Sonnet 1
You are a guilty mark upon my soul
That came to me tonight. Once upon a dream
I want to seal a kiss, and not to foul,
But I am forced to surrendering scream.
I put my mind away, to follow you
Into the sweaty nightmare of sly lust.
How would you like to swim into the blue?
Watching the skies with mask of right and just...
I lick your hand and watch you smile and bloom
Like flower, that sings only once and dies.
We meet again, before the morning gloom
To spread rainbow thread upon the morning skies.
The world is a shallow and dirty place,
I run towards when my dreams win that race.
________
We
are
perfect –
strong,
beautiful,
alive,
too
stupid
to
know
the
value
of
it.
________
Ability
It is clearly the matter of abilities –
One can argue that wishing for someone's face is incongruous, and it points
towards malfunction of personality, in certain aspects I agree, nevertheless
this runs deeper than any explanation I am able to provide, at this point.
Michaelangelo could base his sculptures on you, and if daVinci saw your
enigmatic smile he surely would not paint Mona Lisa.
As for me
(I could hang you on the wall as painting, I could chop of your head dip it in
formaldehyde stick into a jar and put it on my desk)
it is clearly the matter of abilities; therefore I compose, I word paint with caution,
a portrait that is like a charming spell.
(To make all your clothes fall off)
From miles away my hands slide through the same darkness that falls upon
the flower of your lips. My eyes reach towards stars that you can name.
Your lungs are filled with heavy, sticky breath of life that understands the
love of loneliness as do I,
and although we have nothing in common I know we feel pain in the same way.
(unless you are a psychopath)
+ coming soon (hopefully) 'all the stuff you don't want to know about when you are writing a sonnet'
Friday 28 October 2011
4. Villanelle
All the poems we concern ourselves about in this semester are quite heavily structured. Villanelle seems to be one of these particularly difficult and yet it is not really. You buckle up, count the lines, divide into stanzas and make up two lines that you think are particularly cool so they can bear the repetitions and do not make the whole sound like a children song about the bunny rabbits. Then there is the rhyming scheme. I am usually not particularly friendly with rhymes, let’s just say that most of the times we give ourselves a friendly understanding nod, when we see each other, but we wouldn't really engage in prolonged evening conversations over a glass of red. In this case however, I decided to follow the rhyming structure precisely for that reason. It is interesting to do something outside a comfort zone once in a while. As for the actual poem and the theme, it wasn’t very difficult once I established my key lines:
I will always be in pain with you
But when I give up; promise to see me through
As to that first line it might seem quite weird to use the word ‘pain’ instead of ‘love’. You may burn me on the stake but I cannot determine if in this context love is used as noun or a verb. At the same time it doesn’t really matter, because the phrase is so well established in the common language, that one substitution does not create the sense of misunderstanding, but a slight ambiguity that is necessary in this case. Saying ‘I will always be in love with you’ in a poem? I don’t know if someone could really pull it off but if they do, I kneel. I can’t, and I don’t really know if I want to. In this context the message is clear (or at least I hope it is). The second line is a plead and I thought if anything can bear repetition in the quasi-love poem it is going to be a helpless appeal to other person, that cannot be explained or justified. Why do I say quasi-love poem? I wanted to write a poem about love in friendship not about a romantic love as I find that subject far more compelling and worth of exploration. I am a strong fan of the turn in poems and in this one it comes in the second line of the last stanza:
On the road from here to forever; you and my knight
It introduces the third person and shifts the meaning. I am not quite sure about the word ‘knight’, it is somewhat clunky, but I couldn’t think of anything else that would do the job and sustain the rhyming scheme. At the end of the day, this whole line is surely the one for revision. But what to do to keep ‘road from here to forever’ and the rhyming scheme in place? This is not a job for a writer but for a mathematician. I surrender. (only until my grand come back with some kick-ass idea)
(oh and) PS. I am sorry Paul that it took so long. I am a victim of managers who think that ‘part time’ is a synonym of ‘full time, plus, can do all the shit hours’.
