Tag: #poemadayfeb

poetry

A Happy Coincidence

carolyncordon

Today was a pretty full on day, with weather that acted against doing too much. I have a chronic illness that means I am particularly badly affected by being too hot, and the summer we’re having at the moment in my part of South Australia is hot, perhaps the hottest ever, or at least since Australia was settled by white people.

When you know what your limitations are, you learn how to deal with them , so that’s what I did, I spent a minimum of time outside in the heat, staying inside as much as possible, where it was nowhere near as hot, then drove, in my air-conditioned car, to

Anyway, I got to the usual writing group venue in plenty of time, but I hadn’t had time at home to write my poem for the day, the final poem for the #poemadayfeb I have been doing for all of this month, even though, I’d looked up what the word for today and so knew it was ‘yourself’.

Others arrived at the meeting, we went through the usual items, telling of our writing related activities for the previous week, talking about some relevant issues relating to several events we will be involved in, for the coming months, and then doing our writing exercise.

The writing prompt for today was ‘night’, and I eventually settled down to do my writing, based on that them, but without any real idea on what I was going to write. In the back of my brain, I had my poetry prompt, as mentioned, and together with that was the writing prompt from today’s meeting.

So, ‘yourself’, and ‘dark’, were possibly travelling around in the back of my brain, what would happen? As it turned out, a lovely small poem happened.  This unexpected poem is a senryu, another Japanese poetry form, similar to the haiku, but about people, rather than nature.

I’m relatively happy with this small poem, and the others at the writing group though it was a good one too. I love the people in this group, we share our words with each other, but there is so much more to it. We may have begun as people who write, but we have become friends, ones who care about each other. If you have a writing group too, I hope you have such lovely experiences.

Anyway, this is my senryu:

 

Every night leads

to a new day, a new chance

to be yourself.

poetry

Not Throwing Stones, Watching My Words

carolyncordon

In the past, and probably into the future too, I have said things unwisely, the wrong thing at the wrong time, or the wrong thing for any time. I have managed to get through the troubles caused, and they have never been too terrible anyway.

But for some people saying the wrong thing, to the wrong people has been fatal, a terrible thing, to die because you said the wrong thing to the wrong person. Religion, football teams, families, just life in general, these can all be things where words uttered without thought can kill.

Poets use words, and for the most part, they are not in danger of any fatal outcome from what they write, but certainly, some journalists have faced death, or indeed died, because they were using their words, and someone took offence, and acted, killing the offender.

I live in a small country town, and realised that small country towns are quite closed in places, with very close links between most of those living in them, or near them. Several times, I have narrowly avoided making a faux pas, by remembering which woman was actually the sister, or cousin of another woman.

It’s easier with the menfolk, because they don’t change their surnames, but with women, they lose the name that marks their heritage, and shows their connections to others. I’m very much more careful these days, having sussed out at least some of the connections, and being aware that anyone could be related to anyone else!

Anyway, my poem today is about watching words, and consequences when words are ill spoken, knowing those consequences can mark you as, ‘not one of them’.

Stone’s Throw

Throw a stone into the water, stand & watch –

ripples radiate out, from where stone hit water

& beyond. Peaceful, serene, gentle, as that stone

disappears from view, forgotten, as the ripples too

will disappear from view, & be forgotten. Throw

misspoken words into a conversation, though,

realise your error, cringe, & try to hide, knowing,

too well, the ripples may never stop; radiating

endlessly out instead, far & wide, each connection

causing more ripples, & still more, never-ending.

Like the stone and the ripples, misspoken words,

may be forgotten, but the name of the one attached

to the stone, to those ill spoken words, may be

remembered by many, until the very end of time …

poetry

Rusty Thoughts

carolyncordon

I can’t believe it, I just accidentally ditched my blog post again, before I’d finished creating it! This is getting beyond a joke. I haven’t done today’s poem yet though, but I know the poetry prompt for #poemadayfeb for the 23rd of the month is “Rust”. I am now heading off to a word document, so I can do the rest of this post, including a poem, and won’t lose it again!

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Back again, with my thoughts and poem for this new poetry prompt. Phew!

Rust is there in the lives of us all, to some extent, I’m sure, out in the country though, I’m sure there is more rust. We live on a small rural zoned property, with a fair bit of mostly bare earth, and sometimes find rusted horseshoes, great big ones, far bigger than the ones my horse training dad put on his harness racing horses.

The paddocks around here, of which there are many, would have been ploughed, and sown and reaped, with the services of the trusted Clydesdale horse (or similar heavy horse). Those great big horseshoes would have come from such a horse, as the land our house was built on would have previously been farmland, as is all of the land around our home.

Rust is what happens to metal when it oxidises. So when metal is exposed to moisture and oxygen, it oxidises and degrades (goes rusty), and rusted bits flake off. Or something vaguely like that – I’m neither a clever researcher nor a scientist …

Another fact in my life relating to “rust” is that the horse my father had at one stage in his stables, was a gentle plodder, former harness racing horse, named (I think) Rusty Roads. I think Dad may have saved Rusty, as we called him, from certain death at the knackery, and gave him to us kids to ride. It was fun for a while, but I can’t remember when it was we had him, or when he went, the facts of it have rusted away. So many horses came and went at the stables, as always happens …

Graham and I now have a ‘decoration’ on the front veranda. It is about the size of a dog, and is in fact the shake of a dog, made out of corrugated iron. There is a collar around the neck with the name “Rusty” attached to it. We bought him on a trip to Sydney, because we had a little bit of money to spare and both liked the look of him. Rusty guards our front door, from where he sits, chained loosely to one of the veranda posts.

