A Sonnet I've Written for Class

Not Really as Such

I’ve painted my fingernails multiple hues
With polka dots, triangles, squiggles and squares
In purples and pinks and in crystalline blues
It earned me some notice; it earned me some stares
And compliments came from the art-inclined kind
When I copied some painter with painstaking care
With miniscule pen and with pigment so fine
You could see every strand of the mother’s brown hair
As she carefully washed all the dirt off the feet
Of the child she held, so rotund and so pink
I also did still-life, a bowl filled with beets
Or a basket of raspberries washed in the sink
Though none of it mattered, not really as such,
‘Cause he didn’t act like he noticed them much

This One is Actually Untitled! Bwa-ha!

Ich habe nichts zu sagen, ja?
Ja oder nein! Ich habe nichts.
Ich verstehe mich nicht.
Kennst du nie? Wissen Sie nicht?
Was denke ich? Was sage ich?
Vielleicht, wirklich,
Alles ist unglaublich!
Ich habe viele Personen gewesen.
Meine viele Leben... Ach, mich.

Ich würde auf Deutsch fluchen...
Wenn ich konnte.

Frustrated Rage

Rage metaphysical, rage undeniable,
Rage wracking reason through,
Rage within and rage without,
Anger, ire, neon blue.

Psyche solid, psyche silk,
Psyche slipping the mental scene,
Psyche stagnant, psyche sick,
Slick psychosis, putrid green.

Useless hues, useless dudes,
Useless yammering fellow,
Useless, unyeilding. Useless, yuck,
Yelling yawp, I vomit yellow.

Cannot crawl and cannot climb,
Cannot counter, cannot flee,
Cannot call a cad a creeper,
Cannot reconcile "he" with "me."

Rage, unravel, rend and rue.
Yellow-green-insanity-blue.

A Weary Scholar's Pantoum

Such typing - typing! - all day long...
Sore dactyls worn down to the nub...
Technology's incessant song!
It can't be helped, and there's the rub...

Sore dactyls worn down to the nub...
Alas, alack, it is my fate...
It can't be helped, and there's the rub...
A poem's due, it can't be late...

Alas, alack, it is my fate...
I'm stuck in here until I'm done...
A poem's due, it can't be late...
I wish to God I had a gun...

I'm stuck in here until I'm done...
Technology's incessant song!
I wish to God I had a gun...
Such typing - typing! - all day long...

Villainous Villanelles

Dr. Rice had us try and write one in class today. We got fairly far. We'd come up with our two lines that repeat incessantly, and we'd gotten half of the poem written down before class was over and we had to stop. Each line of each stanza is in iambic pentameter, which is the simplest thing about it. The rhyme scheme is almost impossible to explain in AB format. I'll do it like this...

toe
tree
grow

foe
me
toe

blow
knee
grow

know
glee
toe

show
sea
grow

no
fee
toe
grow

Notice how darn often the words toe and grow are used. Those are the exact same lines every time. If I'd written the whole thing out, let's just make something insane up right now and say the lines are "Today I found a bunion on my toe" and "I watched the stupid thing just grow and grow."

That means that every stanza will say one or both of those lines. Goodness.

The good thing is, the poem my group was constructing was actually kind of cute. We used "down" and "frown" as our two that kept repeating, and for the middle lines that all rhyme we used "elle". It was working, I tell you.

You just try and write a good Villanelle. It's not easy.

At Least I'm In Good Company

I have been informed, sadly, that the previous poem (or rather, the one posted just below this) is not good. Yes, I suppose it isn't. I reluctantly but assuredly accept this diagnosis. In fact, it's somewhat embarrassing to know that I posted the stupid thing. I could delete it, but as my father says, even Shakespeare wrote crap once in a while. More at the beginning, when he was just getting the hang of it, so no offense to Bardolators.

Speaking of which, to make a quick aside, type the word "bardolator" into a search engine (I almost used the word "google" as a verb, but I thought perhaps some might want to Ask Jeeves instead). It's amazing how many people take pride in calling themselves one. I admire the man, yes, but in all honesty, not to that extent. And I come into problems when people gush about the greatness of "Romeo and Juliet." Did those two have to make everything so complicated? Just run off together, if it's that awful to tell your families the truth. Or even if you still want to fake your deaths, why do it so cloak-and-dagger? The simpler things are, the less that'll go wrong. And I can't quite understand Juliet, who's portrayed as calmer and more rational than the impetuous Romeo, and then stays with him even after he kills her cousin - who at that point was Romeo's cousin too. She's very forgiving - much more so than I would be.

But in regards to my own meager work, at least I know that someone (who shall remain nameless here but who I'm incredibly thankful for) understands what I was trying to do. In retrospect, I suppose I should have picked a more European god for my reference, but I figured, wolf... dog... Anubis... It connects, it gets there.

I had another idea for a poem, but I think I'll spare y'all that for right now. It's a reference poem anyway, and I'm not at all sure of all the words to the "Good King Wenceslas" song. I've just looked it up, out of curiousity. Perhaps I shan't use this tune as a reference after all. Out of respect for an assassinated man. "Betrayed by [his] own brother," to (sort of) quote the movie "Mousehunt". I shall think about it, and you shall be notified if I decide to go ahead with my poem.

The site didn't say if he was a good king. But, then again, good is subjective, isn't it?

Taking My Own Advice (I Hope)

Apparently, I started connecting my thoughts about Lovecraft to a poem we read called "The Mill" by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Here's a poem that I jotted down today between classes. With some minor editing, if I'm being honest. I'm hoping the ending works like I intended. Enjoy!

Morning Musings

I sit and see the shadows of an oft-remembered night
Slide soft as silk away from me, as I from silver's sight.
A shaft of shining Summer sun comes hither from the East
And brings with it the silence of nocturnal callings ceased.
At once I hear a strutting singer's greetings to the day,
And feel all fear and trepidation melt and fade away.
When Ra returns, I know at once my ship has come alee.
I sink down in mah easy chair. Ah drink a cuppa tea.
It might could help me stop a-thinkin', 'bout them things Ah done,
To sit an' sip mah icy tea. Ah never did care none
About that Chaney feller, from them mangy monster films.
Ah'd like to know how he would act if they'd've chewed on him.

A Difficulty Solved in One Fell Swoop

The problem, as I see it, is posting something that can keep a person's attention until the end of the post Did Wednesday's little ramble do that? More than likely... no. In this particular day and age of instant gratification, if new and interesting material isn't presented within five seconds, the discerning reader will simply move on. If a person can't think of anything interesting to say, well, so much the worse. The daunting, looming question one begins to ask is, "Dear Lord, is there nothing in my life worth chronicling?"

But! A ray of hope! One begins to forget that a journal is not a diary. Ah, semantics! You save me yet again! An ocean of possibility opens up in front of me, and I decide (what the hell) let's dive right in.

You're getting a poem.

When the Well Runs Dry

You try one thing... You try another... Nothing seems to gel.
The only words that come to mind are "bat right out of hell."
You know that you can't publish that, since someone (Meatloaf) did.
You're second horse out of the gate. Your eBay's been outbid.
And that is when you start to think that maybe you should try
Some free association, or you stop and wonder why.
Why do you put yourself through this...this STRUGGLE day by day
When you can't seem to think of something really new to say...
When at the sight of type or ink your mind turns into mud...
When every rhyme or tale or thought turns out to be a dud...
When each impending plan dissolves before it's half begun...
You say it's 'cause you love to write... But you're not having fun.