As you might notice from my sophisticated numbering system, we’re doing the 150th Wednesday Poetry Prompt today. Yay! It’s amazing to think we’ve been writing so many poems on Wednesday for so long. Here’s hoping we’ve got another 150 in us.
For today’s prompt, write a poem that starts with someone else’s line. I’m sure this poem has a specific name, but I’ve been having trouble finding it (if you know the name, chime in below). Anyway, here’s what you do, use the line from another poet’s poem as the first line of your poem; between the title of your poem and the actual poem, write “After (poet’s name).” This way you give credit to the original poet and can feel free to take that line in a new direction.
Here’s my attempt:
“Free Will”
-After Ira Sadoff
Someone is always dying.
He knows the end is coming,
and there’s little he can do.
Another can’t stop living
even as the end approaches,
because she has no choice:
The show must go on or else
every butterfly and
every hurricane with
its furious wings beating
against the threat of colder
waters finishing it all,
their work will be for nothing.
Someone is always dying;
another can’t stop living.
*****
Connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and my other blog.
*****
Why pay thousands of dollars for an MFA…
…when you can buy the Portable MFA in Creative Writing for a little more than 10 bucks! Assembled by the New York Writers Workshop, this book includes clear instruction on the craft behind the art, exercises to improve your writing endeavors, tips on revision, and more!
Please Give
– after Kay Ryan
If it please God,
let it be less about me
and more about them,
the ones without.
If it please God,
let my wishes go,
except the dreams of peace,
the ones with hope.
If it please God,
let my goals not matter,
but for the sharing with
the ones who need.
If it please God,
let me be smaller
but have the gifts be great,
the ones from the heart.
If it please God,
let my days run no longer
than I am useful and caring,
the ones filled with kindness.
Oh, Ely …
Do you mind if I print this out and keep it where I can remember to pray it every day?
Wow…
Happy 150, PA!!!
Here, here!
The Ordinary Guy
after William Carlos Williams
_______Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
According to Brueghel
All the Flemish Greeks
ignored flailing Icarus.
Then we see homeless men
drown to save lapdogs,
and commuters risk hell
to roll a car, burning,
about to explode,
off a maybe dead man.
Icarus who would rise
melted like candlewax
on Chianti, and fell.
Proud Superman,
who would die, rather
than want their help.
They turn away to bless you.
Oooh, so pretty. I love this poem, Barbara. Gave me a chill, it did. ^_^
Barbara–very, very nice! I’m a fan of William Carlos too–that’s where my line comes from “This is Just to Say”
Another “wow.” Deep, reflective … great work, Barbara.
Fantastic… not only with the line of WCW’s, but with his tone as well.
Lovely, Barbara. I’m a fan of him as well.
Forgive me. I couldn’t resist using Yeat’s beautiful “Deep Sworn Vow” to take a jab at Facebook today:
My Deep Sworn Curse
(at Facebook)
after William Butler Yeats
OTHERS because you did not keep
things as they were, may win my heart,
my time. As, tired of finding change,
without fair warning, I look elsewhere
for news of my friends—all my friends—
their thoughts and actions, photographs,
minute by minute, second by second,
a simple click away. Now, instead,
I may perhaps turn away, reject
all forms of conversation relying on fickle
whim of someone I know not. I may
pull a pen, fine vellum paper, stamp,
and post a letter to my friends, one
at a time, waiting days or weeks
for my reply, the tension in that long
delay, a titillation all its own. I may
resort to ringing up those friends
whose voices I’ve long forgot, knowing them
only by their keystrokes, and even those
filled in by some invisible force,
in anticipation of words I planned to choose.
There is Google +. It is a little awkward, but the interface is clean.
Another Yeats lover! \
And you did a wonderful job expressing the dismay we all felt on FB this morning. Going back to snail mail? Maybe…
Thoreau’s notion that no one has anything worth writing a letter about apparently did not include him, but I still like that anticipation of sending and receiving letters by other than virtual means. If FB is not going to be convenient for our momentary connections, it has no purpose in my day and won’t continue to be a part of it, so I dig you, girl.
