January 31, 2012

follow function

so I been messin’ around with these crazy things called ‘poetic forms’ lately and while it’s not the easiest thing in the world I can kind of see the point… despite appearances, the villanelle I posted the other day was actually my second attempt at that form—the first one didn’t quite pan out, altho I picked it back up today, made some changes, plugged in the holes, and came away with this:

(untitled[“good god I don’t need a reason!”])

under the new fallen leaves
you scarcely see the rocky path
you walk on (you believe)

another year. you leave
the house to bear the spirits’ wrath
under the new fallen leaves

with calm, at last, achieved,
as by a kind of ideal math,
you walk on, you believe

that icicles hung from a stranger’s eaves
define a kind of ideal math
under the new fallen leaves

but nothing that your head conceives
prepares your feet to meet the mass
you walk on, you believe

you have sufficient cause to grieve
the stillness of the countless aftermaths
under the new fallen leaves
you walk on (you believe)

I also wrote a rondel* the other day, around the theme of silence/obscurity/disappointment; I was pretty happy with how it turned out, but I left it in the pocket of a jacket that is somewhere, so you can’t read it right now.

in both cases, the refrains were stray phrases that I happened upon while leafing through old writings, liked better than the poems in which they were currently set, and plucked out to reuse.

(… and that’s why you always leave a note!)

in other news I am thinking about submitting some poemz to the comepetish that the hip local newsweekly is having (if I haven’t already missed the deadline) STAY TUNED!!1

———

*: I guess technically a ‘rondel supreme’ (via concluding with a whole two-line refrain instead of just the first part) but that sounds too much like a sandwich to be a poem

•