Two poems... again

These are poems twenty and twenty one. I experienced severe writer's block yesterday and instead of manning up and admitting it, I just went to bed. However, I compensated for that today during the beautiful bus ride back from Bergen. That was a lot of B's.

The first poem was written after seeing this view of this:



It dawned on me at this point that no matter how many pictures I took, I would never capture the full beauty of the scene, which frustrated me. So I wrote this to whine.

Moral: human capacity of feeling far exceeds the capacity to convey it

Endless, endless, they vex
Me, and as the vistas go wan
I strain myself for precision.
Write perfection, undo knots
And explain it as my vision.

But I’m only human.
My feelings are more complex
Than my words.
I get close to my thoughts,
And they fly away like birds.

Also today, we went through different scenery than the way we came. We went up through Hardangervidda, or a mountain range by the Hardanger Fjord and spent a bunch of the time above the tree line. Way more stark but still beautiful.



This poem doesn't really have a moral or anything. Just wanted to prove to myself that I can describe something. Haha.

Not even the trees reach here.
Their branches are finite.
Fog hangs like the porch light
To give what is around it fear.
Oh cairns, the ground to you is dear.

Snow is an eternal creed.
It is pure here, always around.
Too cold for a profane sound.
Survival at least can reap its seed,
Not much more than what you need.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Whoops/ Triple threat

So Wednesday night I had an excuse to not post. I was in a hotel with no internet, but I dutifully wrote my poem anyway. We were staying in a valley, and I watched a mountain darken as the sun went down. This is also one of the first poems I've written in a while with a very strict meter somewhat like some of the old romantic poetry. I've been kind of caught up in romanticism while floating down fjords and going through mountains. Because it's contagious, seriously. You get around nature too long, you start really worshipping it.

Moral: Big or small, the flighty and cowardly have no power.

7/13

The mountains have so few of friends,
For when the midnight here descends
All that they leave are silhouettes.
Who would place hope in any stone
That cannot brave the dark alone?
And so they crumble to their shell.
Like lonely trees that lift their height,
So much they paint against the light.
So much have they in their regrets,
So much their traces have to tell.

Since being in Bergen, I've been busy and going crazy with Grieg. I've always really liked his music, and my favorite piece of his is called "Våren" or "Last Spring." I've always wanted to write a poem to go along with the music, not so much as text but as a supplementary piece. So that's what I did.

Moral: Memories are eternal

7/14

The green is buried below.
But I will always remember
The earth’s hello
Last spring.

Birds deep in the summer sky.
But I will always remember
Their very first cry
Last spring.

I will always remember
Last spring.

And finally, I've tried my hand at writing something a little lighter. Often times I get so wrapped up in my poetry that I don't always inject humor into it. So that's what I'm doing. Just to make sure I still have a sense of humor. Bergen is a lovely but very touristy city, so I've been laughing at the gimmicky/ kitschy things they have for sale that really aren't worth it.

Moral: just because you can, doesn't mean you should.


7/15

A Norwegian flag hat,
An “I heart Bergen” cup,
A magnet with a troll,
You know, the stuff that
Really makes you whole.

I’m not gonna lie.
This truth was thought up
By many, many scholars:
“My friend, you can buy
Anything with dollars.”

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Poem Sixteen?

I think this is poem sixteen? The last poem was two in one, so I guess this is technically the sixteenth.

This poem is entirely in six word phrases and lines, to commemorate the SIXteenth poem and because six word phrases are supposedly the most aesthetically pleasing or something. Seriously, look it up. Entire books have been written like thus. I don't quite understand why.

I always seem to neglect summer. I write extensively for spring and fall and winter, but summer for me is the middle child. In it I'm either waiting for fall or missing spring. But I've decided to give it the attention it deserves. One thing I've always found about summer is that it is the shortest season and it goes all out, in heat and sunshine and daylight hours, but then it slips into fall very quickly. That's why I wrote this poem.

Moral: quantity does not always surpass quality.

Oh summer, your boundaries so defined:
Don’t you know how to live?
Does pacing matter in your mind?
I think that is not so.
You run only for the go,
Until you have nothing to give.

But I suppose that is allure.
If not now, then not again.
If not killing, then the cure.
Black and white, now and then.

Two poems in one

This is the double poem that I promised. It's also in blank verse, kind of. None of my stuff is really in blank verse, because I make it all rhyme in some way or another. I'm not quite sure what brought about the inspiration for this one. It came out on its own terms and was a surprise to me while I was writing it and I was seeing what it was becoming.

Moral: lies kill people, because people who are not in reality are not alive.

Never guess. Exert yourself until
You know that whatever you doubt
Is incapable of falsehood. Often lies
Sew themselves so that their thread
Is borne neatly from the reality.
But when its truth is found out,
What happens? Does your breath still?
Do you flounder at the duality?
Lying does not make the liar dead.
Rather, it’s just how the victim dies.
People cannot exist outside the realm
Of truth. Truth is our oxygen, our blood,
Our creator. And it can be withheld.
A killer dissociates a person from the real
In whatever way. They alter the truth
When the victim believes. They overwhelm,
They multiply, they dictate what to feel,
They survive, caked on like mud
And they swirl, and then they meld!
Behold a dystopia in its youth.

No poem today

Seriously. I'm exhausted right now and want nothing more than to sleep. I'll make it up somehow later in the week. Maybe I'll post a longer poem or something. Yeah.

:(

XIII poem

This is an example of a poem that doesn't really have a clear moral message. I wanted to keep playing around with my more artsy side and write a more descriptive poem, once again inspired by Sognsvannen. Sognsvann deserves its own label for inspiration. Anyways, note the huge run-on sentence that is the first stanza and how the words spill over onto the other line, like a wave spills over onto the shore.

Well, I guess this kind of has a moral of some things just don't come back, while some do, but I'm not going to press it like I do with the other ones.

The heartbeat of the lake is aud
ible from the coastline and col
ors swing from blue to a god
ly gold that sticks to a hull
bottom of a boat that drags it
self along the ground like a ser
pent before it leaves forever to sit
uate itself on a silken path of blur.

Not a wave upon the shore.

It doesn’t greet you anymore.

The twelfth poem

I've been spending a lot of time at Sognsvannen, a lake on the north side of Oslo where I've started running every other day. About 5/6ths of the way through my run, I always take my sneakers and socks off and dip my feet in the water on this beach. Today I watched a duck going about its business, eating and stuff, before it turned to me, saw me, and flew off. It made a very lovely wake because the water was so still, which inspired this structure.

Moral: There is always someone above you and below you. You are fearful and to be feared.

The duck swam.

Its feet made waves
In a perforated triangle.

And the duck spoke: “I am
A master now. My choice saves
This certain grass from being eaten.

“But oh, I am so far from the highest view.
The danger I feel! Often I fear a wolf will mangle
Me by my neck. But, even then, a wolf can be beaten.
By you.”

Unpublished Material ©2011 Cali Digre