Saturday, May 05, 2007

Bouts-Rimes


French for “rhymed ends.” It takes two people to make. One person sits down and lists rhyming words and the other takes those words and makes rhymed lines in the same order the rhymes were given. Requires “wit and mental agility.”

I had my boyfriend supply the rhymes:

scotch notch
will pill
grit mitt
broth moth
jack mack
fun run
over clover
great mate
bravery knavery
chose prose

At the quilted tablecloth she stirred her milk and scotch.
I would have been shouting if I raised my voice a notch.
“Each decision carried out,” she moaned, “becomes an act of will;
from folding heavy laundry to taking every pill.”

Before she’d had her freedom she’d had her share of grit;
her life smacked into a pop-up before it landed in a mitt.
I slipped into her tales while I sipped her onion broth
deciding she’s a butterfly (though she’d say she’s a moth).


If at the end we find the man who gave the beans to Jack
was the same who handed the bloody knife to Mack,
she won’t be surprised. She predicted all the fun
would become the very thing that made her drop it all and run.

And that’s all she can ruminate before her life is over;
she won’t pretend her shamrock was a four-leaf clover.
But in my eyes her shamrock is as intricate and great
as luck itself. Her thorn: her deceased mate

whose memory jabs the flesh of her mind. His bravery,
which won her heart, was blotted by his knavery.
“Maybe everything ain’t go the way I know I would have chose.”
Some moments are librettos slapped into a stretch of prose.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

blues poem

In case you need a label like my brother puts on his pictures, that's John Lee Hooker.

A form derived from blues music. There are two kinds of blues poems. The first has no typical form but has blues content. The second might as well be lyrics to a blues song

Stanzas are typically the same line twice and then a third line that rhymes with the other ones. There’s often some slight variation with the first two lines.

Because the blues is one of my top favorite things in the world, I've posted three blues poems/song lyrics I've written. They go from latest to oldest.

NATURE BLUES

I came home one morning and found our house was gone
I came home one morning and found our house was gone
I couldn’t hardly tell what side the street I’s on.

I’da been back there just the other day
I’da been back there just the other day
Built a little sandbox for my babies to play

I went away on business, came back to mud and sand
I went away on business, came back to mud and sand
How God could let this happen, I just don’t understand

Aunty says her babies were playin in the road
Aunty lost her babies playing in the road
The road became a river, that’s the story she told.

I came home one morning and found our house was gone
I came home one morning and found our house was gone
I can’t hardly tell what side my life is on.

MEMORY BLUES

So you say you walked the streets calling out my name
So you say you walked the streets calling out my name
If you thought I’d smile to see you, baby that’s a shame

You disappeared one sunny morning
Now you come back to my door
Expecting me to get all weepy
Well I ain’t gon’ cry no more

It’s been years now honey, won’t you let me go my way
It’s been years now honey, won’t you let me go my way
There ain’t nothing about me same as yesterday

You disappeared one foggy morning
Now you come back to my door
Expecting me to get all weepy
Well I ain’t gon’ cry no more

You say you gotta memory of me I can’t recall
You say you gotta memory I’m sure I don’t recall
You said I told you that I loved you…
…I don’t remember that at all.

PORCH BLUES
(listen)

a quote from my next president

"I like to believe that for Lincoln it was never a matter of abandoning conviction for the sake of expediency,” Obama writes. “Rather . . . that we must talk and reach for common understandings, precisely because all of us are imperfect and can never act with the certainty that God is on our side.”

That's from the New Yorker. You can read the whole (wonderful) article here:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/07/070507fa_fact_macfarquhar


Thanks, Zeile!

Monday, April 30, 2007

i miss
salsa
sports on television
yelling at comerica park
the little coffee shop near joel's
hannan house
making verbal wisecracks that are fully understood
chris m. on the guitar
youtube
the way my uncle paul tilts his head when he hits a high note
good music
the dia
life without humongous bugs
smoke rising in dale's living room

i don't miss
noting gas prices
food without spice
jackets
life without public transport options
life without so many green tea options
grocery shopping
doing laundry
socks