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Loss

Two of my wife’s uncles have recently passed away. The first after suffering a series of debilitating strokes, the first of which occurred around five years ago. The second about a year after discovering stage four cancer in his throat and enduring debilitating surgeries. I plan eventually to write memorial poems for each of them.

As I reflected on what it must have been like for the families of these men, a metaphor formed in mind and I found myself writing this.

Loss

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

This is my 10th Petrarchan sonnet.

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The Rarest Gem

There is a women’s Christian group that meets at 7pm on Tuesdays at one of the coffeehouses I hang out at. They usually gather round a large meeting table near the table I tend to favor, so I’ll often find myself listening in on their discussions—Not because I’m interested or nosy so much as because I possess the unfortunate inability to tune anything out.

Six to ten women attend this meeting, bringing a thin blue book with a title something to do with living a wholesome life as a Christian woman. Each week they discuss what they’ve read and share stories about what’s going on in their lives, often giving one another advice on how to deal with this difficulty or that personal trauma. Considering all the personality types involved, it seems like they form a great emotional support group for one another.

About two weeks ago one of the women was visibly despondent throughout the discussion, so toward the end, after each of them had shared and discussed something from her week, they gently ganged up on her and got her to open up. She broke down into shuddering sobs as she attempted to explain what was going on with her. Turns out she was feeling overwhelmed and depressed by drama and chaos created by some of her close friends. Stuff that perhaps fewer men than women would understand or relate to.

This poem builds on some thoughts that formed in my head as they urged her to draw a line and demand that her friends respect certain boundaries.

The Rarest Gem

Peace of mind is a rare and precious gem,
  shot through with deep unblemished shades
   of autumn skies that never fade,
each facet polished to a cool aplomb.
It waits within the deepest, darkest clime
  to be unearthed from rock and clay
   and crafted in the light of day
by empathy and wisdom till it gleams.

   So we must choose our friends with utmost care,
for there are those with whom it can’t be trusted,
  who treat this jewel with disdain,
   who scuff it up with gall and shame
until it’s rendered void of all its luster
  and every thought is muddied with despair.

This is my 9th Petrarchan sonnet.

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The Bridge

My favorite metaphors are the ones that don’t tell you what they are. I know what this metaphor is, but would it really help you to appreciate the poem to know it before hand? Not sure, so I’ll wait until after. If you want to know, you can continue reading after the poem. If you don’t, then don’t read beyond the poem.

The Bridge

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

The bridge is the function of memory, the far shore and the city thereon is the past, the sea is the gap between then and now, and the fog is the effect of time and age on the process of memory. The lanes being closed have to do with the age of the bridge and the fact that traffic from the city travels only in one direction, toward the observer of the past. In my case the past—my childhood in particular—is a dark and dismal place full of anger, confusion, and thinking errors.

This is my 8th Petrarchan sonnet.

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Maybe this

I am realizing that writing free verse is an integral part of my writing structured verse. In fact, I’m noticing that when I fail to spend some time exploring free verse, my structured verse suffers miserably and my overall creative flow backs up like a plugged toilet. Not a pleasant sensation.

I stumbled across some notes in an old composition book tonight and decided to flush them out a bit.

Maybe this

Maybe this is what I must do
  read tangible silence
    let my mind work over
      stories fables histories
        discoveries metered lore

                     climb
                  down
               ladders of
            thought
         line by
      line

until at last she stands on

         something
            soft
               forgiving
                  easy

      and is lulled to rest
   in the roaring quiet of

                           contemplation

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Wordplay

I would say that my serious interest in poetry as a writer began in July of 2001. For this is when I embarked upon putting together a seven part poem consisting of terzanelles, which I titled “Fragments”. After this, I decided that I would dedicate the rest of my life to poetry, and after some casting about for ideas on how to get going, I decided I would begin by studying the ghazal for at least two years. This was just shy of twelve years ago now.

And what have I learned about poetry since then, in all this time? Well, for one thing I’ve learned that it is hard—very hard—to write what could objectively be considered “good” poetry. In fact, the more I learned about this art, the higher I raised my own standards, and the harder it got. Once in awhile I find myself reflecting on where I was 12 years ago and where I am today. I find myself wondering just what poetry is and how it could be defined, and what it is to me specifically. The specifics change on this regard, hopefully evolving, but there is a sort of vague and abstract definition of poetry that floats through my mind like an ever shifting cloud. One that dissipates into nothing whenever I try to use words to express it. That’s alright; this unsettled definition is for my own uses anyway.

But, I have at least developed a sense of what a poem is not, and for the first time in a while I found myself revisiting this notion.

Wordplay

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

This is my 6th Petrarchan sonnet.

