So It's Been a While (A New Poem)

Hello, lovelies. I have not updated this blog in what feels like an eternity, but is actually closer to a year. But, I'm back, and I've written a new poem. It's based off the Christina Rossetti poem Amor Mundi, which you can find on the page linked below. This untitled work, which I may title later, is inspired more in tone than in subject matter, and was written last year for my English class. Here you go!

Oh come along my darling, past all the beggars snarling

And it shall not cost a farthing, if you listen now to me

Rap the gate and whisper “Dearest, it is I, thy friend, who nearest

Whom thou bid Now do not fearest, I have come to call on thee”

I shall ope’ the gate so fleetly, and shall smile to you so sweetly

And my dear shall enter neatly, you that rapped against my gate

We shall walk the hall decked finely, “Oh, say is this all thine?” We

Our hands shall intertwine, free of thought and free of fate

But see, the paint is peeling, and the lights upon the ceiling

And the servants you see kneeling, why, they are not there at all

The carpet stained and muddy, and the furniture all bloody

Why the very floor is ruddy, there is gore upon the wall

“Oh my darling, this is frightful, say must we spend the night?” Full

of fear, thy voice delightful wavers, shaken to the core

But you notice I’m not speaking, though my snake-like smile is leaking

and your boots are now a-squeaking, as they rush upon the floor

As my skirts catch in the remnants, of my dearest former tenants

And you realize that from hence, you’ll never exit o’er

“Stay the night, my sweet and clever? No, for now I’ve caught your tether

“Oh my dearest, thou shalt never, be departing evermore.”

Amor Mundi - Christina Rossetti

This is the Last One…For Now (Five Limericks)

Limericks are hard. Harder than Sonnets, even.

There once was a girl from St. Lime
Who couldn't get limericks to rhyme
She said "It's all fine
"Till I hit the last line
"And then I just give up."

An old man who lives on Mount Dense
Writes poems that don't make much sense
A bird on the arm
Is a fish in a farm
Squid fiddle, blue Armstrong, one pence.

An activist stood by a tree
He muttered "I'll make change for free"
And then one fine night
A man said, "I'll bite"
"Your change is a buck ninety-three"

A woman known only as "Vowel"
Swore in Chicken, and caused a great howl
"Your words are so crude
"And their usage so rude
"Don't you know that your language is fowl?"

I'd write some more limericks, it's true
But I simply don't know what to do
I'm all out of twists
And I've mucked up my wrist
Writing all of these limericks for you


And now I'm done, and I never have to write another limerick again. Thank God.

I Told You There Would Be More (75-ish Lines of Free Verse)

Yes, more poetry!

Zombie Love Poem

To my sweetest, dearest, deadest
When I look upon your bones
As they poke above your muscles
And I hear their creaking moans

As we shuffle oh so slowly
So as not to lose our limbs
You set all my flies aflutter
I give in to all their whims

As our flesh melts off our bodies
As it puddles to the floor
To me you look fresh bitten
And I love you even more

So my dear I wrote a poem
And my fingers fell off, too
But I wrote it for you anyways
I wrote it just for you

And I hope you like my poem
For you know I took great pains
Now let's go and find some humans
And then eat their tasty brains
Brains
B r a i n s
brrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


No one does romance like Zombies

Another Poem about Poetry

When one is writing poetry
For English class, the poetry
Is often not-good poetry
With nothing much to say

And so to pass, the poetry
Is tongue-in-cheek-style poetry
I call it meta-poetry
It's what I wrote today

In fact, this meta-poetry
Is meta-meta-poetry
Because I can't write poetry
That's clever and sincere

I stick to meta-poetry
And half my classroom poetry
is tonuge-in cheek-style poetry
And has been all this year

I'll write more meta poetry
But meta-meta-poetry
Is rather tiring poetry
And so I'll pass the ball

And relish meta-poetry,
Cause, really, meta-poetry
Is better than no poetry
No poetry at all


Okay, so those were the more poem-y poems that I just put in this section because I like them. Now on to the more artistic-ish stuff.

Insomniac

Tick
One
Breath. . .

Tick
Two
Breath. . .

Tick
Three
How long has it been?
Breath. . .

Tick
Four
What time is it now?
Breath. . .

Tick
Five
Oh . My . God
Breath. . .

Tick
Six
How much longer is this going to take?!?
Breath. . .

Tick
SEVEN
I am so freaking tired.
Breath. . .

Tick
EIGHT
Focus. Stop thinking. Breath, Breath, slow down, slow down
"Twitch"
Eyes closed in out in out slow down easy calm even if it three in the morning
and i can't sleep and and i have school and a test and sometimesitmakesmeso
madandicouldscreamorcryorpunchsomethingor-

Crap.



Tick
One
Breath. . .


Fun fact: This is actually based on how I try to get to sleep. It works. Most of the time.

And now one more.

Hearts

The human heart
Is the most powerful organ in the body
It pumps five litres of blood
along 60,000 metres of veins
for a lifetime
And it never gives up

Muscles don't break
They bruise
And tear
and hurt like hell
But they do not break.

I am sick of metaphors
That make the heart weak
fragile
 a blown-glass phial
Shattering on a moment's notice
The human heart is the most powerful organ in the body
and it does not break


Well, that's all folks
More to come

I HAVE RETURNED! (WITH TWO SONNETS!)

