Trading Places

Trading Places

She is not so like the other see
               nor dislike another be;
Trade one out & another in
           flavor change kick begin;
Thrill & thrust a bare excite
      skinned alive on a dark night;
Steal some of hers
                 pop them out of sight
Up & down inside cures
                        tune out the light;
Juggle one then two at once  
                      do not drop either
Watch your love grow
                       pretty in the ether
Not nymph nor girl neither
                   without end’s delight
Cheers send me off
                      & like being away
Holds you in her sway
        never lets go: all her way-    
When already tore
        keep coming back for more
Drench in drink, odds lay
    lose dollars & sense in a blink;
Held tight against no bosom
                   only melt  in fear (of)
Never  getting enough
                    from my many dear
Let none down
                         lest have to feel
How real
                               she may be.

color swatch - (thing)sonnet

Form: (thing)sonnet

thingsonnet where the ends of lines are rhymes of pairs of kinds of things [green with envy and pewter candlesticks (color adjective + nouns as adjectives for emotional state); inflexible and used up both descriptors for an analogue] instead of sound rhymes. forget about syllables, I spent all week writing terrible syllable count sonnets and i give up

form: aabb ccdd eeff gg in thingrhymes

color swatch    (thing)sonnet

they told me i’d turn green with envy

but i felt more like pewter candlesticks

with wax dripping down, barren, inflexible,

a potential weapon, a cudgel, used up.

my friend says i’ve got decision fatigue

a kind of tiredness from choosing swatches. drained

by trying to make things match, cobbling

our old carpet and screen with a vintage

painting. inspiration arrives through the ten of cups

with a wide rainbow. finally, happiness.     the dozen leprachauns

a leaping led by Seamus who brought us here to this sanctuary

brighten all small fields of color and the saturations blur to bliss.

i know from the twist in my chest we’ve reached perfection;

there are a thousand rays of light coming from inside the prism (of us).

3-10-13  11:01p

Jhoom

The Naked Truth

How do I not love thee that What Is?
More ways than I know
And less even show.
I wish other than, impose a quiz:

Why would you, how could, and can you be
Something different?
Yet you are intent,
You have no concern to appease me.

And in love, again and again, I rise to thee.
Not through surrender, but simply, clearly to see

That you never argue a solitary thing
Neither happy nor unhappy
Singing out loud, sometimes snappy,
You emerge, blending it all with no effort and Sing!

IMUNURI prompt: Sonnet

by Sir Phillip Sidney

This week, try your hand at a sonnet.

William Carlos Williams didn't like them. He famously said, "Forcing twentieth-century America into a sonnet--gosh, how I hate sonnets--is like putting a crab into a square box. You've got to cut his legs off to make him fit. When you get through you don't have a crab anymore."

But sonnets, and poetry forms in general, do something to our thought process, no matter where or when we write. They ask us to slow down, mull over the words we choose, and find ways to say what we want that fit the recipe of the form.

Putting aside the first words that pop into our heads for new words—synonyms, parallels, other examples—that fit the form can even unveil surprising associations and directions and ideas that we might have otherwise discovered in the free flow of free verse.

To review, a sonnet has:
- 14 lines
- typically the same number of syllables in each line
- often, a meter, such as iambic pentameter
- a rhyme scheme
- a "turn," or change of perspective, occurring around the beginning of line 9
- often, a subject related to love

This week, you might discover new ways to tweak, subvert, adapt or supercharge the sonnet form. Consider the recipe and consider your creative impetus. Combine, mix, bake...

keywords: sonnet, poem, your name


some rhyme schemes:
- abab cdcd efef gg (Shakespearean)
- abab bcbc cdcd ee (Spencerian)
- abba abba cde cde (Petrarchan)
- take fourteen small pieces of paper and write the letters A through G, two times each, on these. Shuffle and deal your rhyme scheme. (Angele McQuade showed me this).
- aaba bbcb ccdc dd (I made this up just now)