Love/Anti-Love

The two-for-Tuesday dual prompt today (for our 23rd day of the challenge) was to write a love/anti-love poem. I think I’ve covered that here. We’ll see what you think.

Cyrano

Ever the poet,
ever the gentleman warrior,
he suffered no fool gladly
and bested all
with his sword play
and rapier wit.

Yet his one weakness,
his one soft spot,
was for the lovely
Roxane.

Pining ever, loving truly,
Cyrano tried to impress
his lovely cousin,
yet the bounds of family
kept her from seeing
his passion true.

And when she confessed her love
for another
he did not kill the oaf,
though he surely could have done,
no, he helped the man win
Cyrano’s only love;
Roxane’s happiness weighed more
to him than his.

***

Roxane

Beautiful, and quite an
intellectual,
yet, she was prey
to the remarkable good looks
of Christian de Neuvillette.

If only he was as smart,
as dashing,
as brave,
as witty,
as her beloved cousin.

And when he seemed to be
what she had always wanted
in a man,
she did not question
her good fortune,
she only embraced
what was offered,
and was glad.

Yet long years later,
still grieving his loss, loving
a dead man,
comforted by her
Cyrano,
she discovers, too late,
that the man she truly loved
was before her
all along.

Cyrano dies,
believing himself truly alone,
yet rejecting anything
that would compromise his
principles,
he dies, his honor
intact.

I am ________

The prompt was to fill in the above sentence, to use “I Am ____” somehow. I had fun with this one!

The Storn – Pierre Auguste Cot

Who am I?

I am
the voice in your head
that tells you to run.

I am
the whisper in the dark
that makes you look over your shoulder.

I am
the moonless night
that gives shape to your nightmares.

but

I am also
the idea that wakes you
and makes you write down that new poem.

and I am
the adrenaline surge
when you’ve gotten that scene just right.

and I am
that moment you get chills
because someone else loves your work.

I am your imagination.

If you never let me go,
I will take you to
every time
every place
everywhere
you can imagine.

 

 

Sonnet

Today’s prompt was to write a sonnet. I was also, coincidentally, thinking about how much my great-grandma would have loved living in the future. She would be about 109 years old at this point, but I know she would have loved seeing (and using!) everything technology has brought to pass. I think e-readers would have been her favorite. ^_^

Betty

What if, I sometimes wonder,
what if you were still alive?
To see computers, hard drives?
Technology you’d plunder
with gleeful sense of wonder,
I just know that you would thrive;
in the future, you’d arrive
with whole heart open, loving
science fiction come to pass.
You’d embrace it all with class,
and adopt it all en masse;
striving, learning, achieving.
I wish you’d made it, grandma.

Arrival

Today is the first day of the Aprili poem-a-day challenge. I will, as in past years, post at least one poem per day this month. Some years are more difficult than others, depending on how busy life gets!

The prompt for this first day is to write an arrival poem. I wrote this triolet with a sideways look at arrival.

Spring Request

Mermaids, pixies, banshees, sprites and elves
The world won’t see your revels more
For spring this year, please just bring yourselves
Brownies, nixies, dryads, sprites and elves
Tales of old from dusty books on shelves,
Dreary the thought: you are gone from this shore
Hamadryads, satyrs, sprites and elves
This world will not see your revels more

***

The second and last lines were inspired by a line in Jane Eyre when she and Mr. Rochester are discussing faerie:  ” I don’t think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine on their revels more.”

And if this poem-a-day thing sounds like a fun challenge, do join us! Follow this link for the rules: April Poem-a-Day Challenge  Guidelines.

And this link to dive right in! April 1 – April PaD Challenge

Flashy Fiction

I did a little flashy fiction on Sunday. I’ve included the prompt so you can keep up with the idea.

***

You’re browsing through the shelves of the poetry section at the library. As you select an ancient book of love poems, a note falls to the floor.  It is folded into fourths, and yellowed with age. You uncrease it carefully, and settle in to read, discovering it’s an old love letter. 

What does it say? Was it ever sent? Tell the story behind the letter. 

