SheFallsSoftly

A monostich is a poem that is clever and is only one line long… It’s hard.

Office Humor

What is the sound of one man laughing?

–

First date

A little liquor in the system lubricates the bad decisions

I once knew a boy from Moore
Who was fascinated by my back door
I’d say, “Knock up front!”
He’d always pull a stunt
Acting stupid he’d say, “Oops, wrong door!”

Iambic pentameter, ababcdecde rhyme scheme x 3 verses. boo.

In my mind I braid your hair, fingers part
Your waves like seas, and I’ve become Noah.
This is, of course, how the delusions start,
Exploring your parts, a tender Jonah
I try to find my way in, never out
All of my fingers weaving your soft hair
middle and forefinger robotically working
And I savor your full waves in my draught
Of real connection, with you unaware,
A moment stolen while you weren’t looking.

I tack each of your letters upon the wall,
And I read and re-read your easy hand.
Your honest words hit me soft like rainfall
On the ocean of the water-wasteland
Of my mind. You come quick into me, but
As we’re consumed into each other I
Still beg that we might be closer, all wet
All skin on skin, so close, but we are not
The same, and lonely in a sea of you, I cry.
We hardly even know each other yet.

So this is all that I have to offer,
A frightened love, affection, and nightmares,
What a pathetic ode to a lover
Who, so quiet in her devotion, bears
The ceaseless strain of my (self) interest
And, as if emerging from the sea, she,
Bare, offers me her everything. Faults, and
Beauty all the same, ashamed but undressed
Why would she give all of her grace to me?
Thankful but damaged, I won’t understand.

J is for….Johnn! This poem is sort of like an etheree, in that the way you write it is all about syllables.
Stanza 1- Title, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2
Stanza 2- Title 4, 6, 8, 6, 4
Stanza 3- Title 2,3,4,3,2

Sweet
He says
His tone oozes
Cinnamon
He calls me
Sweet

Sweet
He’ll whisper, sounds
Like Dulce de leche
Kisses always sugar-coated
Always dripping chocolate
He calls me sweet.

Sweet
Candy
Cavity
He pulls away
Stomach ache
Too sweet.

I is for….Interlocking Rubaiyat. Rhyme scheme is aaba, bbcb, ccac.

I do not know how to live in this skin.
There is flesh, with bone, muscle, blood within
All beating with the same dull pulsation
But my identity feels plastic, my words full of tin.

I transfer through moments solely by compulsion
Or maybe the instants are all in convulsion
And first infant, then grown, I am being birthed into life
I am caught in time’s ridiculous propulsion

If I could look ahead and see midlife
See myself as some man’s wife
If I could look back, retrace it all again
I might know myself before the afterlife.

there is silence here,
it lurks beneath the surface
and grows like fungus.

A glose starts with a texte and comments on it through expanded discussion. In other words, it takes the texte, which may be a stanza of any number of lines and then creates a stanza for each of those lines.

“A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor.
These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight.
When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time.
When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.
I could say: those mountains have a meaning
but further than that I could not say.”
-A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, Adrienne Rich

A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor.
We’ve attempted to meet in our own native tongues,
And a few we speak conversationally.
Already, we have nothing in common.
We’ve found a rather unfamiliar patois
In which we attempt to create meaning.
Analogy makes clarity illusory.

These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight.
Occassionally, you cannot escape reality.
Some meanings cannot mount the language barrier,
Falling off the wall like wounded soldiers,
I on east, you on west, attempt to dismantle
Cross, or get below the apartheid of understanding.
I go over, you go under, we find ourselves on opposite sides, still lonely.

“When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time,”
I attempt to explain. “Like ancient egypt? Pyramids?” You ask,
Never getting it. The literal is like a drug
To which you are, of course, addicted. You crave simplicity,
I offer you a symbol (subtle methodone).
“Perhaps behind this door we’ve tried, there is nothing.”

When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.
I could say this in my own tongue, but it would be meaningless.
I could say this in our shared tongue.
It would be meaningless.

I could say: these mountains have a meaning.
You would say: excuse me?
I would try to explain myself,

But further than that I could not say.
I admit, “I do not have the language.”
I do not say that you don’t either.

Because I’m lazy, this will be free verse.

I do not know
Where the wind blows
And so I follow in the wake
Of cars and planes
Which lead me back and forth
But always astray.
I hang my heart above me like
A wan and sallow moon,
But when I cry aloud,
That is not who I speak to.
I feed each and each lies
About who I want them to see,
And each and each believes.
All believe but me…
“Who am I?” I ask the forlorn mirror,
Unfamilar. Having lived in the shadow
Of another
I’ve come not to know my face
Without my lover.
So am I canvas, blank?
Present waiting to be unwrapped?
Is there identity waiting to be tapped,
like landscape waiting to be mapped?
Or must I mold the mould
That I will break?

So, the break-up situation and its wake have become significantly less easy to deal with than I would have hoped initially. Luckily, today I remembered that I don’t have to be polite and as such I can feel free to write whatever I want about how I feel… No matter who it offends.

I find myself missing Billy not for who he is/was, but for the simple truth that I found someone I could have more or less contentedly spent my life with and that I didn’t have to worry about casual dating anymore. I really hate casual dating, I have such a hard time deciding to be into someone that it’s such a futile effort… I just didn’t want to have to do it anymore.

This depression has made me, occassionally, reach out for billy again.. Not romantically, just as a friend. Today I was in some deeper depths and told him that I was feeling deperessed… And he ran off to dinner. Just like that. “Stop being depressed. Dinner time now.”

It is these small acts of utter disinterest that remind me how little he actually cares for me… And it makes things easier and harder in many ways… Easier because all of the sudden I realize that he doesn’t really still want to be close, at least not yet. It makes things harder because I realize that his new girl thing is real, and there’s just not much I can do about that. Even if I went all sobby like last summer, I wouldn’t be able to get him back.

I don’t like all of the anxiety I’ve been having recently, and it doesn’t help that I’ve more or less stopped writing about it… I keep telling myself I’ll make an appointment to get some anxiety medication, but I keep not doing it. I think I will tomorrow… If I can keep giving myself writing assignments, and if it doesn’t make me less coordinated (dance concerns) I don’t think I’ll be losing anything… And if it can make my life a little more bearable on the day-to-day, then I’d really be gaining something.

Thank you everyone who went to my show this weekend, I’m so lucky to have so many good friends.

E is for Etheree. Number of syllables corresponds with the line. Line 1= 1 syllable..etc.

Stars;
Hundreds
Of stars, all
Bright, all falling.
I could fall myself,
Waiting for embrace or
Collision. Trust? Not again.
This time I’m shooting for distance.