Choose a Word and Write a Poem or a Prose Text about it.

I got the idea for this thread from The White Book by the South Korean writer Han Kang. Han Kang made a list of several white things and wrote a text about each item. The book is beautiful. It is an exercise in poetic prose. Its intense, deep and simple at the same time because of the associations and memories of the author. Although some of the texts comprise just a few lines long, they hit the mark.

I´ll start with the word "house".

House is a word that conveys to me a sense of security, stability and coziness. And this though my family, for various reasons, was always on the move. We lived sometimes in houses, sometimes in pensions, later in São Paulo in apartments. I always thought: when I am grown up I´ll stay all my life in the same dwelling. It´s true that I stayed quite a long time in each apartment. But I changed residence some times and I intend soon to be moving again.

"Home"

"Home", for me, will always be a surreal abstract
My Grandfather's house in NW Seattle in my youth
Far removed from these times, my twilight years,

Had upon my psyche perhaps the greatest impact
Allowed a certain freedom to roam seeking truth
My awareness blossomed in three distinct spheres:

"Home", with four siblings, Father, Mother was family
Slightly dysfunctional (got worse every year) a bit
Hard to navigate at times which gave me two escapes -

School - no passion there; 1st and 2nd grade really
A waste of time except for the fact that I must admit
Books now held more than pictures of immutable shapes

Books of fantasy and encyclopedic knowledge gave
Rise to a place I could retreat when the telly was
Parentally domineered and I could literally disappear

But my favorite times were when I roamed. I crave
The woods, the gullies, the shores of Carkeek, 'twas
A different time, I know, but the freedom was sheer

Joy to be away from the fallout that our nuclear fold
Subjected me to, notwithstanding the Cold War era
Which tortures my impressible mind to this very day

And then we moved, and moved, and... truth be it told
I miss the waves, skunk cabbage, and nettles, etcetera
Looking back I see my "home" through a certain naiveté

8/4/2022

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor

Delightful poem: "Books of fantasy and encyclopedic knowledge gave/Rise to a place I could retreat when the telly was/Parentally domineered and I could literally disappear.(lol,snif!)

Scraps of Childhood

Through the mist

A big and dark house

with cellar

Animals, animals, animals, animals

immense white fur balls, napping on the lawn

my yellow cat Jeremias

(who choose to stay when we went away)
tortoises, all wandering away

Grandfather giving me a toy tortoise

"This one won´t go away". It didn´t.

Staunch rejection of plastic dolls

A toy baby car filled with plushies

until I capitulated to Lili, the blond girl

who was as big as a four year old.

When I discovered books,

reading became the extension of breathing,

I wasn´t much at home anymore.

I was always traveling inside a book.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Danik 2016

Scraps of Childhood

Through the mist

A big and dark house

with cellar

Animals, animals, animals, animals

immense white fur balls, napping on the lawn

my yellow cat Jeremias

(who choose to stay when we went away)
tortoises, all wandering away

Grandfather giving me a toy tortoise

"This one won´t go away". It didn´t.

Staunch rejection of plastic dolls

A toy baby car filled with plushies

until I capitulated to Lili, the blond girl

who was as big as a four year old.

When I discovered books,

reading became the extension of breathing,

I wasn´t much at home anymore.

I was always traveling inside a book.

---

... Wonderful recollection poem :)

the room

my mother and father smoked - I
remember crawling beneath the smog
line in the front room - the room with
the telly where my siblings and I watched
cartoons and superman, and Disney,
and Ed Sullivan with my parents -
the room with the baby grand piano
that my Grandmother must have
played, because no one else ever did,
except when we put our train set on top
- the room where the Christmas
tree was put up and decorated each
season with ancient delicate colorful
ornaments, most likely heirlooms
from family past - the room that had
leather bound encyclopedias (1953)
where I discovered dinosaurs ! and
sets of similarly bound books for children
including fairy tales - the room with the
sofa where my year younger brother and
I bickered and he lost his temper and left,
returning with a kitchen knife... leaving
a 6.5 cm cut (now scar) between my thumb
and index finger from fending him off
- the room with a closet where one could
hide snuggled next to a mink stole coat
and suits and overcoats - the room which
adjoined the dining room where mother
would serve wonderful dinners of English
fare on the dining table that doubled as
a platform for coloring books (one with
dinosaurs !) and playing with Mr. Potato
Head and Cootie Bug - the room where we
had an ant farm for a time before we moved

