Prompt poems
May. 22nd, 2022 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radiantfractureI liked these two poems used as prompts during the writing retreat last weekend.
* * * * * *
There Is Another Way
Pat Schneider
There is another way to enter an apple:
a worm’s way.
The small, round door
closes behind her. The world
and all its necessities
ripen around her like a room.
In the sweet marrow of a bone,
the maggot does not remember
the wingspread
of the mother, the green
shine of her body, nor even
the last breath of the dying deer.
I, too, have forgotten
how I came here, breathing
this sweet wind, drinking rain,
encased by the limits
of what I can imagine
and by a husk of stars.
* * * * * *
Talking To Grief
Denise Levertov
Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.
I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.
You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.
* * * * * *
And then this Emily Dickinson I found when looking for poems about storms.
The Storm
Emily Dickinson
There came a wind like a bugle;
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost;
The doom's electric moccason
That very instant passed.
On a strange mob of panting trees,
And fences fled away,
And rivers where the houses ran
The living looked that day.
The bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings whirled.
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the world!
* * * * * *
admittedly it's a little the highwayman! The highwayman! but "as from an emerald ghost" and "a strange mob of panting trees" make up for anything.
* * * * * *
There Is Another Way
Pat Schneider
There is another way to enter an apple:
a worm’s way.
The small, round door
closes behind her. The world
and all its necessities
ripen around her like a room.
In the sweet marrow of a bone,
the maggot does not remember
the wingspread
of the mother, the green
shine of her body, nor even
the last breath of the dying deer.
I, too, have forgotten
how I came here, breathing
this sweet wind, drinking rain,
encased by the limits
of what I can imagine
and by a husk of stars.
* * * * * *
Talking To Grief
Denise Levertov
Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.
I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.
You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.
* * * * * *
And then this Emily Dickinson I found when looking for poems about storms.
The Storm
Emily Dickinson
There came a wind like a bugle;
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost;
The doom's electric moccason
That very instant passed.
On a strange mob of panting trees,
And fences fled away,
And rivers where the houses ran
The living looked that day.
The bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings whirled.
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the world!
* * * * * *
admittedly it's a little the highwayman! The highwayman! but "as from an emerald ghost" and "a strange mob of panting trees" make up for anything.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-23 05:30 am (UTC)"A strange mob of panting trees" is excellent. It makes me think of one of my favorite pieces of Housman criticism, courtesy of Anthony Lane:
"Even one of the most famous verses in the collection begins with the urgency of a potboiler: 'On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble.' We are supposed to be in deepest pastoral, but that sounds to me like someone running into a bar to report a nearby fight."
(I miss my New Yorker subscription.)
no subject
Date: 2022-05-23 05:31 pm (UTC)Ah, that's fantastic.
I am forever grumpy that my former subscription to the New Yorker should have given me lifelong access to the archive, but does not.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-23 06:17 pm (UTC)That's an extremely reasonable thing to be grumpy about!
no subject
Date: 2022-05-23 09:11 am (UTC)Talking of trees:
https://cmcmck.dreamwidth.org/1299897.html
no subject
Date: 2022-05-23 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-23 01:36 pm (UTC)