Ha! Love it, Nancy! I’m trying not to be too upset about it, since it is a free service. But …
They say the US Postal Service may go defunct next year. Perhaps this, along with the seasonal updates, is the motivation for us all to reject Facebook en masse. Yeats would be proud.
BATED BREATH
in anticipation of words I planned to choose,
my muse has been usurped. i cannot see
through to the meaning of what this poem shall be.
my acumen with wit has had a fit and sits
silentlt ranting, nearly panting and wanting
to be as expressive as always. but those words
belabor my point. i shall not annoint them
to dominance, for their prominence rests
in their meaning and use. a definite abuse
of the power of my words. much like the birds
of the skies, my point lies buried deeply within.
with baited breath we pray for a way to say our peace.
Thanks Nancy!
“I take my people with me everywhere I go.”
(poet anonymous)
My people are simply those I love
– of my mind and of my heart.
My people seek out my past injustices as I do,
And shine their light upon them.
My people leave me breathless,
For their courage is of my own.
My people are not of this world,
For no one knows their struggle like they do -
Except me, for they are my people,
And I am theirs’.
Wow, this was a challenge for me. All the same, here goes. ^_^
Still, Passions, Still
(after W.B. Yeats)
O Heart, be at peace because
Nothing more can be done
To cure a love with all its flaws,
To make two hearts be one,
Or return the remiss love;
It cannot be recovered.
Though you pray to gods above;
Though you wail; you beat, you flail;
Fresh passion you’ve discovered;
Poor heart, you cannot prevail.
Learn the calm and lasting peace,
Heart, they say will soon prevail
With time and luck, the pain will cease,
Be more mellow and more pale.
Right now this bitter-sweet relief
Is not what passion craves
It throws itself upon the rocks
It wants to rave, to storm!
In time, if my poor heart behaves
I know it can transform
I know it may seem like I’m repeating the comment I left for Barbara, but this is another good line-borrowed-tone-followed kind of a poem. Nice theme as well!
Thank you, it was a theme close to my heart. <3
Nicely done, Domino.
Apparent
After Eleanor Jewett
To him with the heart for the seeing of things
God’s mercy is discerned
In a baby’s trust
Rain for the unjust
In His forgiveness to proud hearts turned
To him with the heart for the seeing of things
God’s grace is clearly seen
In the sun and the clouds
In the farmer’s plow
And even in the lowly string bean
To him with the heart for the seeing of things
God’s love is evident
In the mother’s will
In the night so still
On the cross where Jesus was spent
very nice, Connie. I loved Jewett’s poem too.
Amen.
BY ACCIDENT
(after Jere Odell)
In mourning, all that is marvelous. Call it magic
how we survive the roll-over crash at our gate –
no one we knew, but still we keep a photo
of the wreck. Each witness carries a long wake
as the jaws of life shear away everything
we counted on. Security of a steel box, safe
cage of ribs to hold heart and breath. Gems
of windshield glass on the shoulder, shaken
like salt into the raw of dreams. Anniversary
of disaster, and still the city floats on its lake,
people dress for work, and mourning doves rise
from the witness field. This magic, to be alive.
I really like this one. Hopefully it didn’t really happen to you.
Taylor, that is beauutiful! what images–love the words “gems of windshield glass on the shoulder, shaken like salt into the raw of dreams” wow, wow, wow
Such beautiful and vivid details. I love this (and the magic too).
Oh man, that is stunning. The fact that you can turn something so terrifying into something so beautiful is excellent, especially love the “jaws of life shear away everything / we counted on.”
Taylor, Every line is poetic perfection.
As always, utterly amazing work.
Finding Myself
(after Robert Frost)
As I went down the hill along the wall
cloaked in ivy climbing kelly green,
I saw a diamond hiding ‘neath the leaves
reflecting truth I not before had seen
for in that gem a stranger did appear
with probing eyes like headlights in the dark
through which an open heart beaconing
the image of myself His love did spark.
Great poems everyone:
Here’s my attempt:
Seasons
After Helen Steiner Rice
Seasons come and seasons go,
melt away with winter snow…
Leaves fall and leaves blow,
seasons end and seasons go…
Changing direction with the wind,
seasons end…
The Learning Skin
(after John Siddique)
Rock crumbles under her fingertips.