IMAG0113_1.jpg

 

I still don’t have a poem yet though, do I? I’m thinking haiku or something small like that …

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No, I wrote a thoughtful little poem about a terrible thing, and hope others may find it as interesting as reading, as I found writing this. It’s about some things I’ve been thinking about, the possible reasons that men commit suicide, a terrible way to end a life, I feel, awful for anyone to feel so low that death seems a better thing to them.

If the poem to follow sparks problems for you, please call:

Lifeline tel:1-800-273-8255 or seek other help

 

Anyway, here is today’s poem, and I have caught up – back again tomorrow with a new blog post about the new poetry prompt:

 

Rusty Horseshoe

What was the suicide rate

for farmers in the olden days,

I wonder? As high as nowadays?

One horse powered farming

compared to the massive

machines used now –

I’m thinking about

the gentle task of tending

to the gentle giant who’d pull

the plow, & take kids for a ride –

big brown eyes, solid

& dependable, always …

poetry

A New Poetic Form?

carolyncordon

 A Tritern? I’m not sure if the poetic form of today’s poem I wrote today for the #poemadayfeb challenge, has an actual name, but Tritern is my attempt at giving it one, if it doesn’t already have one. It is a poetic form based a little on the Quatern (details for that style below)

Tritern:

9 lines, broken into 3 stanzas of three lines each
Each line has 9 syllables

The first line of the poem is the refrain,

In second stanza the refrain is the second line

In third (final) stanza refrain is final (third) line.

Rhyming or non rhyming as poet wishes.

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This is the Quatern: it has 16 lines broken up into 4 quatrains (or 4-line stanzas).

  1. Each line is comprised of eight syllables.
  2. The first line is the refrain. In the second stanza, the refrain appears in the second line; in the third stanza, the third line; in the fourth stanza, the fourth (and final) line.
  3. There are no rules for rhyming or iambics.

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OK, now onto my poem for the 20th of February 2019, based on/inspired by, thinking about people who are good people, but have been beaten down by life. They will brush themselves down, get up and give it another try, because they want to be the kind of person they would like and respect.
Life’s journey can be a difficult one, a marathon of rough terrain, but crossing the winning line in front of others is a fail, if you cross the line in a helicopter.

 

The theme is ‘Last’

 

Who are the Losers?

 

Coming last, losing, beaten by all,

humiliated, defeated, but

isn’t just trying, better than not?

 

If you won’t try, you shouldn’t mock those

coming last. Losing, beaten by all,

but winners ‘cos they gave it their best.

 

Life isn’t fair, and many will cheat,

& cheaters all fail at being good –

coming last, losing, beaten by all!

poetry

Tanka & Other Japanese Forms

carolyncordon

I was pleased today, to see that the poetry prompt for the #poemadayfeb event was the Tanka form of poetry. I have spent many years trying to perfect the writing of Haiku, and the similar style of Tanka, and am still trying to perfect them.

I suspect this will continue for the rest of my life, knowing that managing to write one good one, certainly does not mean you’ve ‘got it’! In my life, I think I’ve written a mere handful of fine Haiku, and I’m not sure I’ve every written a Tanka I would call fine …

But today, I am going to do my best at writing a good Tanka, because I’d like the poems I put up here to be all good poems, of various forms, and following the various given prompts for February 2019. A Tanka has a syllable count of 5/7/5/7/7 syllables, or fewer, and a Haiku has a syllable count of 5/7/5 syllables, or fewer. There is a lot more to these poetic forms, but that would be for another blog post …

This has been a wonderful month for me, I feel my poetry is really getting to a higher level, to some extent, and I am ever so grateful to Kathy Parker, Paul Kohn, and Laura Greaves for putting these words together for poets to use as prompts. The more I write poetry, the better I feel I am getting, and the more inspired I am feeling about my writing in general.

Yesterday I wrote my #poemadayfeb poem, and another poem, and the text for a picture book too, all in one inspired day. I don’t know if that picture book will ever become an actual book, but I like it, it’s a sweet little story about friendship, and I’m wishing I could draw well enough, to finish it off!

I’m going to have a bit of a go at doing illustrations for this picture book, just to see how it would look, and whether it might work. That’s a task for me, after I finish this blog post, by posting the Tanka I have now finished writing. It is based on what I heard this morning, and what I remember from other times. I’ve written it down here, and fiddled with it for about ten minutes, still not completely happy, but happier than I was, so it will have to do.

That’s the thing with writing, there’s still something else you might do to make it better, but editing has to stop somewhere if others are going to read your work, and having written that, here it is:

Tanka for the 18th of February, 2019
________________________

Gentle breeze blowing,

wind chimes, and sparrow song,

bring peaceful moments,

before my husband brings home

a cacophony of sound …