Critiquing The Debate in #Poetry #OctPoWriMo

The presidential debate Sunday night was one unlike we have ever seen before, according to most of the talking heads. Personally, it seemed a lot like many I have seen: lots fuzzy facts flying, insulting comments and questionable things being said – typical really. And no matter which candidate you support you would not be being truthful if you disagree on that.

I thought that I would comment on something that I rarely ever comment on using OctPoWriMo’s prompt “lively” to express my overall thoughts on the debate and campaigns in general.

A lively conversation
Intense words exchanged
How much truth
How much false
Time will tell

Intense words exchanged
Between two opponents
Rhetoric flying wildly

How much truth
Was mixed in with
Statistics and party-lines

How much false
Things contorted, distorted
Morphed into false-reality

Time will tell
What we all really know
The truth and citizens are the real casualties

Written in the trimeric form.

The Void #OctPoWriMo

Day two of OctPoWriMo.

 

Emptiness fills her soul,

feelings of sadness well up,

wondering what there could be,

what might fill the void?

 

Feelings of sadness well up,

thinking of what once was,

but never again would be .

 

Wondering what there could be,

brought no relief from her pain,

her inner isolation.

 

What might fill the void,

the vast emptiness that encompassed her now?

Nothing …

Feeling Melancholy: a trimeric poem #OctPoWriMo

air gripped by a crisp dampness
the autumn raindrops fall melodically
perfect night for a lunt with the old hound
when I wore a younger man’s clothes

the autumn raindrops fall melodically
playing a song of sweet reminisce
images flicker of days now long gone

perfect night for a lunt with the old hound
a windcap on my pipe, army field jacket on my back
the pair keeping tobacco and pipeman dry

when I wore a younger man’s clothes
that’s what I would be doing this hour
now an old man who only dreams of what might’ve been

Though I’ve bot looked, I doubt this goes with the prompt for today at OctPoWriMo. But I’m linking it anyway ;0)

A Perfect Day #OctPoWriMo

The 15th day of OctPoWriMo brings us the thought of a perfect day: no limits, nothing out of bounds, what would your day be like? I pondered on this idea for quite a while, with many ideas playing around in my head. When I finally set out to write I thought I would use the trimeric form … but the best laid plans … and all that jazz.

As I wrote the story began to unfold in front of me, going to a different “day” and events than I’d planned. The trimeric I’d planned on using morphed into, something else: a quadmetric maybe, a whole new poetry form? Probably just a happy accident, as I’m pretty happy with the end-result.

The perfect day for me: what would it be?
I’d want my father back for a day;
There’s so much I’d like to say.
There’s maybe more I’d ask him.
Would that really be a perfect day?

I’d want my father back for a day
Nearly 40 years since he passed
Three quarters of my life he missed

There’s so much I’d like to say,
Tell him all about my life,
My kids, his grandson, and my wife.

There’s maybe more I’d ask him,
So much of what I have is faded memory.
And would he be proud of me?

Would that really be a perfect day?
Because I don’t know what we’d say.
What I have now I will treasure; forget “what ifs” forever.

My Favorite Color #OctPoWriMo

Colors mean a lot to us, though I don’t think we often think about it. Today’s prompt for OctPoWro brought that that back to my mind.

If ask any of my kids, my wife, even my grandson, they will all tell you my favorite color is orange. And it has been since – well, before I knew it was.

Since I was a child
My favorite color was orange
For a while I thought it was blue
But I realized I was wrong as I grew

My favorite color was orange
Even though it wasn’t a popular choice
And certainly not the favorite of other boys

For a while I thought it was blue
And it took me many years to admit
That orange was really it

But I realized I was wrong as I grew
Papaw’s trucks were always orange
It seem this color had appeal to him too

Looking back on find memories from my childhood, I remember my Papaw always had a truck; I can only remember him not having one during the last few years of his life.