Yellow, the colour of English mustard,
the colour of a tube of Naples Yellow
when the oil has dried and the pigment has cracked.
The rock is like that.
It flakes and crumbled into tiny cubes a quarter-inch to a side
leaving edges sharp as flint which cut her skin.
Her middle finger is bleeding. Isn’t there a vein
which runs from there to her heart?
Or is that the ring finger.
Either way her blood seeps out over her hand,
down the underside of her arm,
dripping off her elbow to be absorbed by the mussels
clinging to the rocks below.
She climbs higher.
The wind is a roar in her ears,
drowning out the sound of the sea far below.
Freeclimbing on the Yellow Wall.
Dangerous as shit and as exhilarating as any drug
Four hundred feet up a sheer rock face
with nothing but death below
and seagulls above.
At the top is a strip of grass a foot wide
and a hundred yards to the walker’s path.
She edges along,
dodging gull’s nests and herring bones
to the safety of tall grass
and shelter from the crying wind.
Oh, this is so vivid. I can smell the sea wind just from reading this. Thank you for sharing it.
Very nice build-up, I wondered where you were going (and as it turned out, you were going up). Nice way of transforming that line.
Home(a)ge
-After Jim Carroll
But an unforced grace remains. Your generous silence
Always given way to the absence of words
No thoughts on tongue
No second hands or thoughts revisited out loud.
The crowd
Swells.
But you,
You weep so often,
So silently, weeping the woes of long lost others,
A homage in self,
to feel the other’s pain as your own.
Oh you poet, you,
Whisking away worlds of wisdom on your fingertips,
Recanting long stories not your own
But of loves not forgotten,
Held calmly, assured in your heart and mind,
Oh the things you carry,
Whisked away by ocean tides and sunsets,
Off to new lands,
Your second hands will visit
But where will you land?
Oh poet, you lovely, lovely poet,
Whisking worlds and hearts away with you,
Their hearts are on your tongue,
But what do you speak poet?
When and how do you shine?
Nice. The questions alone will keep me busy for this week and I thank you for them.
Beautiful.
Fishing for Words
After Ted Kooser
Once you were young along a river, tree to tree,
sure in your knowledge of swirling fish beneath the surface
hungrily awaiting the swish and plop of your line and bait.
Now the fish may well be there, although your vision blurs
without your spectacles, the river is colder than your bones remember,
causing an ache to surface wherever sprains and breaks have been,
a tiredness rising with the mist off the water,
as you balance two visions of the catch:
the dogged work of it with the exhilaration of struggle
and the taste of imagined success. You thumb through pages
looking for lines of fresh trout you can share
beside the sunlit river where they were spawned.
You remember that young you like the fish itself,
handsome and fluid in your element, wiser than man-made flies,
uncaught by hardship, and you smile at how life has
caught you off-guard and served you up.
Nice poems everyone! Robert thank you for the new poet to read–Ira Sadoff. Was trying to look up the full poem and found “My Mother’s Funeral” Wow. That was a powerful, beautiful poem.
Here’s one of my favorite poems–very simple and tasty the whole poem is called “This Is Just to Say”
Saying More
-After William Carlos William
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Purple skin chilled
My mouth
Coaxed it to open
And delight in ruby flesh
Plum juice sparkled
On my skin
Licking each rosy rivulet
Off my fingers, palm and wrist
I didn’t want to rinse
Away the sweetness
That started my day
And instead to savor it, the way
I savor you
Whoops–After William Carlos Williams
Cat Tricks
(after William Carlos Williams, Poem)
As the cat
jumped
over the dog
to reach the
tiled table top
where treats
were plentiful,
the dog woke,
covered in cat.
Nice one Sara! I almost chose a line from “Catalogue” by Rosalie Moore–”Cat’s sleep fat and walk thin”
Many years ago, I heard a poem on the radio (I think) – or it was in a book – and I remember it beginning with the line “All words about death are meaningless.” It was a very important piece to me in that time – even had it printed and hung on our fridge. Then I lost the paper, and the title/author. I have often wished I could find it again. So, dear friends, this is an SOS – can any of you think of what the poem might be? No search engines have helped, which makes me think I must have the words wrong! Anyway, in honor of my missing poet:
All words about death are meaningless
After the crowds fled
You swooped in, tore at my face.