***

You find a letter in a book of poetry by William Blake. It is next to the poem,

“Love’s Secret.”

Never seek to tell thy love,

Love that never told can be;

For the gentle wind doth move

Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart,

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.

Ah! she did depart!

Soon after she was gone from me,

A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly:

He took her with a sigh. –

 

The letter reads:

My darling,

I know you love Blake, and my hope is that you will eventually get to this volume. His words are sweet, but not as sweet as the love I feel for you. I placed it in this volume beside “Love’s Secret.” You understand.

You may never get this, but I can hope, because this is the only explanation I have been able to improvise. I know you must wonder why I disappeared the way I did. Family pressures have become unendurable. I was made to live with my grandparents for some months. I went half mad with worry for you, but I was kept from the telephone and am watched continually. I was only able to contrive this letter because they allow me books from the library, though I am never allowed to go choose them myself. I have been asking for William Blake, though, and this was the best I could do to try and explain.

I am a virtual prisoner. But my heart still aches for you. I fear a marriage is being arranged, and soon I will be sent across the country to live with my new husband, probably in some town on the frontier, rife with danger and far, too far, from you. I am desolate. If only I could see you just one more time, and kiss you goodbye at the very least. But my parents will never understand our love.

Just remember I love you, and always have.

Yours forever,

Anne

[In a different hand, this addition follows the original letter.]

Dearest Anne,

I have been in an unendurable state since your disappearance. I have shunned all my usual habits; even my reading has fallen away. It has been some years since last we met. I only lately discovered this letter, and my heart again is broken.  I have read and reread your words, so fondly I remember you that I can hear your very voice.

Your family has refused to even speak to me, let alone tell me where you have gone or what your name is now.

Perhaps, one day, my dear, you will see this addendum. I live in hope that the fates will once more bring us two together; but if not this life, perhaps the next.

Always your loving

Elizabeth

 

(For more about William Blake, see http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19961#sthash.czEbQSbE.dpuf )

 

 

Walking II

Here is the second for today – a little piece of Stephen King fan fic. ^_^

***

The Walkin’ Dude

Randall Flagg,
they call him here,
though he has so many names,
other monikers from all the other places
he is known.

The clocking of the worn down
heels of his scruffy cowboy boots on
wet pavement (though whether it’s water from the
weeping stones, or something far more sinister is questionable)
is also known.

You feel that spike of dread
at his avid grin, the skulls of fire dancing
in his eager gaze, and though at first you might think
you’ll be okay, in truth, the outcome of this encounter is already
known.

And all that is left for you now,
is to hope that something, anything at all,
distracts him from what he is probably intending to do to you
right now (oh god) but it’s too late because here (have mercy) God
is unknown.

Quote of the Day

Until I was about seven, I thought books were just there, like trees. When I learned that people actually wrote them, I wanted to, too, because all children aspire to inhuman feats like flying. Most people grow up to realize they can’t fly. Writers are people who don’t grow up to realize they can’t be God.
–FRAN LEBOWITZ

Resolved

The poetry prompt today was to write about resolution in some way. In my instance, we had a problem resolved; our cat, Suzie, went missing around Christmas.

I have my theories on what happened to her and where she went. Below, find my Roundel on the subject. ^_^

I just wonder where my cat went.
We found she was gone at meal-time.
(To her to miss meals was a crime
yet, we missed her hungry lament.)

No hair we found, or sign or scent.
We called and searched the alley grime.
We found she was gone at meal-time.
I just wonder where my cat went.

Back home after eight days, nose rent
and scarred, hungry, fur-begrimed,
No sign of where she’d spent her dime.
To Narnia? To Time-Lord lent?
I just wonder where my cat went.

Tardis

Inspiration: People Watching

Do you find yourself, in moments of boredom, watching the people around you with different eyes—with focus? What I mean by that is, say you find yourself at the mall or a restaurant or in a doctor’s waiting room—anywhere public—and you just cannot help but watch the people walking by.

I’ve always been a people-watcher, but when I was a young teen and became interested in theater I read books about learning characterization. The best book I found was called “Acting is Believing” by Charles McGaw. In reading his book, I learned the principles of the Stanislavsky method, and if you want to become a better performer, I heartily recommend it.

