Day: Oct 6, 2018

But now it is what McCall Smith calls “late”

 

Sometimes when bereft I’d love a snail
Though it might wet my bed with silvery trails
Would snails be lonely living in my house?
Shall I be but fit to love one louse?

I hugged a rowan tree but now it’s dead
The council said they’ll give me oak instead
It stood upon the pavement by the gate
But now it is what McCall Smith calls “late”

I wonder if self massage’s the thing
Some perfumed lotion stolen on the wing.
I stroked my arms with Cream E45
Now they say I’m not allowed to drive!

I was sad but now I am at peace
All I needed was  some eggs  in grease.

A  man whose face was smiling in repose

A  man whose face was smiling in repose
His eyes gleamed  with the  lustre of a gem
He never said too much  but had his woes
Carried  with a  good will,   and great aplomb

Like the lights where people cross the road
He  had a  face  that smiled in  kindness sweet
He never said too much, he hid his woes
Despite his age he  still had both his feet

Like a poem  has metre,has a beat
Like the lights where people cross the road
Signals make us sensible  when fleet
He never said  but knew how  gnosis grows

His company is kind and never awes
As a poem  has metre,has a beat
He cannot  tolerate my jangled flaws
Symbols  that insinuate deceit

He never entered College can he read?
His company is kind,no  stasis glares
Never would he  plead  for my defeat
He cannot bring his  custom  to my flaws.

And so he is an instrument quite rare.
Who will not snoop nor wander   with wide ears

 

Alive but why?

 

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Photo by Katherine

 

Discharge notes:

Alive but  cause unknown
A good talk cured this patient.Sent home with CD
Alive  or a good actress.
Alive despite treatment.
Alive  though  humourless
Died laughing,cause unfound.Maybe doctors’s face triggered fit
Alive after  eating  the hospital food for a week.Sent home to lower risk
Said  pain  has moved to the third  level.Sent to  the Tower by lift

As burn his lies

The sleeveless coat is wet and so am I
What made me buy such foolish,fashion garb?
Rain  struck like sad lizards with bad eyes

From their poisoned blood  some women die
Life in third world countries is damned hard
The sleeveless coat is wet, oh foolish I

But with  the fire as hot as a Trump lie
My clothes have dried and I send  my regards
Though rain fell like old lizards with bad eyes

The Walk In Centre is  a  blessing undenied
From my sofa I can watch the cars
The fire is warming me as  burn Trump’s  lies

 

I wonder if the doctors may be spies
Yet nothing I reported needs a guard
As rain fell like  wild lizards  bloodied eyes

If you dislike this, you may discard
And, on your mobile phone,  block me,your bard
The sleeveless coat is wet and so am I
Rain  flayed like   hot lizards with bad eyes

 

 

 

What is a pantoum poem?

 

RadleyLake2018https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/pantoum-poetic-form

 

Posted

September 20, 2004

Type

Poetic Terms/Forms

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The pantoum originated in Malaysia in the fifteenth-century as a short folk poem, typically made up of two rhyming couplets that were recited or sung. However, as the pantoum spread, and Western writers altered and adapted the form, the importance of rhyming and brevity diminished. The modern pantoum is a poem of any length, composed of four-line stanzas in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and third lines of the next stanza. The last line of a pantoum is often the same as the first.

The pantoum was especially popular with French and British writers in the nineteenth-century, including Charles Baudelaire and Victor Hugo, who is credited with introducing the form to European writers. The pantoum gained popularity among contemporary American writers such as Anne Waldman and Donald Justice after John Ashbery published the form in his 1956 book, Some Trees.

A good example of the pantoum is Carolyn Kizer’s “Parent’s Pantoum,” the first three stanzas of which are excerpted here:

     Where did these enormous children come from,
More ladylike than we have ever been?
Some of ours look older than we feel.
How did they appear in their long dresses

     More ladylike than we have ever been?
But they moan about their aging more than we do,
In their fragile heels and long black dresses.
They say they admire our youthful spontaneity.

     They moan about their aging more than we do,
A somber group—why don’t they brighten up?
Though they say they admire our youthful spontaneity
They beg us to be dignified like them

One exciting aspect of the pantoum is its subtle shifts in meaning that can occur as repeated phrases are revised with different punctuation and thereby given a new context