8/5/2022

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor

Loved this poem! :) Will write my next poem tomorrow morning, because in the mornings my head is clearer. (Got in late today, because I had to go out in the morning).

My next word is "city"

My city

Just a spot in the universe of cities
(or among the cities of the universe)
But not so a tiny spot neither.
It spreads horizontally
with its millions of inhabitants, cars, disasters
with its eternal glee and misery
its scanty leaves of grass
its uneven streets
habited by ever increasing streams of homeless.

But my city also spreads vertically.
Its roots go back to 1500 and something
when a group of Jesuits
coming up from the seaside
inadvertently built
its first school,
separating Indian kids
from their families.

Since then São Paulo
has become multilayered city
with each layer trying to erase
the ones that came before and
persist in adhering to memory.
Where is that bar,
that used to be here?
Where my favorite library?
Where is the cinema I
used to visit with my friends?
Sorry, they don´t exist
anymore.
Now you have here
a new bank, a theater
and lots of skyscrapers
because the city is eager to enclose
its million of inhabitants in
10 km² residences.

Thus, the city that never sleeps
is also condemned
never to find its
definitive form.
Not so firmly rooted
to its past,
its tentacles project
into a future
that, everlastingly changing,
never comes to rest
in its present.

Wonderful poem... a vibrant city !

I too must delay for a time... so busy just now.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor

Thanks, tailor! I know, it´s Sunday! Have a nice day!

catacrostic

cute fur ball curled head to toes when at rest
attacks my naked feet when I try to slumber
tonight will be another day: wearing slippers

8/9/2022

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor

AAAIII! For cats their humans probably appear as outsized mammas (incomplete though, without fur and without milk) and gigantic playthings.

Same word!

Cat
I can´t write poems
about a cat,
because the cat
is a poem in itself
conceived on a sunny day.

A cat is a proof
of nature´s sense of humor
tinged with airs
of lost grandeur.
The "domestic tiger"
reminisces of wilder spheres,
while using ones heart
as his favorite pillow.

really loved your CAT poem Danik.
It put a smile on my face haha :biggrin5:
and talking about smiles...

laughter tickles
your thoughts
that never believe
you're at fault
wrong is
spoilt

a smile takes
you to an isle
where
everything is a little
while
but then
it simply is
a small mile till
it tiptoes
to a fabulous style
life
that never expires
and
out of date is fired!

Two wonderful poems :)

laughter

one would find me quite dour at first glance
unless I was in that rarified, perchance,
moment of a giggle or guffaw come froth
with kindred spirits cut from the same cloth
familiarities with whom I could confide -
you see, I'm always laughing on the inside

8/10/2022

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tailor STATELY

catacrostic

cute fur ball curled head to toes when at rest
attacks my naked feet when I try to slumber
tonight will be another day: wearing slippers

8/9/2022

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor

---

loving this piece tailor much enjoyed! :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tailor STATELY

Two wonderful poems :)

laughter

one would find me quite dour at first glance
unless I was in that rarified, perchance,
moment of a giggle or guffaw come froth
with kindred spirits cut from the same cloth
familiarities with whom I could confide -
you see, I'm always laughing on the inside

8/10/2022

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor

---

much enjoyed tailor this one is superb!
thank you for posting! :)

Loved this two poems on laughter. I choose the same word

Laughter

Ripples of freedom
Detain pain
or conquer it altogether.