Crying, I held you.
We roosted in your kitchen
And you put the kettle on.
I did try and search to see where those words of wisdom came from, but I too was unsuccessful.
Andrew, The way you crafted this poem is beautiful.
Thanks, Shannon. By this point, I’ve probably changed the words in my memory. Someday I’ll find this poem again!!!
I agree whole heartedly.
“May I Join You in the Doghouse, Rover?”
– After Ogden Nash
Inflation is booming
My mortgage is looming
And I am presuming
That after his grooming
I won’t have enough to “make rent.”
I ended up rooming
With Rover, and fuming
While odors were “blooming”
From chow he’s consuming.
Perhaps I should buy a pup tent!
You are such a hoot, Marie Elena! This makes me LOL!
Heehee! Love it!
Great humor in this one.
Marie Elena that was hilarious! Great job
Heehee! Thanks ladies! =)
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”
After Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold
Its harm a blackest mold
Subtle its reach for power
Strikes in the darkest hour
Shaken tenets of belief
Delicate as a reef
Ginger steps find a way
Nothing gold can stay.
Between the Bridge and the River
(after Mark Doty’s “Charlie Howard’s Descent”)
Jason took me down there over Spring Break one year,
when the water was still swollen (throbbing more
than flowing), and we trudged in sneakers through what
remained of last year’s leaves–
brown stains clinging to our ankles, river-grime
and March morning rubbed into our sleeves while we
performed arithmetic of the tongues. Jason had
hazelnut hair, I remember noticing–
fanned out to a soft crown that caught faded graffiti
within its tangles, snow and rust and mint colored scrawl
faded after generations of trysts (under-bridge trolls
with cocks and paint cans and nothing else to do–
but kick rocks into the water and freeze
when big boat cars rattled furiously by overhead)
and if my mouth was full of Jason, and if
I happened to read silently to myself–
climbing crazy up the inside of the trestle’s grey arch
was a verse of Howl, and along the water’s verge
there was a cryptogram of ancient initials in
heart-shaped cartouches, and further down–
someone wrote FAGGOTS in ecstatic fuchsia paint,
round the joists of the railing. It had bled
into the cracks of the cement. It expanded, contracted,
with the stone and the metal in the passing seasons–
who had put it there? And why? And was it
celebratory, suicidal, murderous? Jason had his eyes
closed with pleasure. I thought of boys coming down,
spraying their secrets in a corner of the world–
and I thought of teenage skeletons slowly turning
tannic under our feet. (I thought of misery
loves company.) I thought of the sewer pipes
half a mile down and the beautiful, eventual ocean–
Jason didn’t want to stay long, he said, I have to
get back home. We buttoned up, climbed the scarp
where the first flowers began to soften the earth,
though I kept looking over my shoulder–
what do we leave in hidden places? Some of it
we mean to, some of it we don’t. Some of it
stares back, and anyone would think it was
your own face, catching its breath like a ghost.
To Be Somebody
–after Emily Dickinson
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
People watch your every move
and expect great things and
if you fail, disappointment
fills the room.
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
People wish for your success and
when you don’t jump the bar
they rush to your defense;
never leaving you to rest.
Way to go Shannon,
I was thinking of doing one after Emily dickinson as well….
Quite happy in my own little world, thank you very much. Good one, Shannon.
This is my first try at Poetic Asides… Let’s see…. how about one for the poem, “Pride”
Rocks (poetic asides #150)
After: Dahlia Ravikovitch
I tell you, even rocks crack,
Building a chasm in their shield
Even rocks, in the heat, bear
The summer’s rage,
Will not yield.
In their prideful stance,
Unending dance
With nature’s frosty field….
Rocks crack…
But remember…
Hearts are not something
That they wield.
So when rocks crack,
Even a crying river cannot make
Them whole again.
But then again…
Pebbles grow up.
Welcome, CatGinn. Lovely and insightful poem. Looking forward to hearing more from you.
Truth 1
First line by:
Emily Dickinson (435), 1890….
Much madness is divinest sense…
The heart does not censure truth.
The head pulls the curtain,
For reasons it knows.
