Tag Archives: poem

Confutatis and cold comfort

On a recent morning bits from Mozart’s Requiem were playing in my head, and when I got to Confutatis I began to translate it in my head:

When the accused are convicted

To the acrid flames sentenced

Call me among the blessed.

I pray supplicant and prostrate,

Heart contrite as ash.

Show care for my end.

And I felt a strong desire to grant these prayers. My first impulse was to identify - not with the prayer, but the one to whom the prayers were directed. My first thought was not, how much like my own sentiments, but how terrible it is that someone might think I wouldn’t rescue them from the flames.

And then I remembered that I don’t have the power. I can’t just call everyone among the blessed. And I cried.

An acquaintance - not yet a friend, I think, though we have mutual friends - has been going through a very tough time, and meditating on their struggle, I wrote this poem, drawing again on my self from several months ago. So it’s not quite about them - as usual, I write the poem I’d have liked to read from someone else: Continue reading

An offer

A follow-up to my poem about Saruman:

Had you but let me teach you of those arts you so despise,
embraced your inner fire and the attachment that you fear,
forsaking calmness, self-control, the stillness you revere,
we could have left this world behind, ascending past the skies.

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Two free verse poems in the bitter aesthetic

I’m in Portland, OR right now. I came here to try to absorb by some osmotic process the local culture of self-cultivation, people engaging in projects not because the projects are useful or justified, but because they want to. People living out their aesthetic vision for their lives. But when I got here, I found that it is not Rivendell, where lonely Elf-friends can heal their wounds, but the Shire. You can visit and be welcome, but you won’t really be a part of it. It’s not Elfsongs and stories and public feasts, but people living out their private lives in communities. You can visit a person in Portland, but you can’t really visit Portland.

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Wasted Talent: Parody

Sometimes my friends post things on Facebook that are just begging for a response in verse.

Frost

Prompt:

This road, it did not lead exactly where I thought it led.

[...]

Actual road. I took a few of the unofficial trails that cut through the woods between the various office parks around here looking for the coffee shop and ended up one cul-de-sac further north than I wanted. This was an ultimately rectifiable mistake, I got my coffee, and had a beautiful walk.

[...]

The guys smoking on that loading dock were pretty surprised to see me emerge from the woods so I'm guessing they don't get too many passers-through.

Response:

Cream and Sugar Not Taken

Two trails split off past the office park,
And sorry I could not go both ways
In the time allowed for a coffee break -
So the cruel reward for a path mistake
Was to finish the day in a drowsy haze -

I looked down one as long as I could,
And it seemed quite straight and kept up well,
But it veered before I thought it should,
So I picked the other, what the hell,
It looked about right, though I couldn't quite tell
Its course, since it passed right through the wood.

On the trail I took I found that soon
The overgrowth cast shadows black.
Oh, I lost a good part of the afternoon
Winding around, and not too soon
I found myself in a cul-de-sac.

Two stevedores smoking, both jaded guys,
When I emerged from the woods that day,
Betrayed their sudden frank surprise,
Which I could read in those veteran eyes,
And told me the coffeeshop wasn't that way.

I backtracked doubletime to the fork,
To rectify my first mistake,
And by the end of my coffee break,
I'd bought my coffee and come back to work.

Beatles

Prompt:

Downtown, Bethesda, Maryland.
Waiting for the Tripper Bus
Response:

This is the season, affordable routes out of town
This is the season, affordable routes out of town, now

She rides a Bus Tripper, one way ticket, yeah
It took me so long to find out, and I found out

She's in Bethesda, she's waiting for her bus there
She's in Bethesda, she's waiting for her bus there, now

She rides a Bus Tripper, one way ticket, yeah
It took me so long to find out, and I found out


Sesame

Prompt:

 Light purple cummerbund
You know you're my only one
Don't need no date to the prom
When I've got a light purple cummerbund on

Response:

Light-purple cummerbund, you're the one
You make black-tie lots of fun
Light-purple cummerbund, I'm awfully fond of you.

Bo-Bo-Bo-Be-Do

Light-purple cummerbund, smile of smiles
Your color can be seen for miles
Light-purple cummerbund, you're my very best bund, it's true.

Doo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Be

Every day when I make my way to the gala
I find a little waist-sash who makes me the dapperest fella.
Light-purple a-durple cummerbund

Light-purple cummerbund, you're the one
You make black-tie lots of fun
Light-purple cummerbund, I'm awfully fond of you.

Frost 2

Prompt 1:

Off to go cross-country skiing on a frozen lake.

Response 1:

My facebook friends will think it dope
To ski where there is not a slope
Upon a flat and frozen lake
Whose fish have long abandoned hope.

Prompt 2:

Finger Lake: skiid across. In a snowstorm.

Response 2:

The sky astorm, the air asnow,
By ski is how I wish to go.
No one would find me should I fall
Until the spring sun's melting glow.

Perhaps it seems bizarre to all,
but since my car is light and small
I harnessed it to pull my rope,
Ghost-skied the whip, no work at all.

My Facebook friends will think it dope
To ski where there is not a slope
Upon a flat and frozen lake
Whose fish have long abandoned hope.

My cold and weary hands will shake
If I ride long without a break.
I must reach land, or ice, though deep,
under my small car's weight will break.

The lake is lovely, dark, and deep,
but I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.