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Stumble

This is written for someone who stumbled some years ago. The fall was severe enough that there was the very real possibility of never being able to recover and live a normal life. This is not the sort of fall that involves scraped hands and knees, but the kind that involves a severe lapse in judgment—A psycho-spiritual fall. But, over time, this person has shown everyone a willingness to grow that is beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. A new chapter now begins for this being, and we are all filled with hope and wish the absolute best.

Stumble

For someone with potential

A shadow stirred within the hollows of your heart
  and writhed amid the shallows of your mind;
  it fell across your visage—left you blind
to choices that would raise you up from out the dark
and set you on a course to apprehend rewards
  reserved for those whose spirits are aligned
  with empathy and wisdom intertwined—
And blinded thus you faltered, fell, and landed hard.

    But it takes light to cast the blackest shadow,
  and this is light that you have learned to see.
You’ve gotten up again despite the grief and shame
    and found you have a bright new path to follow.
  You’re wiser now and touched with empathy,
so you should never fail and fall so hard again.

This is my 5th Petrarchan sonnet.

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Refraction

Hermenegilda Cabrera, lovingly called Tiya Emmy by nearly everyone who knew her, passed away during the first week of March this year. She is my wife’s aunt, her mother’s sister. As she fell ill, I would find my wife crying uncontrollably as she read updates on her condition. And after she got the news that her suffering was over, she cried on and off for weeks. Even now I’ll sometimes find her crying.

Refraction

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

I know that Tiya Emmy’s passing has affected my wife at the deepest levels. But I also know there is more to it than this. Her mother and father are around the same age, and she feels that growing sense of dread all children must endure as their parents age. They are in good health, however, and we are thankful for this.

This is my 3rd Petrarchan sonnet. Still a bit challenging for me.

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The Boulder Climber

My “shift partner”, as they’re called where I now work, is an avid boulder climber. Now, these aren’t the boulders that might jump to mind when you mouth the word in your thoughts. Oh no, we’re not talking those waist-high gray things that might roll out onto the highway in the rain or those head-high bits of granite you might find near a stream bed. No—By “boulder” these particular climbers mean these great big lumps of stone that loom up over your head by as much as 50 feet.

Since my shift partner talks so much about boulder climbing during the wee hours of the night, I thought I’d try my hand at molding the little-known sport to a metaphor and see how that goes.

The Boulder Climber

She is the first to climb this route through life,
  to feel her way through all its nuances
  to where the summit slopes and vanishes
away from view above the concave cliff.
The way ahead is sheer—without relief;
  she reaches, probes, and feels for blemishes
  within the rock to serve as purchases
from which to make her way through bruise and chafe.

Patience is the key above all else
    to moving gracefully from hold to hold;
  she contemplates an overhang, then leaps
  to grab a ledge beyond her body’s reach;
    her feet swing free, but then she hooks a heel
and muscles past the crux to higher realms.

This is my 2nd Petrarchan sonnet. My first was part III of “Coming Together”, which was also a synthetic ode.

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Stirrings

The first four lines came to me in a flash the same day I learned of the terrible destruction and loss of life wrought in Japan on March 11, 2011 by one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded and its subsequent tsunami. Then nothing. Perhaps I was just stunned by the magnitude of it all, even from the relative comfort of 5000 plus miles away. But I’m trying to wrap up old ideas right now, so I figured it was time to do something with those four lines, for better or worse.

And so here we are, my 9th Shakespearean sonnet.

Stirrings

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

Nai No Kami is the name of the Japanese god (kami) of the earthquake, or at least one of them. Watatsumi, respectfully referred to as Ōwatatsumi, is one of the great kami of the sea.

There are actually four more seed lines inspired by this same tragic event. I was later able to flush them out into another sonnet form poem, which I titled “Aftermath”.

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Spark

This, my 5th synthetic ode, has proven itself a difficult thing to write. I’m not really sure why. I think maybe it has to do with the insights behind the content being somewhat beyond the reach of words—Of language.

Spark

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

The metaphor I’ve attempted to explore here is the coalescence of being and the spark of beingness.

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to rest

This is a complete rewrite of a ghazal written in November of 2002. For some reason, I titled that original ghazal “*poof*”. Yes, with the asterisks. Having entered every title of every poem I’ve written in my adult life into a database, I can safely point out that this is the only poem I have ever titled in such a manner. I must have been feeling apathetic the day I completed the original. I’m not making “*poof*” available here because it’s really not worth sharing.

This rewrite extends the ghazal by one more couplet and the meter by two feet. It extends the rhyme to include partial consonance while keeping the radiff (or refrain) and it trades the use of my pen-name for allusion to one of its meanings in the final couplet. And, of course, it is now something I feel more comfortable sharing with my readers.

to rest

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

Since the original has been completely rewritten, this becomes my 134th ghazal.