2 Can I Have This Dance?: I Fell Too

Title:  Apologize 

Artist:  OneRepublic
Album:  Dreaming Out Loud
Genre:  Rock

I Fell Too

Our love burned bright blue;
so brilliant was the flame,
fear gripped my heart anew.

If I could explain
what took control of me,
it might lessen the pain

and maybe you'd see
the rope was seared not cut.
Though you might disagree,

I did this for you
unsure I could ever
accept a love so true.

11 Last Call: HIB - Internal Trauma (Speak Up)

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HIB - Internal Trauma (Speak Up)

Sticks and stones may break your bones
but words...
                               words are like
Mola Ram's fingers piercing the chest cavity
withdrawing your still beating heart
while you--blood slowly draining--look on
as he displays your very core
for all to gawk and sneer at.

I picture him as the rough-n-tough 4th grader
and my heart stills in my chest; now,
three years later, he stand before me
eyes glassy--long-T wiping away tears
before they can fall and add to his disgrace.
My very core aches at the sight of him
desperately trying to maintain his dignity.
The office just a few quick steps
from the stairwell where we stand waits
unwanted, but it's okay 'cause I'm as good
as any office; so with a bit of prodding he
relates the words spoken in cruel jest in front
of his peers--frustration, fear, and despair
echo in his voice.

We talk of this infection and how I...we
can't let it spread--for his health as well as others.
With him resigned--
accepting of this idea,
I send him back to class then head
for the unwanted to complete the paperwork
so the investigation--the anti(bullying)virus
can begin it healing journey.

Broken bones can be reset and pinned,
but words....
                      becareful of the words
their stealth attack like internal bleeding
if untreated can cause massive blood loss
where your silence signs your death note.

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Side Note #1:  For those unfamiliar with the HIB acronym, they stand for Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying.

Side Note #2:  Mola Ram is a character from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

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This is my offerings for this week's dVerse Poets Pub OpenLinkNight. If you get a chance, check out all of the talented poets who have stepped up into the spotlight.

3 Q Series: Why Poetry? -- Q2

Welcome to the second installment of the first Q Series, aptly named Poetry. (For more information on the Q Series, see information located at the end of this post.) Over the course of three Monday's--today being the second--I will be exploring three questions about poetry and myself. They are as follows:
Why do I write poetry?
Why do I like writing form (poetry)?
Why do I prefer free verse (poetry)?

So with out further ado...

Why Form Poetry? Seriously, what on earth would possess me (or anyone for that matter) to constrain poetic inspiration to a rigid set of rules and parameters? Don't get me wrong, I understand the aesthetics of form: the way meter plays to the rhythm of the words, the way rhyming presents an appealing sound, the way repetition adds a flow and emphasize to a thought. I can definitely appreciate the use of poetic form both when I read silently or aloud. But to employ such constraints truly hurts my brain.  Truth be told, poetic form and I have a love-hate relationship.  I love to hate it.

The inner workings of my brain...
Now one might think that my logical - very structured - left brain would love the rules and guidelines set forth by form, but one of the benefits of writing is being able to shutdown that half of my brain. It provides me with an opportunity to allow the irrational thoughts and fears threatening to consume me run free--more like a mustang on the open range than a stallion let out in the fenced in pasture. If it were solely up to my brain, I would fight tooth-and-nail not to write in form. Although it is my brain...yes the lovely left brain...that has rationalized out why I like writing in form.

The irrational thoughts...
While I expressed in the previous installment, I started writing because it was a way for me to expel all of the crazy thoughts and fears that induce anxiety and stress.  Poetry is my coping mechanism.  I find, however, the older I get the harder it is for me to lull these thoughts to sleep, for though I talk about this being a purging of sorts, they always resurface.  I find that the annoyance and struggles of writing in form, following a specific rhyme scheme or employing a certain meter, help to take my mind off of the emotions and feelings that I am writing about.

The lessening of pain...
It is sort of like biting my finger when I have a massive headache.  My hurting finger helps to dull the ache (or my knowledge of the ache) in my head.   I'm able to write out the emotions and feelings without having them overwhelm me.  The harder, stronger, or deeper the emotion, the more I love to hate poetic form.  It really is as simple as that.  

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The Q Series is a new theme. I decided Mondays needed to be spiced up a little bit. Plus I do kind of miss my incessant ramblings. How it works is quite simple. I take a topic of interest to me, personal or not, pose two - four questions, and spend several Mondays exploring the questions. I might miss the occasional Monday with this, but there is no hard and fast rule that I must post on Mondays...at least not yet.

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2 Time Capsule: Old Magic

Title:  Old Magic
Date:  04/22/11
Setting:  ... don't open ... don't throw away ...
Form:  Free verse

i drank in whispers
sweet sounds
carried from the moon

soon sleep took me

teardrop dreams danced
raining balloons
blue
          yellow
                       green
only to pooled
near my true love

Notes:  When I started this blog, I set up some rules that would force me to write; I could not remember the last time I had written.  Included with these rules was one that had me composing on the spot with little to no editing once published.  That rule forced me to compose with fingers on keyboard and while I do enjoy this medium, paper and pencil have been my weapon of choice.  

The poem I selected this week is from a prompt that came from OneStopPoetry's Friday Poetically with Brian Miller.  I can't be certain (with OSP off the air now), but I believe the prompt had us take words from another source (I want to say a Shel Silverstein poem, but I could be wrong) and use them in something new and different.  In order to accomplish this feat, I wrote down a slew of the words in a journal which was just itching for words to breathe life into it.

You'll notice the words are grouped by first letter.  My guess is that originally I had thought I might try a poem were all (or at least most) of the words began with the same letter; it did not turn out that way in the end--as you can see.  In the end I created a short little whimsical piece.

A couple of days after writing the poem above, I composed one called reunited, which spoke about...well...being reunited with my paper and pencil.  I started this blog almost three years ago after a spell of not writing at all;  put it all together and paper-pencil and I had not been together for at least three years.  I know that some time this week I spoke about my little hiatus from here and how upon returning (in full force) I allowed my blog rules to continue to be suspended and instead created my themes as a way to inspire (continuous) writing.  The other thing I took up, which started with the poem presented here is a journal full of writing.  

I think that's enough babbling for today.  Maybe one day I'll talk about the difference between tapping out poems with fingers and pouring out words on paper with pencil.

Artifact I:  Original list...don't ask where the poem is on this page...I can't quite figure it out myself.