The first one I remember was an orange GMC Sierra with a “three on the tree” (three speed manual transmission with the gearshift on the steering column). I loved that truck! In fact I loved it so much that for Christmas that year he and Granny bought me a Tonka truck exactly like it (except for the white cab-roof on my toy); I still have that truck locked away safely today. Every truck he had was a shade of orange; somethings he’d settle for a more red-looking color, but it was still orange.

In the mid-nineties I bought my first truck: a 1971 Chevy C-10 long box; the cousin to the truck Papaw owned and I loved so much. I even began to carry on his tradition of naming the truck. He always called his Betsy if I remember right; this truck was now-and-forevermore The Orange Blossom Special, or “Blossom” for short.

I chose to write this using the trimeric form because of its versatility and lends itself so well with prose, in my opinion at least. I was tempted to go on with more stanzas but didn’t want the poem to become too long; the post’s overall length is more than I’d intended to start with. 

The Rocking Chair #OctPoWriMo #poetry

Today I continue with day 2 of 31 days/31 poems for OctPoWriMo. The prompt suggestion for today was to take a scene from a movie and compose a poem; you can read the details HERE if you’d like.

Well, a particular scene from a particular movie immediately popped into my head. But I thought surely there must be a better scene/movie to use as my subject so I pondered upon it all morning. When the initial idea wouldn’t leave – and started writing itself in my head – I gave in and went with it.

I headed to my “thinking spot” (on my screened in deck) with pipe and coffee to put together the poem. I immediately decided to use the trimeric form and, after some wordsmithing, I finally had my poem, inspired by the closing scene from The Sons of Katie Elder. 

The old rocking chair
set into motion by his burly hand
void of anything but memories
as it silently moves

set into motion by his burly hand
many events he’d rather not have
to wear on his soul

void of anything but memories
hope now rekindled inside
learning about Kate

as it silently moves
this newfound hope whispers
maybe he can be the man she portrayed

And today was much better than yesterday for creative thinking, if you read yesterday’s post; the rain drove the racket away. 🙂

Trimeric \tri-(meh)-rik\ n: a four stanza poem in which the first stanza has four lines and the last three stanzas have three lines each, with the first line of each repeating the respective line of the first stanza.

The sequence of lines, then, is

abcd, b – -, c – -, d – -.

Small: a trimeric #poem

As I was browsing my blog feed this evening my interest was peaked by a prompt I saw; the word is small for this prompt from A Prompt Each Day. I immediately had an idea for this word and began to type away, planning to compose a haiku about my thought. Well, my thought was to big -ironic, I know – for a haiku so I write a trimeric poem instead.

from high above an acorn falls
finding a resting place
in a small crack in the ground
its roots soon will reach deeply down

finding a resting place
in the cool shade
a smile envelopes my face

in a small crack in the ground
my keys slip from my pocket
where they’ll never be found

its roots soon will reach deeply down
taking my keys far below
where man will never go

For those not familiar with this style of poetry I include the following information:

Trimeric \tri-(meh)-rik\ n: a four stanza poem in which the first stanza has four lines and the last three stanzas have three lines each, with the first line of each repeating the respective line of the first stanza.

The sequence of lines, then, is

abcd, b – -, c – -, d – -.

Seasons: a trimeric #poem

While browsing my blog feed this morning I came across a new-to-me poetry form called a trimeric. The style intrigued me so I thought I’d give it a go. (You can read more about this style HERE where I found it.)

The seasons change
Swinging to and fro
Crossing the spectrum
Wonder how it’ll go?

Swinging to and fro
Temperatures, humidity from
Very high or low

Crossing the spectrum
Winter freezes my bones
In summer I nearly smother

Wonder how it’ll go?
Forecasters seem to guess
Arthritis points towards a mess

The theme of the poem was inspired by prompt #83 from A Week for Writing, which is a flash prompt, limited to 50 words. I missed that limit initially and had to rewrite my poem to get it to 50 words from the original 67, not an easy thing for me but fun none the less!