Greetings, all! I return to you now with some original compositions; in this instance, Sonnets


A Sonnet to Unproductive Criticism
"What were you thinking? This is so inane
I can't believe you ever wrote this down
It is so pointless that it causes pain
It's crap like this that makes me want to drown"

"What a load of trash this is, I see
What an utter waste of precious time
Why even bother rhyming in line three?
It simply is inferior to mine!"

"Okay, that's great, but what about some tips?
A good critique always includes suggestions
What useful notes, what editing, what snips?
"Um..." "So that answered my question."

"I'd do it so much better, don't you know!"
"Okay, that's it, it's time for you to go."

Ahh, there is truly nothing finer than passive-aggressive vengeance enacted in Sonnet form.


Sonnets are Hard

O, tell me, why are Sonnets hard to write?
When read, they seem so easy, so relaxed
the flow so simple, at least if you're bright
That with it, poet's minds remain untaxed

A painless scheme, with rhythm uncomplex
A basic fourteen lines, split into four
A B A B, etcetra does not vex
And then the couplet sounds, and then no more

So tell me why, whilst penning this here verse
I find myself completely strapped for time
It's likely some old kind of Sonnet curse
 That leaves me running out of things to rhyme

Who cast this ancient curse? I do not know
But now my Sonnet's done and I can go


 Yay! Poetry! More to come!

Conclusion

Well, this concludes my blogging. I have to say, I enjoyed this assignment more than I thought I would. It was an interesting medium to work in, and I liked the lessened formality. I may continue blogging in the future, but for now I think this will be my final post.Thank you to anyone who read this.
Sincerely,
Sophie

In The Waiting Room- Elizabeth Bishop

I'll be perfectly honest, I had never heard of this poet before this poem was reccommended. But after reading it, I think it is definately worthy of analysis. This is a longer poem, so I will post a link to the full text and only use parts of the poem when they come up in the analysis.

The story told by this poem is simple on the surface. The speaker details a time she visited the dentist's office with her aunt. While there, she hears her aunt cry out in pain. This is what sparks the main thread of the poem. Before we get into that though, let's go over the devices and meters of the text.

"In The Waiting Room" is in free verse, so there isn't much in the way of rhyme scheme or meter. However, there are still many devices within the poem. The lines use short words, conveying the childishness of the speaker. because she is seven at the time, this works. It's also an interesting way of conveying the poem's meaning through the eyes of a child. I like this way of looking at an issue, as it brings a new perspective and meaning.

Now, back to the story. The first half of the poem is largely description of the titular waiting room. the speaker tells us about the other people in the room and the magazine she is reading. Around halfway through the piece, the speaker's aunt gasps out in pain.  Here is where the poem gets philosophical.

The speaker states that
I wasn't at all surprised;
even then I knew she was
a foolish, timid woman.
I might have been embarrassed,
but wasn't.  What took me
completely by surprise
was that it was me:
my voice, in my mouth.
Without thinking at all
I was my foolish aunt,
I--we--were falling, falling,
our eyes glued to the cover
of the National Geographic,
February, 1918

She continues in this vein for the rest of the poem, stating:
But I felt: you are an I,
you are an Elizabeth,
you are one of them.
Why should you be one, too?
I find this interesting, as this poem details the moment that the speaker realized that she was a human, the same as the people sitting around her in the waiting room.

The reason I like this poem is this issue. often, when people talk about humans as a whole, they do not include themselves. I know this happens to me. We do not realize it, but we are all very much the same. This is not often thought about, at least in my experiance.  This is also the reason that I think the child's perspective suits this poem. Young children have a different way of thinking than adults (or almost-adults, as the case may be), and I'm not sure a fully-grown speaker would have realized that they were a person, just from a pained cry at a dentist's office

Next post: Conclusion

Full Text: In The Waiting Room, by Elizabeth Bishop

Send In The Clowns, Stephen Sondheim

Once again, it seems my favourite composer has found his way onto this blog. Today we look at a song from the 1973 musical, A Little Night Music. As with my other posts involving copyrighted material, I will provide a link to the text of the poem at the bottom of the page.

"Send In The Clowns" is a slow, elegant piece of music. The song itself is arranged into five verses, most of which follow the same scheme as the example below:

Don't you love farce?                                         A
My fault I fear.                                                   B
I thought that you'd want what I want.                C
Sorry, my dear.                                                   B
But where are the clowns?                                  D
Quick, send in the clowns.                                  D
Don't bother, they're here.                                  B

However, each verse varies slightly, mostly near the end. Verse Three is an interesting exception to this, but we'll get to that later. The meter also varies quite a bit. The first two lines are Iambic Dimeter, with the third switching to Iambic Trimeter and one left over syllable, before going back to Dimeter for line four.  Lines five through seven are in Amphibrachic-Iambic Dimeter. 

This song laments the loss of love. The speaker, Desiree, has just learned that the man she loves doesn't want to leave his wife for her. Throughout the song, she compares her feelings to a joke in a show. She repeatedly asks to "Send in the clowns", before realizing that in the end, she is the fool, stating "Don't bother, they're here". The poem ends with her saying "Well, maybe next year", a statement reminiscent of what a sad child might be told after missing clowns. 

Desiree's heart is broken, that much is certain. But there is definitely more to this song than heartbreak. It laments the ridiculousness of loving someone who doesn't love you back. It is a tragically beautiful poem, and combined with the music, it makes for a sad and stunning piece. I'd highly recommend giving it a listen through.

Up Next: TBA

Full Lyrics: Send In The Clowns                                                     Video: Send In The Clowns