Poet's Corner
May. 29th, 2025 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonepicnicking_okapiField Guide by Tony Hoagland
Once, in the cool blue middle of a lake,
up to my neck in that most precious element of all,
I found a pale-gray, curled-upwards pigeon feather
floating on the tension of the water
at the very instant when a dragonfly,
like a blue-green iridescent bobby pin,
hovered over it, then lit, and rested.
That’s all.
I mention this in the same way
that I fold the corner of a page
in certain library books,
so that the next reader will know
where to look for the good parts.
-------
My prompt was 'insects' and technically worms aren't insects, but they are in a section of Hamlet with maggots and that's how I came by them. I tried to do a poem in the manner of the one above. The title and references are from that section of Hamlet (Act 4, Scene 3).
we fat all creatures else to fat us by okapi
worms, those that feast on beggar and on king,
Hamlet’s only emperor for diet, his certain convocation
of politic, the ones who supped on Polonius, the ones that baited
hooks so that kings might progress through the guts of beggars,
twice coated, by slime and by scale, these worms
did not note the variable service of fat and lean,
and never once did they shove a fist of too many plastic
wrappers
to the bottom of the bin
and wince
at the crinkling
Once, in the cool blue middle of a lake,
up to my neck in that most precious element of all,
I found a pale-gray, curled-upwards pigeon feather
floating on the tension of the water
at the very instant when a dragonfly,
like a blue-green iridescent bobby pin,
hovered over it, then lit, and rested.
That’s all.
I mention this in the same way
that I fold the corner of a page
in certain library books,
so that the next reader will know
where to look for the good parts.
-------
My prompt was 'insects' and technically worms aren't insects, but they are in a section of Hamlet with maggots and that's how I came by them. I tried to do a poem in the manner of the one above. The title and references are from that section of Hamlet (Act 4, Scene 3).
we fat all creatures else to fat us by okapi
worms, those that feast on beggar and on king,
Hamlet’s only emperor for diet, his certain convocation
of politic, the ones who supped on Polonius, the ones that baited
hooks so that kings might progress through the guts of beggars,
twice coated, by slime and by scale, these worms
did not note the variable service of fat and lean,
and never once did they shove a fist of too many plastic
wrappers
to the bottom of the bin
and wince
at the crinkling