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬_______________________________________________________________
Truth 2
First line by:
Emily Dickinson (1129), 1945
Tell the truth but tell it slant –
With humor,
Or a grain of salt,
Or by completing the story -
The next day,
Or next week for those most closed.
Pablo Neruda 1934
From:
Las Furias Y Las Penas/
Furies and Sorrows (1129), 1945
(En el fondo del pecho estamus juntos,)
In the depths of our hearts we are together.
Truth and powers were our daily tribunal,
And what we wrote as two came to pass
For others who were not as lucky as us.
Barcarole (107), 1934
(Si solamente metocaras el corazon,)
If only you would touch my heart..
A place that has missed you like blood,
Aching for your very innocence and consciousness,
Passed by here forever like the body
Of the wind that dies in June.
After Emily Dickinson
Wild nights — Wild nights!
Were I with Emily
My soul and hers c’d write
Some wild poetry!
Wild verse — Wild verse!
With Emily and I
Bolts of melody sh’d burst
To shock a wild sky!
But Wild words — Wild words!
My domestic poetry
W’d be the stuff of wild birds
After Emily!
UNCLENCHED
(After Pablo Neruda)
Night became what we were all about.
Whether seen or unseen holding you,
I stole precious moments from the unaware.
We were bathed in the brilliance of love,
in full view from the top of the world.
You are life’s currency, as golden
as the early rays of sunshine.
Into the vault of my desire I kept you safe,
and you were attune to my emotions.
So, where is your interest?
A love shared is not love divided.
Do my words speak to your heart?
Will this emotion overtake your misgivings
when we are distant from each other ?
Written upon your soul, the parchment lays
content to lick your wounds and heal you.
It is forever in retreat that night recoils,
the spoils claimed in victory; dispersed.
Mmmmmmm … shining, still.
After Woods
After Robert Frost
whose woods these are I think I know
the trees are gone
chewed to mulch
snow covers only the hole
ready for man machine
to pave over nature
the man in the village now city
collects his green and leaves
only rubble and a crop of townhouses
Joseph, that was amazing.
Truth Teller
After Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Every morning I will show every line of worry on your face
as you awaken for the day. I know no lie.
I will lie in shadows while you’re away
while you spend the day, seeking acquaintances
to help you see what you want to see,
but every night you must come back to me
while you try to put another day behind you,
but from me you cannot hide.
A soft light comes through your window
while you drift along a sea of dreams,
such as the life you lived in a summer cottage
next to a pristine lake where you spent your youth.
At night you view realities in many ways
denied by the light of passing days
while another life stirs inside you,
the essence of dreams
I cannot conceive.
Truth Teller
After Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Every morning I will show every line of worry on your face
as you awaken for the day. I know no lie.
I will lie in shadows while you’re away
while you spend the day, seeking acquaintances
to help you see what you want to see,
but every night you must come back to me
while you try to put another day behind you,
and from me you cannot hide.
A soft light comes through your window
while you drift along a sea of dreams,
such as the life you lived in a summer cottage
next to a pristine lake where you spent your youth.
At night you view realities in many ways
denied by the light of passing days
while another life stirs inside you,
the essence of dreams
I cannot conceive.
Coughing up words
Sometimes I spend the whole night coughing up
the words which lodged in my throat all day.
The words I could not force out for fear
of your fist on my face, your fingers clenched tight,
holding my jaw shut. Sometimes I’d spend the night
watching you sleep, pillow clutched in my hands,
wishing to stop your breath just as finally as you
silence my words. I may bow down, avert my eyes
from the danger in your gaze, but in the dead of dark
I whisper my prayers to the sullen summer breeze,
I shout them to the angry winter wind: Bring me
back my courage. Bring me back my will to speak
in the light what I dream of saying in the night.
Crap– forgot this
Coughing up words
After Ron Rash….
