2 Can I Have This Dance?: Quinzaine: Mistake

Title:  God Doesn't Make Mistakes

Artist:  Carolyn Dawn Johnson

Album:  Dress Rehearsal

Genre:  Country

Quinzaine:  Mistake

#1
I heard You don't make mistakes.
Why did you make me?
No, really?

#2
I'm perfect just as I am.
Why do I feel like
a mistake?

8 Last Call: Forest Fears

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Forest Fears

I keep hugging this tree
as the world spins by;
when will someone find me?
is this where I’ll die?

As the world spins by,
I hold every breath—scared—
trapped in my mind’s eye
where too long I’ve been snared.

When will someone find me—
take my hand and lead,
for I’m too lost to see
past the fears I breed.

Is this where I’ll die—
caught in the spiderweb,
unable to fly—
my mind lost to its ebb?

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An Aside:  this piece stems from a pom seed written back in June.  It was shortly after this pom seed that I managed to find my way back here to ...don't open...don't throw away....  I went into hiding for awhile (a year if I wish to be more accurate) unable to handle the socio-neti-phobia.  While the focus of the poem and pom seed are different, there is an obvious link between the two.

A Form Aside:  the above is a quadrilew.  It's an interesting form relying on both syllable count, rhyming, and repeating lines.  

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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.

2 Q Series: Why poetry? -- Q1

Welcome to 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 the next three Monday's 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 Poetry?  Of all the forms of writing out there, why would I choose poetry as my form of expression?  Just as important is why I write at all.  These are not simple questions and their answers are far from easy.  Honestly, I find it hard to figure out where to begin or even what to include.  But I do quite enjoy my second form of writing (what I've deemed Ramblings), so hopefully we'll all be able to follow along.

The inner workings of my brain....
I have several theories running in regard to the craziness that infects my brain.  One includes how I was originally right brained (creative/artistic), but due to the irrational thoughts threatening to destroy me my left brain (logical/analytical) took over.  Of course my right brain has continued to plot uprisings and so in the end I have a rather boring--and oddly--well balance brain.  You see while my left brain (the one that loves solving systems of equations in multiple variables and using the Rational Root Theorem to find possible solutions to polynomial equations) has managed to tamper most of my irrational side, those thoughts are still there longing to escape and so I tap into the right side and write (no pun intended).

The irrational thoughts...
So as the tagline for this blog states, "this letting of words is my treatment...my salvation. it pulls all the toxins from my mind, body, and soul."  I write in order to release or purge myself of the incessant and trying thoughts that threaten to consume me.  Does that mean that I never deviate from the internal?  No, occasionally it is just as important for me to write about something so completely unrelated to how I am feeling or the thoughts running around unchecked.  It's how I keep sane...well maybe not sane so much as functional.

The letting of words...
This brings us back to why poetry.  I could just as easily journal (or dear diary) myself into sanity.  In fact, some of my ramblings are just that.  The problem is it is too personal.  With poetry...it's brevity...it's abstractness...I can disconnect myself.  When I write poetry I can take an emotion or feeling and express it in such a way that the thoughts and events that sparked the irrational feeling floating in me are not really easily uncovered.  It is sort of like being covered from head to toe in body paint, so that even though you are completely naked no one can really see you.

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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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3 Time Capsule: --After the Journey

Title:  --After the Journey
Date:  06/18/98
Setting:  Summer after final year of college (during a touring Europe)
Form:  Free verse

Yesterday seemed to last forever,
draining me with every passing hour.
To sleep was but a dream
in this endless day it seemed.
And now, as I’m about to drift away
after this 24 waken hour day
goodnight is all I can say.

Notes:  After graduation, my cousin and I took a trip to Europe as part of a tour.  It was an wonderful and amazing experience.  The above is the first poem written outside the borders of my own country.  I really didn't write much while I was there.  I have begun to realize that I tend to write more from inside my head than what I see; I'm not sure how much sense that makes, but I can only image what I might have created had I been more focused on my writing back then.

Artifact I:  The original poem written in a cute little journal.

4 Can I Have This Dance?: Don't Let Go

Title:  Can't Take My Eyes Off You
Artist:  Lady Antebellum
Album:  Lady Antebellum
Genre:  Country

Don't Let Go

I just can't take,
nor forsake, how
you make me feel;

should I reveal
your gaze steels me--
appeals to base

needs to embrace
your sweet face while
I brace myself

scared I'll rebel--
say farewell--or
this spell that shades

your eyes will fade.
I can't wade in,
afraid to love.

Notes:  I often struggle with what song to pick; it's not because lack songs that inspire, but rather I focus on the inspiration having to hold true to the meaning of the song.  Sometimes it's just a single line that inspires and yields a thought far from the songs meaning.  I'm doing my best to get over the whole thing.  Because if a line from a song inspires than it should count.  Anyway, in the end I can't say that this hits the meaning of the song completely, but it does hold some of the overall meaning.

A Form Aside:  I have this thing about not deciding on a new form until I've given it a couple of goes, so I gave the Than Bauk a second go...well sort of the first go round I went for a "chained" than bauk while this time I tried the "staircase" than bauk. Still I'm not 100% sure of this form which was introduced to me over at dVerse Poets Pub, but definitely not ready to give up on it just yet.

12 Soul(mate) Searching

My heart stut-
ters; this cut burns
somewhat more than
I had planned.  Still
I scan each soul
with one goal to
feel whole--knowing
this searching yields
nothing but pain.

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I (if you have not already figured this out) am one of the many who find writing in form to be frustrating and painstaking.  Still I enjoy the challenge (the same way I enjoy solving a good system of equations in three variables using augmented matrices...no serious I really do!).  So I took up the challenge presented at dVerse Poets Pub FormForAll and wrote the above Than Bauk (more accurately a "chained" Than Bauk).  To learn more about the form and check out how some quite talented individuals work through this very tight  form hop on over to the Pub...

An Aside:  I'm thinking this little number might fit very nicely with my "Diary of an Anorexic Love Life."

9 Fall Tree

Brilliant reds, oranges, yellows
cling to limbs for dear life;
not ready to lay down in defeat.

An early snowfall blankets
vibrant autumn hues
compromising the strong integrity.

Under such a burdening weight—
teetering with indecision—
finally they fall forward

allowing the house to sigh in relief
as the majestic beast brushes past
laying down its arms upon the doorstep.

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An Aside:  Nor'easters are evil.  Last year, an early snowfall brought down many trees unable to bare the weight of the colorful leaves and the snow.  As the snow fell yesterday, again far earlier than expected, I thought of the beautiful trees and wondered did Sandy already knock out the weak so as not to add more wood to the fire.  Surprisingly, the Three Word Wednesday [3WW=>compromise(-e+ing), (in)decision, forward] prompt played quite well with these thoughts.  If you get a chance head on over and see how other's twisted these three words into their own poem, prose, or who knows.