Poem 106: Beach walk

Hello everyone. I thought as a final posting for the year I would post a poem! It has nothing to do with the New or Old Year!

The form of the poem is a Sestina. It is a form used in some French poetry, and I find it quite hard to write. Anyway, I thought I would give it a go!

I battle long and empty beach.
I fight against the wind.
White manes of horses crash
to shore in wild spray.
My thoughts are tangled all adrift
and drown in angry waves.

I cannot hear for noise of waves
the calls of birds on beach.
They fight to fly, are cast adrift
as victims of the wind.
Their wings are torn like salted spray
as on the dunes they crash.

I long for calm as waters crash;
I’ll quiet the seething waves.
The sanded, salted, pitting spray
face-stings my walk on beach.
Christ calmed a storm, Christ calmed the wind;
Why set my mind adrift?

A fisher’s boat was tossed adrift
and pummelled in a crash.
Yet none about, no voice in wind,
no drownings in the waves.
Just one abandoned boat on beach
left to sand and spray.

The storm intensifies its spray,
the boat is freed adrift,
the sand blows mad along the beach,
the skies unleash its crash.
Waves no longer follow waves
but roil in the wind.

At last a blue patch in the wind;
less biting of the spray;
a quietening of deafening waves.
My mind unbound adrift.
My thoughts are stilled, though whitecaps crash,
and peace returns to beach.

My thoughts the wind released adrift.
Thoughts spray as ordered breakers crash.
Peace now waves goodbye to storm on empty beach.

To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.

Poem 18b: Four relatively famous shadormas

(A note of explanation: I had/have decided to post a poem on the first of each month written in a particular poetic form. Any poem after that first posting throughout that month will use that form. For the earlier months of this year, the forms were chosen at random. For February it is the shadorma. The shadorma is an invented poetic form that does not work in English. Everything in English has “syllables” and simply to divide a “poem” into a set number of syllables per line is a nonsense.

My contribution to this ridiculous form is to point out that the syllabic pattern was widely used even before the idiot who invented it invented it. The form is 3/5/3/3/7/5 per stanza. Look who used it! WOW! I publish these four poems to highlight the sheer nonsense of the form. I won’t post any more poems this month as I think the selected form is a load of crapulent garbage. Life is always a learning curve.)

By Jesus

Our Father,
Which art in heaven
Hallowed be
Thy Name. Thy
Kingdom come Thy will be done
On earth as it is

In heaven.

By Abraham Lincoln

Four score and
seven years ago
our fathers
brought forth, u-
pon this continent, a new
nation, conceived in

liberty,
and dedicated
to the pro-
position
that “all men are created
equal.” – – –

As used by Marie Curie

One two three
Four five six seven
Eight nine ten
Eleven
Twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen
Sixteen seventeen

As used by Jane Austen

A B C
D E F G H
I J K
L M N
O P Q R S T U
V W X

YZ.

Poem 18A: Shadorma’s almost dance

(By way of explanation: I have decided to post on the first of each month a poem in a specific form. Throughout that month, if further poems are created and posted, they will all use that form. The poetic form chosen for February 2016 is the Shadorma. The shadorma is a pseudo-Spanish poetic form made up of stanzas of six lines with no set rhyme scheme. It is a syllabic poem with a meter of 3/5/3/3/7/5. It can have many stanzas, as long as each follows the meter. Little is known about this poetic form’s origins and history but it is suspected that the form is not Spanish but a concoction of some scally-wag at one time having some fun! In my reading and experimentation with the form, I have found it to be a relatively useless literary shape; one that has made an insignificant contribution to the canon of Planet Earth’s literature – hence the poem below!)

It’s a shame
when a poetic
form speaks of
nothing but
self like an introverted
narciss’stic idi-

ot. But e-
nough of me, it says,
let’s talk a-
bout you. What
do you think of me, O Ode?
Am I not pretty?

Shadorma,
replied the wise Ode,
speak of rain
on window
panes in winter’s irksome days.
Or blue irises.

Anything!
Dance a Spanish dance!
Click fingers!
Fast stamp feet!
Do the tarantella as
if you’re spider stung.

Warm cockles
of the heart with cast-
anets and
shake the ma-
racas louder than a train.
Drive all cold away!

Thus spoke the
Ode to Shadorma.
Shadorma
stood to dance
but sat again content to
mope and hug her knees.

To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.

Poem 11: A sort of ottava rima

© Bruce Goodman 1 July 2015

I find the ottava rima’s structured form
A little false and a clumsy thing to use;
But as a bright new verse should be healthy born
Then why not use this handy ruse as a muse?
I guess such discipline stops us writing corn
Or drivel and helps us lest we might abuse.
All in all I write what words I like a bit;
I break the rules for, really, who gives a shit?

Those stanza’s syllables numbered eleven
Henceforth each line will number dead on ten.
Nerds who count will think they’ve gone to heaven;
They’d be in hell if more escaped my pen.
Just for fun I’m tempted to try seven,
But would it be ottava rima then?
Iambic feet should have been used a bit;
But I break rules for, really, who gives a shit?

Now for a stanza that neither rhymes nor scans
Henceforth no rhyme or rhythm needs be used.
How creative!
What a wonderful ottava rima you’ve got there!
So original!
Heightened language! It’s like a Greek epic!
A Nordic saga, only shorter, or a free-verse limerick.
Bloody marvellous!
I’ve changed the poem’s form around a bit;
For, really, in the long run, who gives a shit?

To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.