How a heron glanced
low over the birch,
its feet dangling north.
How every light turned amber
too soon.
How the heads of hemlocks curled
down towards kids playing baseball.
How every song was a love song
or a sermon.
How the girl on the left
leapt more than sang
but still couldn’t yank
the damned moonsicle
from the surly sky.
Comments
1 - 28 of 28
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yes
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I checked and I'm right I wasn't bitching about moons at all - how could anyone object to a moon. I was bitching about moon and shone together so nerrr.
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No I never yelled because the moon was there I yelled because you said it shone or something didn't I, I think? Of course you can't ignore moons that would just be silly really. Moonsicle's way better because it's all sticky and melting and dripping and touchable. Shone's shone. Shone's moon shone on Miss' Mills' bare flesh and shone shone shone of Mr Boon's 'wry' (ergh) smile before he ravished her while the moon shone. I just thought shone was annoying and sad next to all those gorgeous bits in the poom. I didn't think moon was.
Anyway, anyway - I like the tiny tiny tiny things in this like which way the heron's feet are dangling. I think because they seem like small things but they're not - errr I don't know how to explain what I mean really. I think I mean sizes shift in poems - because normally the heron flying would seem the biggest action but in the poem the way his feet are seems bigger or something. So not tiny tiny. Brr. I like when the writers sticks a clock on the poem - "too soon" is one of the best clocks I think. I think "Nearly" is a good poem clock too and so is "Almost" but sometimes the saddest one's "Already". I'm not even sure I've thought about clocks on poems before, they always seem like a play or a filmyfilm or a novel thingy but I guess poems aren't that different at all. Surly sky is beautiful. Horray.
Don't you think all the little ways and exercises people suggest for helping with writing are a bit random? Someone says six of these someone else says 4 objects someone else says upsidedown and someone else says 8 of these and barely anyone says the same. I don't get them. They seem like diets. Someone says eat 6 almonds for lunch and someone says throw up. I bet all the writing teachers at uni hate me I think I am too cynical about all the "so... imagine this object was 1000 times bigger - now how does this make you feel" stuff. "Lets use the texture of the carpet as our initial stimulus guys". Blerghhghghg. I don't know. I know they're probably good in a way. Make people not be lazy and stuff. I just get scared when they start plotting your poetry onto graphs and stuff to illustrate where the action is and where the different sounds fall. It does confuse me. I sometimes think WHY THE HELL SIX AND NOT SEVEN THINGS YOU MAD BABOON. Hmmm I'm never ever going to buy a how to write poetry book because I swear whoever's writing them's having a good old laugh counting their money. Ten step guide to becoming Billy Collins.
It's a lovely poem I fink
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Oh ok, I misunderstood, I thought you meant the moon, but yes I see it now.
Of course poetry-instruction-book writers are in it for the dime; there's no money in poetry itself, is there? I confess to being a compulsive purchaser of books about writing poetry as well as books of poetry, but I think the Notice-6-Things-a-Day idea was in a quote in some anthology or something, I don't remember. Well, before the poetry-writing-book obsession, there was the different-colour-and-shape-wineglasses obsession, and before that it was the essential-oil obsession. My great fear is that I will become a compulsive shoe-buyer; then I shall be truly ashamed.
Random, sure. Whatever tricks the subconscious into speaking, it's all fine with me. If you don't need tricks, all the better. Mostly I come up with my own doorways, but other people's doorways get me to different rooms, ya know? I lose weight by eating less. Some people need a prescribed system.
Anyways, be glad you yelled, whether I understood what you were yelling about or not; without you yelling, there'd be no moonsicle.
Thank you
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I've got some of those books but they're all useless and full of lies mostly. Shoes are much better. There's no shame is shoes. I think I'm being a bit mean. Some people can "teach" it sort of. The poetry lecturer my class had last year was lovely. He took us all to the archivey secret bit in this art gallery and got us to write about the unhung paintings kept in boxes. And once he made us write a poem only using the names of racing horses in the newspaper. But always he says this is all a bit silly and if you can't write then maybe you just can't and all the rules I teach you aren't really rules and stuff but isn't this lovelier than working in an office or writing another essay. And he's right. But then he tried to make us write sonnets and he said I looked like I wanted to murder him. Which was nearly true. Do you think people can teach it? My friend John edits this poetry magazine called Citizen 32 and he does a lot of workshops and stuff but I don't think he buys what he's teaching really. I think if people are going to teach something they need to believe it. He gets people in his workshops to post him little poems on postcards but I think it's mostly because he's lonely or something. I think people can learn how to write better poetry but I don't think it can be taught, which doesn't sound like it makes any sense but I kind of think it does. You just learn it by doing stuff don't you? I think it's sharing more than teaching or something. I lose weight but cutting my hair or chopping a toe off. Maybe teaching just isn't the right word because the roles are too stiff or something. I don't know. So so so so better than an office though or working in a businessy place. Ohhh I'm talking crap - Billy Collins could teach it, Ted Hughs could, Blake could - loads could - it just seems funny that a lot of the people who write these books - they hardly ever seem to write great poetry themselves. The How to Write books are generally by different writers than the people with the best poetry collections? Ted Koozer has one called a repair manuel or something - it's a lot better than most the dumb ones I've seen, he's dead honest in it, he says people should leave a poem alone until it looks like someone else wrote it before they play with it and edit. Not sure about that. I don't know. Maybe I read the wrong ones. If there's a decent one I'd love to read it because I need some help. x
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What I said there's been winding me up all day. I should take that all back. It's probably all balls. I haven't read enough of those books to know and I haven't been in enough classes/workshops to know. The poetry lecturer I have is brilliant really. He has one of the most beautiful minds in the universe so I shouldn't whinge that he tried to make us write sonnets. Maybe it can be taught very well. I don't know. Maybe it's like teaching the guitar or something. You can teach pretty much everyone with fingers some chord patterns but it doesn't mean they're going to be the next Segovia, and it doesn't matter either.