I will always be in pain with you
But when I give up; promise to see me through
As to that first line it might seem quite weird to use the word ‘pain’ instead of ‘love’. You may burn me on the stake but I cannot determine if in this context love is used as noun or a verb. At the same time it doesn’t really matter, because the phrase is so well established in the common language, that one substitution does not create the sense of misunderstanding, but a slight ambiguity that is necessary in this case. Saying ‘I will always be in love with you’ in a poem? I don’t know if someone could really pull it off but if they do, I kneel. I can’t, and I don’t really know if I want to. In this context the message is clear (or at least I hope it is). The second line is a plead and I thought if anything can bear repetition in the quasi-love poem it is going to be a helpless appeal to other person, that cannot be explained or justified. Why do I say quasi-love poem? I wanted to write a poem about love in friendship not about a romantic love as I find that subject far more compelling and worth of exploration. I am a strong fan of the turn in poems and in this one it comes in the second line of the last stanza:
On the road from here to forever; you and my knight
It introduces the third person and shifts the meaning. I am not quite sure about the word ‘knight’, it is somewhat clunky, but I couldn’t think of anything else that would do the job and sustain the rhyming scheme. At the end of the day, this whole line is surely the one for revision. But what to do to keep ‘road from here to forever’ and the rhyming scheme in place? This is not a job for a writer but for a mathematician. I surrender. (only until my grand come back with some kick-ass idea)
(oh and) PS. I am sorry Paul that it took so long. I am a victim of managers who think that ‘part time’ is a synonym of ‘full time, plus, can do all the shit hours’.
Friday 14 October 2011
4. Villanelle
Let Me Say
I will always be in pain with you
The day was empty, we ceased the night
But when I give up; promise to see me through
Lie along with me to cover what’s true;
For me to talk like this is the matter of fright –
I will always be in pain with you
He said, with no regard to my point of view,
Cover your eyes to conceal your sight.
But when I give up; promise to see me through
Ignore me, what’s your problem? Haven’t got a clue!
This pitiful yearning towards the limelight…
I will always be in pain with you
You are nothing; this is all spite and I spew
There are no more tears, no more skin to bite
But when I give up; promise to see me through
The day had left us; the sky painted with blazing hue
On the road from here to forever; you and my knight
I will always be in pain with you
But when I give up; promise to see me through
I will always be in pain with you
The day was empty, we ceased the night
But when I give up; promise to see me through
Lie along with me to cover what’s true;
For me to talk like this is the matter of fright –
I will always be in pain with you
He said, with no regard to my point of view,
Cover your eyes to conceal your sight.
But when I give up; promise to see me through
Ignore me, what’s your problem? Haven’t got a clue!
This pitiful yearning towards the limelight…
I will always be in pain with you
You are nothing; this is all spite and I spew
There are no more tears, no more skin to bite
But when I give up; promise to see me through
The day had left us; the sky painted with blazing hue
On the road from here to forever; you and my knight
I will always be in pain with you
But when I give up; promise to see me through
how to write pastoral my way
The pastoral is a type of poem that in some way relates to the idea of nature and utopian lost paradise (arcadia). At the same time more contemporary poets do a great job of using convoluted references and metaphors to only slightly reference the subject matter.
In my opinion the pastoral works extremely well with reference to childhood. Memories of old days have often this unique imaginative quality that with time becomes somehow removed from reality. There is something in saying that time heals all the scars and that at the end we only remember good memories. This blissful imagery, of the days and experiences that will never return and will never be possible to examine more closely (which could actually cause the disillusion), can easily be incorporated in the pastoral form of poetry.
In addition, for me, childhood has very close reference to nature as I spent most of my time outside in the parks, by the river, surrounded by fields and forest. In my memories childhood and adolescence always combine into one single, perfect image.
Imagine: a warm Sunday afternoon; yellow room, windows opened, in light the specs of dust float in the air, poplar seeds spin in the breeze outside, wind carries the smell of lilies and distant car roar. Somewhere outside people are busy, someone shouts, child laughs but in the room everything is removed. Three girls don’t need anyone’s attention but their own. One lies on the floor; paints. Another one sits beside; tells the story. Third one took the couch; she looks outside the window at the sky gradually turning purple-coral. Tomorrow is going to be another fine day.
I wrote quite a few poems that try to some way capture one of these unique moments. One that in my opinion is directly related to my pastoral is called ‘Turner’s afternoon':
May I bring to you the
Promise of summer, when
Air simmers in the bright
Glaze of the sun –
We’ll walk across
The fence of reality
Holding hands.
I’ll paint your smile
On my cornea, with
Lights and shadows,
Of young summer day.
We’ll seat on the
Bridge, and run our
Fingers through the sticky
Water, of the blue stream
Under our feet.
We’ll watch the world –
In Polaroid and sepia –
Spinning quietly
Before our eyes;
As we’ll grow old.
I hope it says more about what my childhood memories mean to me as a writer than any of my clumsy explanations.
