Well, seems that Bryce has dropped the ball AND the posting spirit, so I'll just insert another recent poem. Not sure if this is going into my chapbook of formals, even though it does loosely qualify as a sonnet.
~~Poet
By Wind
I watched her go today on a black steed
until she disappeared in tears to the place
where horse lovers go, I suppose. She raced
fast and free, skimming with October speed
over the fields like one wind-driven leaf
on a sidewalk. I was amazed at her grace,
yet puzzled by her mournful steeplechase.
It bothered me. What could make her face bleed
like that? It wasn't the wind, or so I thought
until I understood how she could drown
in the satisfaction of an autumn day.
By wind, her dreams were leaves that were simply caught
by a horse that raked the hallowed ground
and galloped skyward like a thoroughbred of grace.
~~Poet
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
A note, and poem, from Poet
Well, people, it's been a long time since my last post. But Bryce gave me permission to peek in, so I thought I would catch you up on what I have been up to. I've really been working on the formals, and am pretty close to having a chapbook filled with nothing but sonnets, sestinas, haiku, ballads, and the like. For tonight, in the spirit of night itself, I'll post this pantoum. Quite the elusive and taxing form, but great fun nonetheless. I hope everyone is well, and as always, healthy nouns and verbs to all!
Sleepwalkers
Rising from white linen architectures,
Silent pilgrims pace these same paths, starlit
Pawns of God's nocturnal folly. Figures
Tracing constellations in the carpet,
Silent pilgrims pace these same paths, starlit
Journeys reproduced by rote. Tonight they're
Tracing constellations in the carpet,
Destinations met with a traveler's
Journey reproduced by rote. Tonight their
Faith is rewarded through reaching extraordinary
Destinations. Met with a traveler's
Moon, their faces float like luminaries.
Faith is rewarded through reaching. Extraordinary
Pawns of God's nocturnal folly, figured
Moon faces float like luminaries
Rising from white linen architectures.
~~ Poet
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Where I am going, where I have been (with apologies to Joyce)
I suppose a re-introduction is in order, so my first post will be a repost from my previous blog. This pretty well sums up the "where I have been" part. We'll get to the "where I am going" portion a little bit later.
The Weekend
There were four of us. We'd gone to the same high school but had since drifted in different directions, only to return to our hometown and work at the same store for the summer. Yeah, you could say we were close. Close enough and old enough to know our time together was measured.
One of us, Gary, had a girlfriend who lived in St. Louis, about two-hundred miles to the south. It was decided, with the wisdom of a 2 a.m. breakfast conference after a night of illegal drinking, that we would do the road trip thing. Gary's girlfriend would line up three of her friends and we would make a weekend out of it.
We begged until we bled so we could all get off the work schedule. I drove the best car (according to the group) a 1972 Nova replete with the latest sound system and a CB radio. That, it was decided, made me the official driver for our fearsome foursome. Then off we went, four badasses who OWNED Highway 61 for an afternoon.
One day, while the rest of our octet was visiting the zoo, I took advantage of my chauffeur status and asked my date if she wanted to go for a drive. My date, as it turned out, was an avid reader. So what does a twenty-year old guy with a cute brunette who likes to read do? Why, he takes her to the bookstore of her choice, of course.
Even though I had been an editor for the school paper, my interest in words had never progressed from the mechanical to the magical. But she had been wanting King's "The Shining," so I bought it for her. And that's when my life changed. Being one of those twenty-year old guys with a cute brunette, and wanting to impress the hell out of her, I picked up the latest issue of The Paris Review. Anything French turns the girls on, right?
The cute brunette stayed behind in St. Louis, never to be seen again, but the magazine came home with me. One night, I started to read it and came across an interview with some lady named Joyce Carol Oates. One passage rang my bell. Big time. During the interview, Joyce was asked about writing and moods. Her verbatim response was as follows...
"If art is, as I believe it to be, a genuinely transcendental function--a means by which we rise out of limited, parochial states of mind--then it should not matter very much what states of mind or emotion we are in."
Whoa.
I fell in love with an author named Joyce Carol Oates that evening. I devoured everything she wrote, shared her successes, and cursed each time she was denied the Pulitzer. Sure, she had a ton of awards, but to me Joyce Carol Oates was the Susan Lucci of the Pulitzers.
I gradually lost interest in the breakfast conferences and nights of drinking. I wanted to know more about this thing called writing, this art that existed above and beyond the emotions and states of mind that a twenty-year old kid was wrestling with. I wanted to be just like Joyce.