“From eyeball earth”
–After Gertrude Stein
The trouble in both eyes
does not come from
the same symmetrical carpet,
it comes from there being no more
disturbance than in
little paper.
one FIELD is the over-arch
of dark endless-out sky,
all to all going out to dark lighting
onward there, just there,
nothing else but everything
one OBJECT is ground,
a ground,
self-thing,
created thing,
flat pavement, runway,
machine,
moving machine,
distant whirling of
light machines
one LAYER is reflective
bounce of light on air,
masking both
field and object:
someone approaches–their image
in light traces on glass,
words on a sign
HTOUM OTAMOT YHW
some mechanical shadow of
a mechanism
and then there’s
one other SOMETHING…
an aspect I can’t sense to name–
the witnessing-ness
the earthing thing,
the hold that releases this,
some kind of verb,
some kind of numberless
Here
- After Theodore Roethke
One sigh stretches heaven.
Arms wide,
I absorb its absurdity
filter earth’s lies through
fingertip, flesh. Hold
bitter breath behind
tired tongue. One
small echo tossed
lost, I wander
a sea of many streets
longing to know my own bones.
I said it at your blog, and I’ll say it again: You rock my world, lady!
Love this, de. “Longing to know my own bones…”
Of Those Who Were Older Than We… (A Limerick)
After Edgar Allan Poe
Of Those Who Were Older Than We…
(There weren’t very many you see)
Maybe we were not lasses….
(maybe we needed glasses….)
But maybe they were DEAD already!
Winter
after Norman Dubie’s poem The Boy Breughel, (half of the first line)
The river groans, as its solid surface
is forced against the bank.
Earth protests the shackle of rime
and willows weep, not knowing why.
Small birds shiver,
huddle in crevices in trees,
hungry, yet afraid to fly,
while kestrels search aloft in vain.
Manacled in misery beside the hearth,
illusion of warmth against
the outside chill
Everything slowed to hybernating rhythm
waiting, waiting,
for a Spring that never comes.
© Vivienne Blake 2010
Is the proper word for this type of poem Ekphrastic?
I didn’t fell entirely comfortable using this as a first line, so I used it as an epigraph:
Unction
Wrong solitude vinegars the soul;
right solitude oils it.
- Jane Hirshfield
Olive, sunflower, peanut –
it makes little difference
what drops of gold we use
to lubricate our lives.
As they say, there is a world
between being lonely and being alone.
While vinegar stings the tongue
that wants to spit back bitterness,
oil smoothes the surface,
a wisdom against friction.
Even when they form an uneasy alliance,
shaken in a cruet for the benefit
of someone’s leafy greens,
it is oil that always rises to the top,
a paradox of heavy and light
that seeks to anoint us all.
To My Sister
By Theodore Roethke
“O my sister remember the stars the tears the trains”
Those hot summer nights we couldn.’t sleep
The lumpy mattress the sheet sticking to our legs
And we would run outside and the grass the damp grass
Tickling our feet our bare feet and our nighties floating
Like wings and we would be angels angels on the ground
Angels not flying angels dancing on the grass the damp grass
while the big dipper sank down behind the trees the thick
lush trees with their big leaves all black and whispering
secrets tree secrets and we danced around the trees the dark
lush trees that whispered and we were angels not flying but
dancing on the damp grass in the night and the night train passing
passing through and its whistle blew and it was time for angels
to dance back into the house into their beds their sticky beds
and fall asleep and dream of angels dancing with the trees.
Change of Weather
After Elizabeth Bishop
Think of the storm roaming the sky uneasily,
brought by forces you cannot sees.
Think of lightning flashes
in a sky of green
before the torrent of rain
floods streets and swells streams
with hardly a moment’s notice.
Think of the clear sky that follows,
a time of rest
on a turbulent day.
Pingback: Another test post for look « Scratchpad
To Kill A Man
(after Edwin Brock’s “Five Ways to Kill A Man”)
There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man
involving words, weapons,
maybe even a freezer,
but the weight of it all might prove
too much for my delicate back,
not to mention the cost involved
in spite of the double coupons
summer closeouts, and
blue-light specials.
If only there was a way to spread out
payments for all this stuff,
a kind of Layaway for
–rope, duct tape
roll of barbed wire
ball peen hammer
machete, baseball bat
shiny new shovel
gas can, latex gloves and
a large 8×11 blue tarp,
reinforced.
And perhaps a blindfold,
clean with bright paisley colors
for the tears and the blood
though he might not deserve
even that much.
© 2011 by Juanita Lewison-Snyder