So I am a week behind on my 52 poem challenge. Last week the prompt was to write a poem about a famous person (who is dead) and the focus is on a small incident in their lives. So I chose Rilke and found an anecdote about how he had received a business letter and was composing a response, pacing near the castle where he was staying, and the first line of the first of the Duino Elegies came to him. So that's what I wrote about.


Dear Sir: Regarding a matter which requires your urgent attention... by okapi

The letter arrived in the morning post.
The envelope was dull, the lettering
was careful and upright. The poet sighed.
He slit the shroud, unfolded the dead words,
and read and sighed again. It must be deal with.
Sums would be required. On paper too fine
for the purpose, he began then stopped, stood,
and left, marching from castle to bastions
overlooking the sea, he paced the length,
back and forth, as the strong bora wind blew,
his mind was full of numbers and figures,
back and forth, he paced, back and forth until—
he heard it
on the roar—
“Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’
hierarchies?”
by nightfall, there would be a birth, a verse
long-awaited as well as a piece
of correspondence, dull, careful, upright
left unanswered on the edge of a desk.


---

And here is the first stanza of the first elegy of the Duino Elegies

from The First Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke [trans. Stephen Mitchell}

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?
and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note of my dark sobbing.
Ah, whom can we ever turn to in our need?
Not angels, not humans, and already the knowing animals are aware
that we are not really at home in our interpreted world.
Perhaps there remains for us some tree on a hillside, which every day we can take into our vision;
there remains for us yesterday's street and the loyalty of a habit so much at ease
when it stayed with us that it moved in and never left.
Oh and night: there is night, when a wind full of infinite space gnaws at our faces.
Whom would it not remain for--that longed-after, mildly disillusioning presence,
which the solitary heart so painfully meets.
Is it any less difficult for lovers?
But they keep on using each other to hide their own fate.
Don't you know yet?
Fling the emptiness out of your arms into the spaces we breathe;
perhaps the birds will feel the expanded air with more passionate flying.

Field 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

Turtles: a cinquain by okapi

turtles
sunning themselves
on a limb in the lake
running past, I count them, seven
spring-signs

Birdsong: a rondelet by okapi

in the morning
the poet says listen for birds
in the morning
listen to them, here them forming
before open eyes, before words,
a bright chorus, in trills and thirds,
in the morning

Title: This is a boy cleaning a pot
Fandom: Original
Rating: Gen
No. of lines: 8
Poetic form: samsong (short, variation on)
Prompt:
Summary: a samsong about a boy drawing

This is a boy cleaning a pot
This is a boy cleaning a pot, crouched in a squat
This is a boy cleaning a pot, crouched in a squat, who doesn’t want to be caught
This is a boy cleaning a pot, crouched in a squat, who doesn’t want to caught doing what he should not
This is a boy cleaning a pot, crouched in a squat, who doesn’t want to be caught sketching with a cinder clot
This is a boy not cleaning a pot, but still crouched in a squat, illustrating a plot
This is a boy not cleaning a pot, admiring what hand and eye and ash have wrought
This is a boy, caught, and, still in a squat, once more, cleaning a pot

Title: Christmastime
Fandom: Original
No. of Lines: 8
Poetic form: Ottava rima
Rating: Gen
Prompt:
Summary: An ottava rima about a couple at a Christmas market.

your big black umbrella opens, but we’re
too happy, too in love, it’s Christmastime
bright strings of lights and mugs of warm, spiced cheer,
and fat lazy flakes falling, Christmastime
of baking, taking too much time, it’s here,
it’s really here, we cry, it’s Christmastime
we’re crowding the stalls and fir tree market
just to take it in, to laugh and hark it

On the Fridge Door by okapi

Everything, I reply automatically, as I wipe the sink, scooping up the

bits of regurgitated dinner the dishwasher refuses to

digest, my worth, my body, my sanity, my ambition, my money, even my name.

I’ve lost everything. But as I take the four steps from the trash bin back to

the sink, I spot Degas’ Little Dancer and Wyeth’s Open Window.

There is Hamlet, of all things. And cross-hatched Holmes and Watson. There is

Consider the Possible Consequences if You are Careless in Your Work!

And a chihuahua in a devil costume asking: Were you expecting

Little Red Riding Dog? There are redwoods. There is a French woman

playing golf. There is a saint whose name and function I can’t

remember (lost items or lost causes). There is Hope on the Street.  

Among the schedules and the calendars and the year after

year (after year) of photos of numbered uniforms, among the potential

playdates and the 911 reminders.  

Oh, I realize, there I am.

Title: Pernickety Poisoner
Fandom: Original
Poetic form: Abecedarian
Rating: Gen
No. of lines: 28
Prompt: Persnickety
Summary: An abecedarian about how nothing in the persnickety's poisoner's cabinet is of any use! So vexing!

( Read more... )

Title: Choice Piece of Heart
Fandom: Original
Rating: Gen
No. of Lines: 28
Prompt: Compassionate
Notes: a poetry remix of a gen-rated animal AU fic of mine in the BBC Sherlock fandom where Sherlock is a raven and John is a wolf: The Wolf Bird. Also a fill for fffc: Little Special 216: Found Poetry
Summary: a raven shows compassion to an injured wolf

( Read more... )

Title: Indulgent
Prompt: Indulgent
No. of lines 28
Rating: Gen
Summary: a free form poem inspired by looking at the night's sky

the fairy lights serve no purpose.
they don’t illuminate. they don’t
enlighten. they glow (when I remember
to turn them on). pastel flowers,
something between lotus and rose,
they shine until they dim, they hang
in waist-high firmament under
the window, suspended, a spring-
like bough, under the sill on which
rest piles of seashells and a conch
and a statue of the Virgin
of Medjugorje, indulgent
and forgiving, gifts of the sea.

raise the blind, ignore the neighbors
and the dirty glass, and the screen

the night is always too wonderful
the stroke of indigo between
the darkness and light pollution;
the moon, whether absent or full,
or, like tonight, crescent and smudged
with clouds; the tilting of the head
required to partake; the stillness;
airplanes and satellites and stars.
could I be any more poet?
standing here, looking out, counting
the syllables in firmament,
indulgent, purposeless, just like
lights I’ve forgotten to turn on

Title: Blood from Stone
No. of Lines: 14
Rating: Gen
Poetic form: Italian sonnet
Prompt:
Summary: An Italian sonnet about stones which don't like someone interrupting their nice sunrise.

worn stones older than bones greet dawning day
heralding this sunrise like all before
though weathered by time, timeless in their core,
rings within rings, like teeth, they stand, they say,
hello to earth’s own tilt and turn, the way
that birdsong does, circles encircling lore,
awash in light, in rose, in gold, in more
hues than have names yet theirs is ever gray

but who is this intruding on their peace?
an interloper scurries into view
no doubt, it’s out to get what it can get
to take, to taint, to despoil, without cease,
the stones have ever known just what to do,
jaws snap, cleaving molars clamp round the threat