Two of these things are not like the others...

A couple of poems that don't much resemble, well, anything else I've written

Photo by Anna on Unsplash

If you’ve been reading my posts and their enclosed poems for a while (thank you), you know by now what my poems usually sound like — how I use language and cadence and far too many commas and semicolons to connect images, thoughts, and feelings. And … yeah, that’s how my poems usually sound. Except for every now and then, when one comes out in a different voice altogether.

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NEIGHBORHOOD PARK


Swan balanced on one broad black foot
neck coiled on chest
beak tucked under wing
black eye blinking slow
body swaying like a cradle

Ducks gabble and preen
green-jewel heads, blue wing bars
orange feet, white tail feathers
white trim
circle-wakes when they dabble
triangle-wakes when they swim

Scraggy gulls, dirty gray and white
bully the ducks
hooked yellow beaks
grey legs longer than duck legs

Pigeons wheel in flocks
against a pigeon-colored sky
sparrows tick in the bushes

Reeds and alder by the water
mustard flowers gold in the weeds
empty playground
full tennis court
lake-smells, soggy squelch 
on the path of runners’ feet, 
murmurs of traffic south and west
of mist above, tangled
in limp shaggy eucalyptus limbs.

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DEFINITIONS, DANCING

[Original definitions found in the American Heritage Dictionary.]

Seemingly effortless
beauty or charm
of movement, form, or proportion.

Aglaia, Thalia, Euphrosyne.

A quality pleasing
for (seemingly effortless) charm or refinement.

A sense of fitness or (form) propriety
(for a duchess, a duke, an archbishop).

Disposition to be generous, helpful;
clemency, mercy (proportion), goodwill.

A favor rendered (effortless?) by one
who need not do so (mercy!); indulgence.

(His) Temporary exemption or
(Her) immunity;
(Your) reprieve.

Mythology:  three sister goddesses,
Aglaia, Thalia, Euphrosyne,
dispense (movement) charm (form)
and beauty (proportion).

Divine love and (seemingly effortless)
protection, freely bestowed; a state of being
sanctified by God’s favor (who need
not do so); an excellence (charm) or power granted
by God (disposed to be generous, helpful).

A prayer (trill) of blessing or thanksgiving
before or after a meal (bestowed freely).

Aglaia, Thalia, Euphrosyne.

A title (Your Grace) and form (Her Grace) of address
for a duke, duchess (Your Grace), or archbishop
(a sense of fitness, propriety).

Musical ornament, appoggiatura,
a trill (of thanksgiving or blessing).

Seemingly effortless
beauty or charm
of movement, form, or proportion.

His grace. Her grace. Your grace.
An excellence granted by God.

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[You can hear an audio version of these poems — including my stellar attempt to pronounce names in ancient Greek — using thewidget above the photograph.]

Right? These two don’t sound like the other poems you’ve read here so far. Nor do they sound anything like each other.

“Neighborhood Park” was written during my Failed Novelist period, as alluded to a few times previously in these posts; a period when I was without a defined writing project for the first time in several years, and had taken to carrying a notebook around and playing games on its pages hoping to jump-start some kind, any kind, of writing. This poem started life as clumps of words scribbled haphazard on a page of my notebook as I sat near the little lake in a neighborhood park — tiny, randomly placed notes about whatever I could see, hear, smell. In the moment, it was something to do with my attention and my pen; when I went back to the page later I realized that some of those tiny notes had some life to them, so I arranged the liveliest ones into actual lines on another page, without elaborating on them or trying to connect them or even make them into complete sentences. When I finished it was, well, maybe somebody’s poem. Mine, though? Huh.

I wrote “Definitions, Dancing” ten years later, when I was supposed to be writing a column of conversational, inspirational prose for my church’s monthly newsletter. (That was a fun gig. I can’t believe I had the nerve.) Our editor had suggested “grace” as a theme; I found not a single thought in my head on the topic of grace, but I liked the topic, so I did what all good dictionary nerds do when they need a jump-start. The moment I read them, that set of definitions started singing and dancing like an ensemble doing a number in a Sondheim revue — lyrics, meanings, melodies cris-crossing, arguing, coinciding, building. I grabbed a pencil, listened as hard as I could … and ended up with a poem constructed by rearranging someone else’s words. Is that even legal? Got me. Is it … mine? Kind of, yeah.

I’m bemused by these two poems, and grateful to them. They’re two more reminders that when I don’t know what to do next in my writing, one option is to, well, fool around. Talk in somebody else’s voice for a while. Grab a handful of words and images and stick ‘em together like Legos. Play.