To Describe – a November Poem-A-Day Challenge – Diminishing Somonka

Spinning galaxies…
Bluest feathered bird that flies…
Deepest sapphire seas…
Night-sky bed, where the moon lies…
How shall I describe your eyes? 
~
In turn I will attempt
(The way you wear those glasses…)
To tell how you tempt!
different from other lasses…
one in a million asses!
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For today’s prompt, write a description poem. Pick someone or something to describe. Get in depth, or just brush along the surface.

 

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POETIC FORM:

Diminishing Somonka
 
A form I created by marrying the Somonka and Diminishing Verse poetic forms:
  • two Tankas (5-7-5-7-7), written as two love letters to each other.
  • remove the first letter of the end word in each successive 7 syllable line.
 
Variation: Poets can remove sounds if they wish like “flies” to “lies” to “eyes.”

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AUDIO FILE:

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Blues – a Magic 9 poem 

I can’t resist the color blue —
the shade that haunts me from your eyes,
can’t eat or sleep, I tell you true.
I close my eyes and find your gaze.
I see it everywhere, that hue!
I’m hopeless now, I’ve got it bad!
I cannot help but think of you —
the denim that molds round your thighs
— it marks my soul like a tattoo.

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POETIC FORM:

Magic 9 – According to Robert Lee Brewer, this form is a newer form, relatively unknown, and appears to have been inspired by a poet misspelling the word “abracadabra.” There are no rules as far as meter or subject matter–just a rhyme scheme: abacadaba. (Remove the r’s from “abracadabra,” )

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AUDIO FILE:

Coffee – a haiku sonnet poem

the smell of morning
wakes me from sleep at her side
grounds for a new day

some days are two cups
sipped slowly in the quiet
beneath still- tired eyes

some begin with four
beating hearts, four pairs of hands
wrapped around warm mugs

some I sip alone
dawn to dusk in my silence
love’s taste lingering

my life — like my cup
brimming full and sweet

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POETIC FORM:

Haiku Sonnet – a 14-line poetic form consisting of four 3-line haiku plus a couplet of either five or 7 syllables per line. Similarly, a sonnet is made up of fourteen lines.
VARIATION: write fourteen 1-line haiku

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AUDIO FILE:

Witchcraft – an ovillejo poem

What magic makes my fever rise?
It’s your eyes!

What alchemy my heart beat trips?
Your hips!

How do you tempt me, charm me cruel?
I’m a fool!

You’ve lit a fire and fed it fuel!
You cause my soul to shake its wings —
my body does the wildest things!
It’s your eyes, your hips — I’m a fool!

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POETIC FORM:

OVILLEJO – a ten-line poem made up of 3 rhyming couplets, plus a quatrain. The first line of each couplet is an 8 syllable question, while the second corresponding lines are 2 to 3 syllable responses or echoes. The final quatrain is usually a redondilla, written in trochaic tetrameter. The final line of the quatrain combines lines 2, 4, and 6. The overall rhyme scheme is aa/bb/cc/cddc.

POETIC FORM DIAGRAM:

a (8 syllables)
a (2-3 syllables)

b (8 syllables)
b (2-3 syllables)

c (8 syllables)
c (2-3 syllables)

c (8 syllables) trochaic pentameter
d (8 syllables) trochaic pentameter
d (8 syllables) trochaic pentameter
c lines 2, 4, and 6 (8 syllables) trochaic pentameter

AUDIO FILE:

Penance 

Give me your eyes
so I may see
from your perspective.
You take from me, mine
–so you won’t be blind.

Give me your heart,
so I may feel
it’s broken places.
You carry my heart–
let it bleed in your hands.

I’ve been beating fists
against your walls until
I’m numb and bloody.
Repenting the sins
of youth in my old age.

Forgiveness must be
in a closet somewhere
with a rusty lock
and a long lost key
in a forgotten hallway.

It could save our souls.
But my prayers pool
in blood on the floor,
and you’ve taken
a vow of silence.

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AUDIO FILE:

In the Rain

image

There are raindrops
in my coffee cup
and puddles
between my toes.
The sky is clouded
with questions and
I cannot even begin
the asking, because
I see in your stormy eyes
that you haven’t yet
captured the answers.
So, I sit watching water
pool in the bowl
of my upturned poem
and try not to slip into
the swiftly flowing stream,
that washes sand
from the place where
curb and street embrace.

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AUDIO FILE:

The Way She Leaves Me

image

It’s 4 a.m. and she brings me coffee. She sits with me in the bed. And she says things that make the wings in my soul twitch and tremble, preparing to fly. Not away, I would never fly away from her, in the frightened uncomfortable way of wild, nervous birds. No, this is more of a soaring on pure, clean joy, at being so greatly loved and cared for.

We talk in the darkness, steam rising from our cups and honesty filling the room with wakeful heat. She is preparing to leave me for the day — it is a Monday and work is required — but I can feel her struggling with the desire to crawl back beneath the covers with me and stay. She falls silent sometimes, gazes at me like the Wolf she is, like I am the moon in her early morning sky. I am.

I watch her shoulders tense as if they were covered in bristling fur. I feel her teeth clawing at my neck and nails biting into my hip. She will leave me soon but she wants me hungry before she goes. What’s more, she wants to carry that hunger with her too. She wants to feel it in her bones all day — to know that no matter the distance between us, I ache with it just as she does.

She checks the clock again, and growls, rolling out of bed. The right thing is pulling her, and it always wins. It’s one of the things I love about her — although today, I groan, protesting loudly about it. I watch her putting clothes on her body, and wonder how she can make that process just as gut-wrenchingly sexy as taking them off.

She knows I will linger here, in her bed. I will sip the remainder of my coffee, pull her still-warm pillow tight against my body, and watch the sunrise through her window before drifting back to sleep. Oh. So. Hungry. She tucks in her shirt tail, and threads her belt into the loops on her jeans. She pulls the blankets up around my shoulders and leans in for a last kiss, then two more.

I watch her pull the bedroom door closed and then listen for the echo of her work boots on the hardwood floor. She is leaving. Twelve steps between here and the front door and every last one feels like the Grand Canyon. Still I smile in the darkness of her bedroom. I watch her headlights sweep the ceiling over my head. I know she is a hungry Wolf, and she will be back.

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Her Eyes (a Triolet)

galaxyeyes

There are galaxies in her eyes,
and gazing into, them I fall —
like spinning across the night skies.
There are galaxies in her eyes.
I find myself there, with surprise,
in eyes potent enough to enthrall.
There are galaxies in her eyes,
and gazing into them, I fall.
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POETIC FORM: Triolet

An 8 line poem. The first line of the poem is used 3 times and the second line is used twice. There are only 3 other lines to write: 2 rhyme with the first line, the other rhymes with the second line.

FORM DIAGRAM:

A (first line)
B (second line)
a (rhymes with first line)
A (repeat first line)
a (rhymes with first line)
b (rhymes with second line)
A (repeat first line)
B (repeat second line)