Auntie's Anti-Poems

There is the melancholy of endings and things to be left behind permeating these pieces. I feel as though I've just read the script of a eulogy for happiness, recited at its graveside and left pinned to its headstone. Tragically eloquent and deeply affecting.

I've perused them several times. Wonderful writing Auntie, though I might suggest a comma in L1 after midst.

Best to you as always,

live and be well - H

First you made me laugh (13 Ways of Looking at Wallace Stevens), and then you broke my heart (you know which one).

Thanks a lot, Auntie.

Thank you, fellow Lit-Nutters, for your comments re: #404. Here's a quick one on the same theme:


Immobile Phantom

Everybody has to be someplace,
even when there is nowhere to go,
devil-dumped on an unknown isle,
a guard-less Gitmo, a cage of space.
Even when there is no place to go,
reality’s hot – - and colder than snow.
An unguarded Gitmo, a spaceless cage
needs sunlight the same time as rain,
while reality burns more coldly than snow.
Fuzzy and vague as an angel’s face
and in need of sun as much as rain,
I cannot move, but I can’t remain.
Fuzzily vague, like an angel’s face –
an unknown devil held on an isle,
I cannot move, and I can’t remain, but
everybody’s got to be someplace.

Even though I read often, I rarely comment on your poetry, dear Aunt. I admire your work and occasionally amuse myself by trying to guess which well-known poet is hidden behind our dear Aunt's persona. I don't feel I have anything important to contribute here, nothing that the others haven't already said. So if I replied more often, I'd just be singing praises all the time.

Thank you kindly for sharing.

Regards,
DH

After I read your poem, Auntie, I couldn't help but think of Juliet when she says (I looked this up to be exact) to Romeo: "O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,/That monthly changes in her circled orb,/Lest that thy love prove likewise variable."

Though seasons and places may have their own intrinsic charm, the beauty of being with someone dear to us adds the wonderful thread of consistency, no matter where we find ourselves.

Beautiful poem, Auntie. For me it had a matter-of-fact tone that gave it much more strength than to ladden it with more emotional language.

Well, I had to google Gitmo, is it a well known word Stateside?

I love the repitition and more so the tinkering each time. The opening line, tinkered, then re-appearing at the end.

A cage of space, a spaceless cage.

Immediately resonant is ' I cannot move, but I can’t remain / I cannot move, and I can’t remain.

This may be following a poetic structure that I really should know. I don't know. But I know it is my favourite Auntie production to date.
JerryB

Thanks Lit-Nutters for your comments re: #408.

The structure is a "Pantoum" which is a good form to use for "practice." As the poetry columnist for the Writer's Digest wrote long ago, writing lines for a pantoum is similar to a piano student practicing scales. I choose the form for this topic because its prescribed repetition carries a circular effect, i.e., it ends up exactly where it starts.

Once you have the pattern for a pantoum, it's not difficult to write, provided that you haven't skipped a line or two (which of course happened to me in the first couple of go-arounds.) It doesn't necessarily have to be metered or have end rhyme-- just the prescribed pattern is enough.

So the whole thing is a metaphor of being stuck --an inability to move while simultaneously being unable to stay where one is. Hence the senseless burning snow, and the other images--you should excuse the last two syllables of the expression-- as "oxymoron."

Another term for the idea behind the double-edged cliché-- a rock and a hard place-- is "syzygy" -- a word that's as hard to spell as it is to pronounce.

"Gitmo" is an abbreviation for Guantanamo, a prison on the isle of Cuba, where once there, it's nigh impossible to leave. (I wasn't intending any political comment in the piece, just looking for a synonym for Devil's Island.)

Once again, I've 'splained too much. Thanks again for the feedback.

Auntie

Auntie, your 408 is a clean staccato in my ears, intentionally cold. Its enclosing form only adds to the anguish of someone in an impossible life situation. On a much smaller scale, it refers me to my own present condition. The form you chose to express the subject fits perfectly. But well, you're often just simply perfect. Plus, we ALWAYS learn so much from you. Thanks for your generous sharing, Auntie.

The Way It Used to Be

Winter is reliable – -
it doesn’t fool around,
doesn’t offer youthful promises
to be swiftly snatched away,
never teases us with thoughts
of newness, plenty, life.

That’s the old dependable
season for you. It covers
the sky with a dusky shroud,
and when it deigns
to grant a glimpse of sun,
the light is steely, strong:

neither a soft caress
nor a blazing blast.
The mat it lays
upon hardened earth
will crunch one day
and slosh the next,

or diabolically deny
traction, yet still step up
the gravity. It’s not defiance,
for winter stands
on its own solid ground:
what it wants is what you get.

Nice poem Auntie, but I'd be inclined to tweak and trim it a little. The last line of S1 has poor rhythm so you might try:

"newness, life or plenty."

You might consider adjusting the line break in S2:

"and when it deigns to grant
a glimpse of sun,"

S3 I'd be inclined to drop "hardened" as it's superflous in the face of "crunch... or slosh..."

In the last verse I'm not keen on, "step up the gravity" because it doesn't :D

try:

"or, diabolically,
deny traction.
It’s not defiance,
for winter stands
on its own solid ground:
what it wants is what you get."

I like the poem though, a reflective take on winter :)

Live and be well - H

Aunty, I have tried to reconcile the tense of the title (past) with the tense of the poem (present). I read this as a sutle comment on climate change (that winters are not like they used to be), but then why the present tense?

That aside, I enjoyed the poetic description, particularly S4 and getting stuck in snow (which rapidly turns to slush from the heat of spinning tires and, yes, gravity pulls the car deeper and deeper in the mud, which ends up on those trying to help push. That would have been a nice addition to this description.

Love the last line, the futility of trying to pretend everything is as usual (getting to work on time for one), when winter has full control over one's life using many of its devices.

Then of course we stop by woods and our view of winter changes to that of Mary Oliver, even as we are reminded of Frost and his little (quite observant) horse.

Thank you, Hawkman and firefangled for your comments. "Step up" -- to quicken or to increase the power of, intended as word play, the other meaning of "step."

It is possible to read the thing as a comment on climate change. Or not. The title comes from what young folks might hear from an old-timer, among whose ranks yours truly might belong much sooner than later. (To tell the truth, I recall that the winters of yesterday were really much more brutal than they seem in recent years.)

This particular "anti-poem" itself comes from cynicism and perversity, against the sentimentality of softly falling snow, sleigh bells, and the like, but most of all it was an attempt to fulfill a challenge (by yours fooly) to write about winter without the usual suspects: snow, ice, cold, wind, etc.

Like your take on the harshness of winter as a metaphor for a lament of lost youth/ the way we were, the grass was greener..........? acceptance perhaps. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. Reminds me of a Pink Floyd lyric ' hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way'. Now that's a fine line. And your poem also has many.

Always love your verse and this one particularly for all the reasons you mentioned yourself. "what it wants is what you get" is absolutely great.

Thank you JB and Bar for your comments. The ditty was going for irony -- the opening line that "tells" too much contradicts (intentionally) the final line, "what it wants is what you get," so winter is not really "reliable" at all.

That's my last word on what has turned out to be a fairly lame piece of banality.

Now you know why there hasn't been much verse-posting from yours fooly since August! Maybe I peaked here:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...ems-in-30-Days


Gee, I've been on the LitNut for hours! What's his name must be wondering where his supper is. And if that's not enough reason to log off, the ad on top of the page says "Click here to view your arrest record now!"


"We keep coming back and coming back to the real.” -- Wallace Stevens