However, this essay is not about acting, but about inspiration. A writer often needs to access personalities, realistic personalities, to make their writing believable. In the same way an actor must learn about people, so must a writer. One technique is people watching. There is only so much information your own mind and book-reading can gather without learning more about others. And that is where people-watching comes in.

I don’t mean this in a stalkerish way, I mean simple observation. For instance, in theater, one might have to portray an aged person. At the mall, you may sit on a bench and watch an elderly person, the way they stand, the careful way they walk. Perhaps they use a cane. Perhaps they try to hide their weakness from their family, or they are angry because their life is empty or filled with pain and nobody understands. But just observation and a little imagination will put one inside the mind of that elderly person. Then, on stage, one can access that information and become that person convincingly.

Writing about people, the same process is necessary. One cannot convincingly write about an elderly person without taking their history into consideration, without knowing the person you are writing. Perhaps the person has arthritis. Perhaps they are missing their recently departed spouse. Perhaps they are losing their faculties. Figure out about when they might have been born, and examine what the world would have been like when they were growing up and went to work. One must be able to understand the background and feelings and motivations of the person one wants to portray or the character will be flat and one-dimensional. And each character must be different from every other character that is in the scene, the story, the book. One character’s reaction to a car accident, say, will be completely different from the other’s. One may focus on the financial loss, one on the emotional situation, one may focus on retaliation or become forever afraid of riding in cars. Each person needs their own personality and character, and without understanding others, there is no way to draw that from inside oneself.

Think about your favorite book. Chances are the characters are well-defined and strong and remain true to their backgrounds and experiences. In “Jane Eyre,” for example, Jane remains true to her own moral code, no matter the difficulties and no matter what crosses her. This is what makes the challenges that come along so compelling and what make her trials so emotive. She could have escaped all of the difficulties in the book by not being who she is, by pretending and playing along with others in authority over her, but she chooses to fight and struggle to remain true to her morals and that is what makes the story. Without that strong character, there would have been no story. Jane would have buckled under her aunt’s harshness, and become a meek, servile poor-relation in her aunt’s home like so many in her circumstances in that time period, and that would have been no story at all.

So when people watching, there is no such thing as wasted time. Every person out there is an individual with their own motivations and lives and that means there is an endless pool of characteristics and life to watch and learn from. A trip to a mall or park or even a bus ride, trip to a coffee shop, or simply standing on a street corner can be enriching and may provide just the spark you want for the character you are writing.

If you haven’t tried this technique before,  mindful people-watching is an excellent learning strategy to improve your writing. And, as an added bonus, all this people watching could make you a deeper, more sympathetic, understanding person as well.

(For more inspiration, see my first inspiration post on Dreams and Archetypes!)

Paradise – November PaD, day 22

Happy Thanksgiving, at least to those of you who celebrate it!

Our prompt today is to write a poem about paradise. I’ve written two, one is a haiku and one is a bit longer!

***

Paradise

Good book, comfy chair,
Stormy day, fire burning,
my love beside me.

***

To Go Back in Time

What I wish is to go
back to the time when
you were still alive.

Back to carefree
summer days
and long starlit nights
and deep, yet somehow
still carefree
talks with you.

I would ask you about
your childhood,
back around the turn of the century
and you would tell me
about the homestead in Missouri
and about the train ride to Oregon
when you were just a girl.

You would show me pictures
tintypes and old-fashioned photos
of family members, and you would
list their names until I began to
recognize them for myself.

Here was your brother Alvin,
who died in the Great War.
He was only 21 when he died, back in 1919.

Here was your father,
eyes blazing, full beard, and
unbelievably
the father of twenty-two children.
(After his first wife died,
he married your mother, and she had
twelve more children.)

And pictures of you and your mother
and your daughter, my grandmother.

It was strange how your eyes,
her eyes,
my mother’s eyes,
all looked like
the same eyes.

Oh, how I miss you.
It would be paradise
to see you again.

And now that I think about it,
it probably will be paradise
where I see you again.