Eleven? Yeah, I think so.

I'm gonna be honest; I looked at my screen for a while before I came up with this one. I even had written half of another poem. I was in a big mood for some structure playing, and so I tried out a new style called a Tanka. It's a Japanese five line poem whose first and third lines have five syllables while the rest have seven. Unfortunately, I looked at that poem and realized that it was not going to come out, so I started from scratch.

Keeping the whole playing with structure in mind, I decided something new: DIFFERENT SIZED STANZAS! As you can see, the first stanza has two lines, the second three, the third four, and the final has one. It ended up working very well with the new theme I came up with about rain. BECAUSE IT FINALLY RAINED TODAY! It never actually rains here, I've hypothesized. The sky threatens you, then the clouds leave, then they come back the next day. Seriously. I think the structure ended working out great with the poem.

Moral: things get resolved in one way or another.


Things sure have a style,
Like the sky: suspense.

I suppose the anticipated
Holds a certain glory
When strain is dissipated

And nothing is tense.
This is the weather’s story.
Because, as I saw, for a very, very long while,
This hanging remained,

But finally it rained.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

o ha1 r0ses

So I just looked outside and saw some roses growing on the side of the dorm. This inspired this poem. I wanted to play with some structure. I've been doing a lot of two five-line stanzas, so I cut them up thus. And the first and the last line end with "roses;" the first stanza implies that roses are divine (hence the sole capitalization). However, when it is shown that "All can be Roses," they don't lose their status so much as "All" reaches the same level. Yeah, that's an explanation.

Moral: The tragedy is not that some things are inherently evil, but that they think themselves incapable of becoming good.

o Roses,
you quiet touch
of passion!

how so much
falls ashen
and supposes

itself a ration!
the life it closes
is not such.
All can be Roses.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

NUEVE

So today I felt like doing a little throwback. I revisited an old favorite structure of mine: AAAAB CCCCB. Of late I've shied away from it of late because I think that it gets a little bit kitschy, but for the sake of sake, I decided to try it again.
Second throwback: me complaining about the weather= quintessential Cali poem. If you do not remember, in the spring all I did for poems was either whine that it was almost spring, wasn't spring, raining, snowing, snowing too late, or looking at pretty flowers. The weather here has not been particularly good, according to the natives, and it really hasn't. Yesterday was the nicest day we had since I was here, and it was supposed to be nice again today but then I woke up to monotone skies. Though it COULD be nice tomorrow. But in general, lots of overcast and brinks of rain. It didn't actually rain today but it seemed so impending I couldn't help but put it in a poem.

Moral: nothing is predictable. Not even authorities are always right.

The silver coats the road
As if it were immortal code
To act as though it all flowed
In harmony. A certain goad
Gave false hope to a tide

Of possible ways to hunt the time.
Often life gives way to a crime
Like lounging. Nothing. Sublime.
But the roads today are mostly grime.
I think that the weatherman lied.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Sad face :(

I have absolutely nothing for today. I feel terrible but I literally cannot come up with anything. This is probably the most severe writer's block I've had in months. So, bear with me. The only remedy for these things is patience. Imagine that my brain is a bunsen burner that has been randomly snuffed out by a 9th grade boy who does not want to witness a double replacement reaction. I'm just waiting for a flint stone to spark something up again. And it will. Eventually.

No, that was not some sort of stanzaless, formless, new age sort of poem. That was an excuse.

Oh, and happy fourth of July.

Wait a minute....


SPARK

Moral: countries are not people; people are countries, and therefore countries cannot be described like places or things.

What can you tell
About what is home?
It is certainly not the loam
That gives one his spell.
It is but the mind.

So a country gives way
To what its people feel,
And do, and think, and real
Changes occur each day.
No nation can be defined.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Poooooooem (7 o's long)

Today I took a hike in Nordmarka and around Sognsvann and encountered this:



Since this pond was so smooth I literally couldn't tell what was it and what was the sky, I decided it would make a nice poem.

Moral: things may be similar, but they are not the same.

Water blends too well with things,
As if it were all on single strings.
A certain place finds my eyes,
Not to be described as one noun.
They clouds are gray, this place like ashes.

And so I watch it, and I
Am positive that this is the sky.
But a little boy splashes,
And then I realize
I’ve been looking down.

poemsix

While reading outside today I watched a group of girls move two benches together and talk amongst themselves. I don't know what they said, since they spoke Georgian, but when they finished talking they seemed much happier than when they started. This has nothing to do with anything else I did today.

Also note the rhyme scheme is ABCBA, symmetrical like a clam. I don't need to tell about the obvious clam/oyster imagery here either.

Moral: Sometimes a friend's ear can solve your problems. Friendship itself is to be treasured.

Opened like a clam,
A closed circuit, perhaps,
It faces its twin.
Fervent conversation traps
Itself, gram by gram.

They had sat on this bench,
And the one across from it,
With musings still within.
They expelled all of their grit,
And pearls formed from that quench.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Cinco／五

So I have returned to a model that I used a little bit in my last poem project: using two languages in a poem, and then MASHING THEM TOGETHER! Since I have now picked up Japanese as well, I can add it to the mix. And Norwegian will be coming along, eventually, so I'll have SO MUCH FUN! But seriously.

Of course, these poems will have accompanying translations.

This poem didn't really have any specific inspiration today, just felt like mixing some languages up. Note that the Japanese section is a haiku: the "feet" (syllables in English) correspond to kana (Chinese characters, hiragana, katakana, basically each little entity), though I cheated because I do not know some of the kanji, so I just used hiragana syllables instead. HEHE.

Moral: beyond us has much to offer, but we are often afraid.

Si jalaras a la cortina,
¿Qué verías? La esquina
No tiene mucha para oferte,
Quizás seas demasiado confortable.

窓から見て、
けしきが待っている。
一緒に行こう！

(Mado kara mite,
keshiki ga matteiru.
issho ni ikou!

Pero tanto miedo tiene tu espíritu.
ばかだ！こわい過ぎる。
(baka da! kowaisugiru.)

TRANSLATION:
If you pulled at the curtain,
What would you see? The corner
Does not have much to offer you,
Maybe you are too comfortable.

Look from the window.
The scenery is waiting.
Let's go together!

But your spirit has a lot of fear.
You are a fool! You are too afraid.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre