The Seasons – Sijo – March 29, 2015

See how this winter landscape melts the beauty of a soft autumn day.
Then look ever more carefully, the spring has stolen winter’s crown.
Would I were like the seasons and could follow my winter with spring.

© G.s.k. ‘15

This is my first Sijo, a Korean song-like poetry from introduced at BJ’s Shadorma & Beyond here follows the rules!

How to Write a Sijo

* There are three lines which average 14-16 syllables. The final count is 44-46 syllables;

* Line one introduces the theme;
* Line two elaborates on the theme;
* Line three introduces a counter-theme and concludes with a “twist”;

* Each line has a pause – or caesura – roughly in the middle (commas are great for this);
* Each half line is 6-9 syllables long;

* There is no end rhyme;
* There is no title;
* Western sijo are often printed in six lines, breaking lines at the pause.
…This is because a 16-syllable line is quite long – spilling beyond the space allotted to one printed line.

And this is Paloma’s example:

With peeling skin and open sores, this old school is a zombie – /
Dragging bare bones, seeking prey, creeping nightly in my brain. /
Who could have known I’d be devoured by memories & regrets? //

© Paloma

Here is another example, the oldest surviving sijo, by U T’ak (1262-1342):

The spring breeze melted snow on the hills then quickly disappeared. /
I wish I could borrow it briefly to blow over my hair /
And melt away the aging frost forming now about my ears. //

Landay – March 15, 2015

Mi – una stella di cinema …
Rise a suo complimeto – sono nonna!

Me – a movie star …
She laughed at his compliment – I’m a grandma!

© G.s.k. ‘15

§§§§§§

In Italian I could follow rule two of the landay … so I wrote the original in that language – though I’m not quite sure I got the 4th requisite right 😉 ! Thanks Jen for this original poetical form!

The landay originated in Afghanistan.  It is a folk couplet that is oral in nature:

1. Twenty two syllables broken into two couplets
…(nine in the first, thirteen in the second);
2. Ends with a “ma” or “na” sound.
…This cannot be replicated in English;
3.  May contain end rhyme;
4.  Characterized by bawdiness, wit, and piercing truths
…despite the beauty of the language.

Linked to Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie – BJ Shadorma & Beyond

Night Train – ABAB Rhyme Scheme with Wordle – March 8, 2015

this train thunders into the night
a madcap monster and dragon of lore –
running from problems and another fight
I’m going where I’ve never been before

tired of your flagellating my soul
tired of the blisters across my mind
maybe craven, surely without a goal
I’m leaving my victim-self behind

no accident brought me to this pass
but a howling gnawing demon, you
the scales now tipped like an empty glass
here take my aureole – know, I’m through

this train thunders into the night
I’ve got no special destination in mind
just moving from darkness towards the light
I’m leaving my victim-self behind

© G.s.k. ‘15

Note: This combination word combination in the wordle and the train image took me in this direction … I actually did at one time grab a midnight train in a moment of “I’ve had it up to here” and might do so some day again .. but at the moment this poem is just a fantasy or a memory.

Madcap (wildly impulsive, heedless), Blister, Strap, Aureole (a halo),  Accident, Howl, Gnaw, Flagellation (flogging, associated most frequently with BDSM or religious penitence), Craven (cowardly) Scale, Victim, Shelf

This poem is linked to Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie – Wordle 50 and BJ’s Shadorma & Beyond

BJ’s Shadorma & Beyond – Poetweet – February 28, 2015

Mary,
This day’s been my epiphany!
As I set pen to paper
I feel my heart quicken.
I realize I love you,
now that you’re married
Your own, John.

© G.s.k. ‘15

When I was growing up, my parents had a huge record collection of old 78s … There was one that I loved, it must have been made in the late thirties or maybe it was even from the forties … it was, to me one of the funniest records I’ve ever heard. The lyrics were great! They went:

John ….. Mary
Oh John John John! …
Mary … Oh Mary Mary Mary!
Johnnnnnnn …
Maryyyyyyyy …

John???
Mary!??

Oh … John …John

ETC…

Correction … after diligent search I found the 1951 Stan Freberg hit – “John and Marsha” .. not Mary at all and here it is:

§§§§§

but I don’t want to change the Poetweet or this other great piece 😉

. /….

(I looked for on Google and YouTube, but alas, I couldn’t find it. On the other hand, several years later we were treated to this:

😉

This post was written for BJ’s Shadorma & Beyond on Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie.  Thanks thotpurge for the great new form!

Night Lights – Fibonacci/Shadorma – February 21, 2015

Dark
night
golden
drops of light
along the lake front
shimmering brightly this evening
as we listen to coots and ducks saying their good-nights.

Tomorrow
in the morning light,
will magic
still be there …
or will the world be blinded
by harsh bright sun-shine?

© G.s.k. ‘15

Written for Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie – BJ’s Shadorma & Beyond

A Wordled Palindrome – February 19, 2015

Gustave Courbet. Desperate Man – Self Portrait, 1845. WikiArt.

 

Emotions justified and high altitudes
I plunge gulping and masticating – fearfully
crashing visions creeping
crevices iced and deep

An inner bell chimes, galvanizing my leather bound fear, as I trundle across mountain trails straddling the void

deep and iced crevices
creeping visions crashing
fearfully – masticating and gulping, plunge I
altitudes high and justified emotions

© G.s.k. ‘15

Altitude, Plunge, Leather, Vision, Justify, Chime, Combustible, Masticate,  (chew), Straddle, Trundle (to roll along, to travel in a wheeled vehicle), Alliance, Crevice

Mindlovesmisery’s Wordle and BJ’s Shadorma & Beyond

Amphibian Booties – Prose Poem/Wordle – February 8, 2015

Tiny booties once bound his feet, tender and soft wool wound about his tiny toes, no, long gone are those booties now, down a worm-hole of time.  I hear the sound of his clomping down the street (which would instill fear into a Cabaret clown living in Nazi Germany) with his amphibians just like jack-boots and yet I know all his wounds, hopes and fears, that haven’t yet been tempered by years and years of experience. No tiny toes fill these boots wound about with socks of fleece, walking down the streets sealed in hard leather, emitting sounds like stormy weather.  The seal of childhood has long gone into the tumbling eons of time … alive now just in my memory seen through the looking-glass of this old Alice, who’d tumble gladly down that rabbit hole, to hold once more those tiny feet, wound in fleeced booties … ah, they smelled so sweet.

© G.s.k. ‘15

wound, sound, burst, clown, emit, glass, fill , seal, another, tumble, fleece, instill

written for Sunday Whirl and Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie – BJ Shadorma & Beyond using Brenda Warren’s Sunday Whirl Wordle.

wound, sound, burst, clown, emit, glass, fill , seal, another, tumble, fleece, instill

 

Be a Gatherer of Memories – Wordle/Common Meter – January 12, 2015

do not condemn the wanderer
who travels with ennui
think rather of the gatherer
of memories so free

smell the brine along the shore-line
singular living breath
render your life something divine
before you smell of death

channel wayward thoughts to the sea
even to inky waters
capitulate and you will see
ancient seamen’s altars

but generate unto this end
a sense of harmony
never be rigid my dear friend
and be good company

© G.s.k. ‘15

condemn, list, capitulate, inky, ennui, channel, render, smell, single, generate, end, sense

Sunday Whirl

Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie – BJ’s Shadorma & Beyond

The Scorpion – Shadorma Series – December 28, 2014

Fisher-woman by Odilon Redon – 1900

 

Sweltering
hot Libyan desert …
underneath
cactus shade …
delitescent scorpion
observes her and knows …

The desert
meets the sea-shore there,
northern winds
ventilate
the beach in the evening,
she looks out to sea.

Maybe lost,
the fisher-woman
looks for hope,
near bankrupt,
to the distant  dark sky-line
she drumbles her net.

Once so sweet,
gifts from her lost love,
vile beads glint
now poison –
chain-like they wind round her neck,
but no one sees them.

Scorpion,
knows she’ll keep fishing
(duty calls –
she’ll answer)
she’s not ready for his help
the spectrum’s not black.

© G.s.k. ‘14

 

Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie – BJ’s Shadorma & Beyond  and Wordle 40

The wordle contains 12 words those words are:
1. Swelter
2. Scorpion
3. Ventilation
4. Shrink
5. Cactus
6. Desert
7. Drumble (moving a slow or sluggish manner)
8. Spectrum
9. Delitescent (hidden or concealed)
10. Vile
11. Bead
12. Bankrupt
Rules
Use at least 10 of the words to create a story or poem
The words can appear in an alternate form
Use the words in any order that you like.

What is a Shadorma?

The Shadorma is a poetic form consisting of a six-line stanza (or sestet). The form is alleged to have originated in Spain. Each stanza has a syllable count of three syllables in the first line, five syllables in the second line, three syllables in the third and fourth lines, seven syllables in the fifth line, and five syllables in the sixth line (3/5/3/3/7/5) for a total of 26 syllables. A poem may consist of one stanza, or an unlimited number of stanzas (a series of shadorma).

Exploding Light – Shadorma – December 25, 2014

candle light
through a glass design
the glass splits
exploding
slivers of glass fly about
cutting my finger

candle holder
explodes from the heat
the cut burns

© G.s.k. ‘14

Linked to Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie –  BJ’s Shadorma& Beyond