Pantoum

So I've played around with structure more, and this time I bring you a pantoum, a poem similar to a villanelle in that it has lines repeating. I'm too lazy to explain the structure, but you'll see the effect it makes. Anyways, this poem is about the day that I got a blade in my leg that almost cost me my career at the ripe old age of 9 -1 day. I have taken a lot out of the experience, but I decided to focus on the theme of lack of control of outside circumstances, which I definitely learned the hard way. Fun fact: the first line I wrote was "And the slice." Not that you really care...


The ice all in red dresses,
I cannot forget the sun rising.
The day I learned too much
Does not remember easy.

I cannot forget the sun rising.
The way the ice teaches
Does not remember easy,
But what is real pain?

The way the ice teaches?
Not really by choice,
But what is real pain:
“We fear what our habits can’t control.”

Not really by choice,
I’m not so fond of jumping, but I figure
We fear what our habits can’t control.
Mine, I suppose, is that I fall.

I’m not so fond of jumping, but I figure
We all have regrets.
Mine, I suppose, is that I fall.
The ice becomes accustomed to our picks.

We all have regrets,
How blades travel where they aren’t supposed to.
The ice becomes accustomed to our picks
And the slice.

How blades travel where they aren’t supposed to.
A glance I never wanted to make.
And the slice.
I will never forget the floating as I fell.

A glance I never wanted to make,
The ice all in red dresses.
I will never forget the floating as I fell,
The day I learned too much.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 by Cali Digre

POEM ONE

So this is the first poem of the resurrected Digre Poem Project! I'm super excited to be starting this again. They are all inspired by random stuff that happens during the day. This inspiration came out of looking out the window at a bus stop and seeing this one lady looking back at me. I started wondering -yes, this was during class- how different time would be if she and I, or any two people, switched places. I came to realizing it wouldn't actually change all that much; we would create our own realities, or our own times, on the contexts we're given. Finally, each little ten-line poem will generally have some sort of moral. Not all of them. Sometimes I'm lazy and get taken in by stuff that doesn't have any higher meaning but is just pretty. This was not one of them.

Moral: People affect their surroundings far more than their surroundings affect them.

And from the bus stop,
I see her. She sees me.
A different wind, a rain’s second drop,
Imagine if our lives would swap.
It would just be the same, you see.

Though we will never meet again,
We could be just the same soul splice,
Where time balances on the point of a pen.
We are part of the same amen,
And any context would suffice.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Broken Refrigerator

If only life were quieter, like satin
Unrolling like spring on a pallet,
On a lawn of verdant sunning.
If only life didn’t need to flatten
Me in total silence with a mallet;
Like I knew my fridge wasn’t running.
Too quiet is never good,
Things weren’t breathing when they should.

As if life were cleaner, like white khaki
And a green immune to grass stains,
Or pastels that needn’t fade.
As if life weren’t the tacky
Essences of ignored moldy rains
Pooling where the sour milk stayed.
I guess life is always a mess,
If it weren’t I would learn much less.

I could only wish for no mistakes,
An effortless collection of easy,
Constant migrations of joy.
I could only wish this fridge breaks
Only once, though. But even “breezy”
Is but an anecdotal ploy.
Though my feelings are mixed,
Even refrigerators get fixed.


Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

DOUBLE POST!!! Again.

Hello all-
So as promised, here is something sort of special. These two are fairly simple poems whose inspirations were during fairly mundane tasks: cleaning my room, reaching into my pocket. I figured I write so much about bigger things, it'd be nice to write about something... simpler. Anyways hope you enjoy them! Oh and I'm going to be gone this weekend, so this is kinda my post for Friday... Yeah.

~CD

Scissors

The manicure shears
I’ve been looking for
Have yet to make themselves
Known. On my shelves
I’ve made myself pour
My attention. Hope appears.

The stacks of stacks
In broad harmony
Across my desk
Leaves my room grotesque,
A slow-borne sea
Of too much lax.

By now I perhaps won’t find
Them. Things like to walk away
When their place is not known.
So for now I may be alone,
In the clutter of today,
In the clutter of my mind.


Hole in my pocket

The contents not within my grasp,
My palm empty, dissatisfied,
The realization, a well-worn gasp,
My inner voice, a well-thought chide.
What was there when I left today
Has just so happened to go away.

It does not do to dwell in the trust
Forsaken in that lazy tear.
Eroded fabric, now I must
Patch you up. It's only fair.
As if its purpose were but to mock it,
Much is lost by a hole in a pocket.


Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Footsteps

Eyes gifted with blindness float.
It matters not where they fall.
Their hold on gravity will let them gloat
Until they must all answer to its call.
They’re pressed down firmly on the grass
As if no goodness came to pass.

A firm set of tracks cuts through the snow
I feel the need to trace its way.
But a freer walk could not be so,
Each crater held a slippery gray
As if this message would suffice:
“A twice trodden path is set in ice.”

Unpublished Material, ©2011 by Cali Digre