To write a poem (wordplay on an old typewriter for One Shoot Sunday)
image prompt by Jack AZ part2
is not to catch
the words unlatched:
it is to meet
a current against the sweep
against the words
the patterns on the board
the words imprint
that later fade so like river silt.
To catch a poem
you can’t, unless eyes firm
eyes glued to the vaulted
deep from where had bolted
these words you unleash
on lines that leap
your fingers balancing
thought on words that slink.
To catch the thought
that storms into desert draught
you choose the speed
or letters scrambling in the deep
delude the eyes
escape the mind on ice
old keys do creak when cranked
to catch the lines unlatched.
To catch a storm wreaking
havoc on a heart sinking
in a slew of silted dreams
rusting on dredged streams
where winds howl threats
of maddened sand and dust like breaths
the finger tips must kiss
the letters naming muses hissing.
To catch the muses
soothe their caricatured faces
bare your soul salvaged
from old thoughts once baggage
tear out the paper
spewing lies of hereafter
catch the words that spell
the truth about their names true to their spell
on you to write a poem.
Posted for One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry where a community of poets and artists share their love for their art and continue to sustain each other. Check us out!
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About
autumn wind
wondering about lilies
in a mountain pond
Tell me a writer who really gets a satisfying jornal, in Spanish a daily wage or its equivalent, and I’ll bare a spirit in constant bouts of doubtfulness. Does a writer earn more because of what he writes and how he does it? Or is a writer paid more or less because of who he is? Is it money or honor he expects to receive?
Ahhh … but money as wage, and praise or honor as reward would be too predictable, too common as Job lamented in the Book of Job. It is in these lines that read: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his times no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages, months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief. Lying in bed I wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen I think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’
Restlessly I fret till twilight falls. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind. Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.”
Not money but joy is the ultimate wage as the passage implies. And joy is not hard to earn for it is in everyday life if we have eyes to see, a nose to smell, fingers to touch, ears to hear–a heart beating. This to me, is how a writer earns a daily wage. His wages then take the guise of treasures his heart can transfigure into a universe of thought that taps into other hearts, that causes a swirl in the depth of other souls, or that makes wings to sprout on leaden heels.
Sometimes not joy but rueful, poignant moments are my pick. Take what I earned once: On my walk home in my neighborhood, I caught two clumps of snowdrops–such tiny blossoms smaller than fingertips that do not look up but shyly droop close to black patches on the ground winter has frozen. That afternoon in the frosty wind, they trembled as if ready to turn away and run but how could they? For that poignant moment on seeing the wintry rain beat on the fragile snowdrop–as if pushing it to go home now, go to sleep–I earned my jornal, my daily wage.
Once on summer walk, the crackle of dried leaves just hit me both like the laughter of children and sobs long suppressed. Neither one of them would resolve the dryness, but I recalled how each does bring tears: laughter for joy, sobs for healing that comes with the release of a dammed-up pain. My jornal that day came as two haiku.
Fall has since shortened the day and the heart begins to crave for lost space that it doesn’t even recall which or where. I feel that most treasures have turned into mush so much so I wouldn’t be able to sift them off the ground. Yet I caught the dying day yesterday–so glorious in the gold of autumn it opened a flip side of serene heaven. Blades of grass coated in diadems of rain that carpet the lawns render royal walks poor by imitation. A burst of red maple against an inky blue sky humbled me, a soul bragging about her skill to recreate beauty in words.
I suppose I’m taking Job’s reflections to heart. I’d rather not gloss over each day and look beyond what’s there, right before me, or else fragile as is my breath one day “my eyes may never again see joy” to write. With what then will I compare the eternal joy, the ultimate wage I await?
Yet for now, as other eyes hanker to make the invisible visible, I put a tag on some moments of joy. Like on seeing the snowdrops, I paid myself $200 as my jornal.
What could have been yours?
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jornales 
A very different poem from all the ones I’ve read of yours. I really enjoy when artists do that, and in this case an intriguing form. The lines beginning with “To” where my favorite, but “these words you unleash / on lines that leap” and “bare your salvaged soul / from thoughts once baggage” really spoke to me in thinking about writing.
Thanks, Adam! What’s doing it for me is the wonderful space you and the team at OSP has been working at for us. I feel I’ve grown into a scrawny aspiring oak with my poetry. The prompts have been great but the interaction has really pulled me steps higher than I ever imagined. Thanks again!
nice – i like the idea of catching a poem…which may floats through the mind like a yellow butterfly and then carefully bring it down into letters without hurting it..
Thanks, Claudia and that yellow butterfly is a wonderful idea!
You are on a run, as I read, I realise you could have gone, forever, on a flow like this…nice work here
Yes, Kodjo, I feel I’m on a run and I could have gone on with the flow. But it was way past midnight…thanks for coming by and liking my poem!
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So often the catching is as flowing as the poem above. Really liked the river images. the silt and such.
Thanks, Jerry! The river seems to be a constant in my lines. I always prowl about it, breathe its surfaces, loving the moods possible in its skies and the imprints of its constant heaving sighing.
to catch a storm reaking havoc on a heart sinking…nice…enjoyeable read….i will flush one out you get ready to catch it…
Catching a storm and riding the wave, lovely imagery as always, from you nice take .
Thanks, Shanhendry! Yur kind words are part of the inspiration!
love catching those butterfly ideas, setting them to rest on a white canvas, letting them flutter their wings… well done.
Thanks, Petrina! I hope to see those ‘butterflies on white canvas’ soon!
I’m just loving the hissing muses. you’ve tumbled this out, and it’s full of the unlatched, every little couplet eloquent of the smell of poetry. I don’t think we catch them so much as they fly around our heads till they decide in their own good time to land, and its plain a whole flock of them came down at your place this morning.
‘…the hissing muses…’ it’s how I imagine them when they are displeased! Thanks as always, Joy! That ‘whole flock’ has been hovering about since I joined OSP, met you and a whole lot of talented poets! I’ve been scribbling couplets but only this one, so far, I guess because of the prompt, shaped up. I hope to learn more about rhyming and the sestina from you. But for now, it’s worth trying any form and awaiting how you read it!
“old keys do creak when cranked
to catch the lines unlatched.”
So true, so true. Wonderful writing, you really brought her to life.
Thanks, Jack! But it was your deceptively simple photo that prompted those lines!
Solid, lively work.
Thanks, Steve!