angel not a triumph awarded.

Love smiles, my burned angel, a ghost in her kiss,

and I 'm the green apple that's plucked and discarded.

August, 2011

Posted for     OpenLinkNight   at  dVerse Poets Pub

Joe Hesch of A Thing for Words has donned the pubkeeper's apron tonight 

to host our fourth Open Link Night. Thanks to all the poets whose participation has made this event so successful and so much fun, and look forward to seeing you there tonight. Doors open at 3:00 PM EST

Process Notes: Kallisti means 'for the most beautiful one." It was inscribed on the Apple of Discord that forced the 'judgement of Paris' between three goddesses, and began the Trojan War.

Harlequin is the comic servant from the Italian Commedia del Arte,  lustful and florid, agile but foolish, dressed always in a motley patchwork of rags. Uncapitalized the word refers to anything dramatically varied in color, or a comic or jester.

 ***

This is my first pantoum and I'm sure I haven't done the form justice, but I enjoyed working in it very much.The  pantoum comes to us from Malaysia via France, where Baudelaire and Victor Hugo first popularized it. It's been adapted quite a bit from the original Malay version, and I've found varying rulesets for it. It can be unrhymed, or rhymed abab, or abba, but it's always written in quatrains, and the line repetition is characteristic, with the second and fourth lines of each stanza  repeated as the first and third lines of the next. This pattern continues for any number of stanzas, except for the final stanza,which reuses the third line of  the first stanza as it's second line and the beginning line as the last line of the poem.

Image: Green Apple, by Image editor, on flick'r 

Image Editor's photostream  

Shared under a Creative Commons 2.0 Generic License