Some of my writings! To start it will likely just be poems I’m not trying to submit to litmags. I will explain some of them in the way often frowned upon for poetry either because:
1) it supposedly kills the poem in the way explaining a joke can kill the joke, or 2) poetry is supposed to be full of imagery and open to personal interpretation.
I don’t entirely disagree with these in some cases. But in the first case, I still want a joke explained if I don’t get it. That’s only if getting the explanation doesn’t ruin it for someone else in an actual in-person conversation. You don’t have to read the explanations here if you’d rather interpret it for yourself. I’ve put borders around the poems so you can find them easily. However, many of my poems contain random trivia or information that may not be common knowledge. I’d rather make that information available and allow the poem to be understood.
That leads into the second case, which is that my poetry is often not the type with lots of imagery that’s more feeling-based and open to personal interpretation. There are definitely ambiguities. There are definitely metaphors and double meanings. But these are often rooted in facts or should be interpretated with understanding of their relevant context.
Without further adieu or even more excessive explanation of my explanations, I’ll start with two haikus. Mostly because I’m about to write a blog post about the first. The second is about the traditional haiku form, which is supposed to be more of the imagery heavy kind and have some sort of seasonal marker in it. The “cut” referred to is where the poem takes some kind of unexpected turn. While I usually don’t do the imagery heavy thing, I pretty much always do the “cut” part.
Grown Ups
Be diplomatic
thoughtful, careful, and mature
not neutral or false.
Escaping Haikus
Traditional ones
have a "cut" and show season.
I'm Springing this one.
I’m adding a trio of sonnets as well, so there will be more than a couple of haikus here, ha.
A Trio of Sonnets About Motherhood and Camping:
Heads, Shoulders, Needs and ‘Toes
When my decrepit body slow to rise,
Is sought so earnestly by children’s need,
Then rise it does to the occasion’s size;
For them but tell me how much I must bleed;
I made them so I must for them provide,
Though in the moment this form doth protest;
Their faith in me, too large, can’t be denied,
Not since the time they first drank at my breast;
They make me better than I elsewise am,
Still only they could move me with their cries,
To run to them or even give a damn,
When I must from my netted hammock rise;
Bloodsuckers drain me dry, my fears have fled,
If comfort I can give for their bonk’d heads.
Happy Campers
A pound of flesh is scratched off with the blood,
Expected as the mom mosquitoes’ goal;
I knew the bargain stepping in that mud,
Now fifty bites itch from forehead to sole;
And yet it truly is my children’s due,
That I should brave Ma Nature for their sake,
The anti-natalists might call it too,
For having made kids suffer my mistake;
No child of mine will suffer that old claim,
That their conception was mere accident,
Or that fire ants undermine the flame,
Of s’more passion for life lovingly spent;
True every weekend’s not spent in this way,
My blood is theirs, though, every single day.
Burnout
Okay, I lied; my flame has guttered out,
From time to time I shed no light at all,
And yet before I yield my drowning bout,
I pass what flame persists to those on call;
Whether their Dad or village that remains,
I have to plan to drown and die a while,
I have to cook the food before it rains,
Like quests in Zelda with no inn for miles;
Sometimes I find no fairies to revive,
Full-hearted dedication to my role,
But we will live if we do not quite thrive,
Is love’s small flame enough to feed their souls?
The love’s not small, but I still sometimes am;
Yet lucky for good friends who help our fam.
The Knot-A-Verse : (K/not)(_/-)(A/_/-/‘/Verse) 