In my opinion the pastoral works extremely well with reference to childhood. Memories of old days have often this unique imaginative quality that with time becomes somehow removed from reality. There is something in saying that time heals all the scars and that at the end we only remember good memories. This blissful imagery, of the days and experiences that will never return and will never be possible to examine more closely (which could actually cause the disillusion), can easily be incorporated in the pastoral form of poetry.
In addition, for me, childhood has very close reference to nature as I spent most of my time outside in the parks, by the river, surrounded by fields and forest. In my memories childhood and adolescence always combine into one single, perfect image.
Imagine: a warm Sunday afternoon; yellow room, windows opened, in light the specs of dust float in the air, poplar seeds spin in the breeze outside, wind carries the smell of lilies and distant car roar. Somewhere outside people are busy, someone shouts, child laughs but in the room everything is removed. Three girls don’t need anyone’s attention but their own. One lies on the floor; paints. Another one sits beside; tells the story. Third one took the couch; she looks outside the window at the sky gradually turning purple-coral. Tomorrow is going to be another fine day.
I wrote quite a few poems that try to some way capture one of these unique moments. One that in my opinion is directly related to my pastoral is called ‘Turner’s afternoon':
May I bring to you the
Promise of summer, when
Air simmers in the bright
Glaze of the sun –
We’ll walk across
The fence of reality
Holding hands.
I’ll paint your smile
On my cornea, with
Lights and shadows,
Of young summer day.
We’ll seat on the
Bridge, and run our
Fingers through the sticky
Water, of the blue stream
Under our feet.
We’ll watch the world –
In Polaroid and sepia –
Spinning quietly
Before our eyes;
As we’ll grow old.
I hope it says more about what my childhood memories mean to me as a writer than any of my clumsy explanations.
Thursday 6 October 2011
3. Pastoral
What was lost
When the sun was young,
I run its golden hair through my fingers
We breathed slowly with our new born lungs;
air sizzled in my mouth like a popsicle
These days wind sung for us,
she tasted of corn and cherries and her eyes were blue
The life was a chain of consecutive existences;
dislocated, day by day
We fought for being like there was no tomorrow –
which was often a case in those days
Memories were fresh, like if time happened all at once
Trees spoke to us; he was the Leaf and he was always
we believed
Laughter came naturally on lazy Sunday afternoons
when nothing to do was sacred
For most it was the outside;
For us it was together
We thought freedom was to move on,
We know it is to stay the same
These days sun went down and we couldn't part
we knew that what is precious is often lost
I had ice on my lips and the world in my heart
We were reborn to its melody into humans
It was when the sky opened into universe;
That we invented religion of our own
When the sun was young,
I run its golden hair through my fingers
We breathed slowly with our new born lungs;
air sizzled in my mouth like a popsicle
These days wind sung for us,
she tasted of corn and cherries and her eyes were blue
The life was a chain of consecutive existences;
dislocated, day by day
We fought for being like there was no tomorrow –
which was often a case in those days
Memories were fresh, like if time happened all at once
Trees spoke to us; he was the Leaf and he was always
we believed
Laughter came naturally on lazy Sunday afternoons
when nothing to do was sacred
For most it was the outside;
For us it was together
We thought freedom was to move on,
We know it is to stay the same
These days sun went down and we couldn't part
we knew that what is precious is often lost
I had ice on my lips and the world in my heart
We were reborn to its melody into humans
It was when the sky opened into universe;
That we invented religion of our own
briefly about the ode
I think that writing an ode is particularly difficult. Main reason being the simple fact, that praising something in the context of contemporary art, became somewhat unfashionable. Results are multiple examples of odes to tomatoes, socks or other elements of daily existence. As I had absolutely no intention of doing anything across that line I tried to think hard of something different. I did not want to fall upon any sort of cliché, be it an XVIII century one or contemporary. My first two ideas were like matches, they burned brightly, yet shortly. First, I considered writing an ode to all those who come second. That developed from the idea that the classicist ode was a form of appraisal dedicated to the winners. My second idea was writing an ode to the common sense. Both of these however bear certain humorous connotations that I wanted to avoid. While I do appreciate humorous poetry, I do not think I am very suited to the task myself. Finally trying to tweak expectations a little I decided to write an Ode to the Abandoned Places. While I believe it might draw from the romantic tradition, and their devotion to solitude, at the same time it is also very personal to me. Often I find myself captured by old buildings, overgrown gardens, ruins and other places abandoned in the course of industrial evolution. They might well be graveyards of memories but at the same time they are also breeders of inspirations and a food for imagination.
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