I know I'll never be able to approximate the beauty of this lady's body of work, but I would like to go on the record and thank her for revealing what can be gleaned from a grotto of perfect nouns.
Lastly? There's another brunette I need to mention here. I hope life has treated her fairly and I hope she has continued in her love of literature. To this woman, a woman who once, as a young girl, convinced a twenty-year old boy in a red Nova to drive to a bookstore, I say only this...
Thank you.
I promised to cover "where I am going," so here goes. Most of my posts will cover this craft we call writing. My take on it, anyway. I'll also throw some flash fiction around, and a guy named Poet will occasionally throw some of his verses out there. Those familiar with my previous blog will remember how unpredictable that guy can be.
I won't keep a regular schedule, nor can I promise a regular trip through the blogosphere on my part. For me, I suppose this blog is really a journal of sorts, a way of capturing where I am at and where I need to go. I'll often quote a guy named Ernest Hemingway, as I am fond of his work.
That being said, here's a quote from Papa that I find very true.
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
So let the bloodletting commence...
Peace and love~~
Bryce
The Weekend
There were four of us. We'd gone to the same high school but had since drifted in different directions, only to return to our hometown and work at the same store for the summer. Yeah, you could say we were close. Close enough and old enough to know our time together was measured.
One of us, Gary, had a girlfriend who lived in St. Louis, about two-hundred miles to the south. It was decided, with the wisdom of a 2 a.m. breakfast conference after a night of illegal drinking, that we would do the road trip thing. Gary's girlfriend would line up three of her friends and we would make a weekend out of it.
We begged until we bled so we could all get off the work schedule. I drove the best car (according to the group) a 1972 Nova replete with the latest sound system and a CB radio. That, it was decided, made me the official driver for our fearsome foursome. Then off we went, four badasses who OWNED Highway 61 for an afternoon.
One day, while the rest of our octet was visiting the zoo, I took advantage of my chauffeur status and asked my date if she wanted to go for a drive. My date, as it turned out, was an avid reader. So what does a twenty-year old guy with a cute brunette who likes to read do? Why, he takes her to the bookstore of her choice, of course.
Even though I had been an editor for the school paper, my interest in words had never progressed from the mechanical to the magical. But she had been wanting King's "The Shining," so I bought it for her. And that's when my life changed. Being one of those twenty-year old guys with a cute brunette, and wanting to impress the hell out of her, I picked up the latest issue of The Paris Review. Anything French turns the girls on, right?
The cute brunette stayed behind in St. Louis, never to be seen again, but the magazine came home with me. One night, I started to read it and came across an interview with some lady named Joyce Carol Oates. One passage rang my bell. Big time. During the interview, Joyce was asked about writing and moods. Her verbatim response was as follows...
"If art is, as I believe it to be, a genuinely transcendental function--a means by which we rise out of limited, parochial states of mind--then it should not matter very much what states of mind or emotion we are in."
Whoa.
I fell in love with an author named Joyce Carol Oates that evening. I devoured everything she wrote, shared her successes, and cursed each time she was denied the Pulitzer. Sure, she had a ton of awards, but to me Joyce Carol Oates was the Susan Lucci of the Pulitzers.
I gradually lost interest in the breakfast conferences and nights of drinking. I wanted to know more about this thing called writing, this art that existed above and beyond the emotions and states of mind that a twenty-year old kid was wrestling with. I wanted to be just like Joyce.
I know I'll never be able to approximate the beauty of this lady's body of work, but I would like to go on the record and thank her for revealing what can be gleaned from a grotto of perfect nouns.
Lastly? There's another brunette I need to mention here. I hope life has treated her fairly and I hope she has continued in her love of literature. To this woman, a woman who once, as a young girl, convinced a twenty-year old boy in a red Nova to drive to a bookstore, I say only this...
Thank you.
I promised to cover "where I am going," so here goes. Most of my posts will cover this craft we call writing. My take on it, anyway. I'll also throw some flash fiction around, and a guy named Poet will occasionally throw some of his verses out there. Those familiar with my previous blog will remember how unpredictable that guy can be.
I won't keep a regular schedule, nor can I promise a regular trip through the blogosphere on my part. For me, I suppose this blog is really a journal of sorts, a way of capturing where I am at and where I need to go. I'll often quote a guy named Ernest Hemingway, as I am fond of his work.
That being said, here's a quote from Papa that I find very true.
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
So let the bloodletting commence...
Peace and love~~
Bryce
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)