shakespearean sonnet still under construction

my heart has never fit well in a box,
and so i can't believe that you would try
to put it within walls and behind locks,
to chain it down so that it cannot fly.

i cannot bring myself to love halfway:
if you step back i'll only step back more
and take back all those things you made me say
and run and not stop til i'm past the door.

a love with rules is not a love at all;
the heart that holds back only speaks in lies.
you've spun your sugar to keep me enthralled,
but everywhere i turn there now are flies.

and then you say you'd like to still be friends.
do i seem like a girl who can pretend?

turnover 'ku

listen: there's the lock.
someone new is turning now
that old key, once yours.

this sonnet still under construction no longer under construction

if you're really going to leave me, give back that night
that we spent on top of the old hotel exploring.
give back that rush in my heart from the running
when we saw those men coming with flashlights.
give back my kisses, give back the bright
stars i plucked from my eyes and made to run rings
around your heart. don't you dare tell me things
in a week or two will all be alright.
i still have to live here. i'll still be here
tomorrow when i still have no job
a sink still full of dishes, still have to pay
rent in two weeks. you're not worth my sobs,
but still i will weep over your jealous fears
and the love i'd been planting to grow, now decayed.

Writing Exercise: A Translitic

Taken from "In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop" by Steve Kowit. Steve, you're a gentleman.

A translitic is a poem "translated" from a foreign language by paying attention not to the meaning of the words but to their sounds. The poet uses as a guide whatever homonymic associations come to mind. So a line like "Garni vers un plus immortel" (from a pom by Jules Laforgue) might vaguely sound like "Garnish worst of plush immortals" or "Carnivore's impulsion or tells" or "Carny verse unplugs the mortals." Needless to say, it is easier to use a poem in a language you don't know. You can stick close to your first reading or, in later drafts, simply use what you have as a springboard and go as far afield of the original poem as you wish, making the final poem entirely your own.

Clair de Lune by Paul Verlaine:
Votre ame est une paysage choisi
Que vont charmants masques et bergamasques,
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs deguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune,
Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire a leur bonheur
Et leur chansons se mele au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rever les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau
Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.

Draft one: Clear the moon
Votives aim on a passage choosy.
Cave on charming masks at burger-masks.
Jews on Duluth aid on sunny quasi
Priests sew lures to get someone fantastic.

To a chanting surly mole manure,
Love vainquishes at the opportune vine
Ill in palor, the choir a lure debonaire
A lure chases the miles to clear the moon.

All calm, clear the moon irrisistable,
Keys forever the rustle in the air
Asian gloater days toss the shadow
The grand shadow, svelt, part me the mob.

Draft two: Clear the moon
Choose your passage. Take candles
and carve a mask out of your face.
Other people in other places
use sunny lies to lure you in.

Chant on your passage to become less surly
Leave your love hanging on the vine.
Let not the ill pallor of your newly-carved face
Chase your song off its path to clear the moon.

All is calm and clear. The moon cannot resist
Dropping keys through the air for you to find
Do not let pride make you lose your shadow
When you’ve no shadow you’ll be lost in the mob.

DRAFT THREE: CLEAR THE MOON!
Choose your passage and take along candles.
Carve a new mask out of your old face.
Remember that others with foreign ways
may use sunny lies to lure you out of place.

Chant songs loudly to lift your spirits.
Leave your love hanging on every vine.
Draw strength from the beauty of your new-carved face
and sing your song high to clear the moon.

The clear, calm moon cannot resist
Dropping keys for you to find in the air
Only in her light can you see your true shadow
and be a single flame in a pitch-black world.

wet pussy

AND NOW FOR PICTURES OF FELINES AND WATER.















YOU'RE WELCOME.

apologies

I'd like to go ahead and let the whole world know that I know I'm not writing good poetry right now. But I'm writing, you see, and really excited about it, so I'm just throwing it out there. Here in a few days I'll get something I'll proud of and delete the crud to make room for it. Oh, by the way: I'm writing again. Yipee!

italian sonnet to nameless

i have been caught collecting coffee spoons
trying to slurp the drips before they dry
while i could spend entire afternoons
drinking in the oceans in your eyes.

i'm known to go out humming battle tunes
prepared for war with no real reason why
but your sweet kisses cancel out all wounds
and in your arms i have no cause to cry.

going through motions of living my life
i play games instead of doing what's real.
i know you know my doubts that love is true.
i want to love but fear to take a dive.
this favor i'm asking might seem surreal:
but would you let me practice loving you?

italian sonnet to self

O Self! Just know that I have loved you all
the while. And though I know at times it seems
that I should bust apart at all my seams
my love for you, my self, helps me stand tall.

One finds, in life, one lacks the wherewithall
sometimes to hold on tight to one's own dreams
But I have found that love for self redeems
oneself, emboldening one through the squalls.

Now some might like for us to live in doubt.
Negate self-worth, rely on them alone
and their approval for our happiness.
I say to you: Naysayers? Cast them out
Know that your heart has always been your own
Call up the love that's always been your best.