Just as long as they don't use wacky fonts to try and be "fun" and make the book sound all 'kooky'. Those Greedy bastards.
I heared someone say that the idea everyone can write if they try is as dumb as they idea that everyone could kill if they tried.
I don't know. I take back everything I say about how to write poom books. I hate misery memoirs a lot too, I really think I hate them but then I haven't read them all so how the hell do I know. -
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I think maybe a person is an artist or not an artist. Even artists have to study their craft; however, all the craft in the world won't make a non-artist into an artist. Yes to your Segovia analogy.
Kooser's book is pretty good, but my favourites at the moment are Richard Hugo's "The Triggering Town", and John Redmond's "How to Write a Poem" (despite the latter's stupid title). They're different from the usual fare.
Other books are the ones full of prompts - I turn to those when I'm dry. They send me places I wouldn't otherwise go.
There's the whole question about whether you have to be fantastic at something in order to teach it well. Was Segovia's teacher as good as Segovia, or did he/she just know how to nurture the artist? -
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Ah cool I'd read Richard Hugo's I like lady in kicking horse resevoir a lot a lot a lot. Yeah you're right, very very right. we had this lady come in and I've seen her a few times, she's a fucking brilliant actress. So so good. She couldn't teach for shit though. She didn't want to teach us how to act she wanted us to mirror her and replicate what she was doing, every little movement and tone and touch. Then one of our lecturers can't act that great, she doesn't pretend she can, but she knows how to teach it. She can really drag stuff out of people. You're very right about you don't have to be fantastic to teach it. My Dad thinks he's Segovia. He wishes. My mum's a wonderful teacher I think and most the time because they can't get enough staff they make her teach random things like biology which she knows sort of bugger all about, she's meant to only teach german, french and spanish but they make her teach everyyything like maths which she hates but she can still teach it. She feels like she's being a freud when she teaches maths and science because she's just looking at the book and reading it out but i think some people just have a voice and a nature which helps people understand stuff. I don't know really. Yes yes yes yes "prompts" - not rules - prompts - you're dead right. x
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Well, the Hugo book is quite frightening to me; I read half a page and the muse starts to roar. Therefore, I choose my times carefully, but I do keep going back to it. He is so wise. I won a hundred bucks once for a poem that jumped me right after reading him. Heavy mojo.
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I like th efirst image. It is like the red kites. It just is because they are and that is what they do and the glancing is so delicate, yet dangling-gangling like children playing- you know how they are so intense and seem strong like longbows, yet they trip and fall and skin their knees.
The poem seemed 'round' like the moonsicle . Not that I know what a moonsicle is. It seems clever, like a boomerang and a lollipop - absurd is the moon that the child fetches home.
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Yeah, a heron are meant to be standing still like grass - he's just so odd when he flies, his neck zigzagged and his legs trailing out behind, and the feet all flippyflappy. Some good poet like Mary Oliver ought to write about that.
Claire came by and yelled at me the other day about the moon in my poem (and I was grateful to her for that), and yet, there it was the moon, crescent, and I couldn't call it that now, could I, not without risking another lashing?
Thank you, FerretMan; I always look forward to your visits.
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Well the moon is there and we can't just ignore it. I mean, what if we did and it came to that point like in one of the Star Trek movies where the moon had been colonised and wasn't beautiful and mysterious any more and people didn't know what it was like once. Like the wildernesses and little places - a friend of mine suddenly burst into tears yesterday and then apologised saying he suddenly thought of a tree he used to climb and play on and love when he was a child, and he thought of how it had been cut down and swimming baths and a bungalow built on the field where it all was and was gone forever. Years ago, apparently,but suddenly, just out of the blue he missed it. No matter how cliche we might think something and banish it to the poetry word/idea scrap heap, taking things for granted won't do either, so moon away as much as you want as far as I am concerned.
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Oh, you musn't say these things to me. I'm a tree climber in my very soul (please forgive my use of "soul" but I didn't know how else to say it). How many trees I climbed are no longer there! Thank you, I can't help myself - I see the moon, I pause.
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YOU SAID SOUL.
I SEE IT. I DO, I DO.
I wasn't really sure I liked moonsicle but I knew exactly where it came from. LOL. And it is excellent description don't get me wrong, it just seemed out of place to me here in this poem -- seems like it belongs in a children's poem. But I think I will write a 6 things poem today.
I love the moon too, love it. I see it more as cold and uncaring lately though. or maybe just so indifferent. Because it always just Is and Does. It doesn't stop my loving it at all though.
Missed you last night.
Lisa
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LOL. Well of course I have never seen the moon as caring, good grief. More that it reminds me of the magnificence of the universe - reflected light, floating stone, tied to us and going round and round and round. It restores me to my sense of wonder, if I've slipped.
This is basically a let-her-rip poem, and by the time I got to moonsicle, she really was. Probably the beginning of the poem needs to change, not the end. But it's on the shelf for a long while; I'm not invested in it like I am in some. You have poems like that? Some you care about and some you don't? Some you see the seeds of good stuff in and some you just put down for fun?
Yeah, wedding frenzy. Bleh.
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yeah i knew it was a let er rip. just reacting you know, reactive mode.
I have lots of poems I am not invested in. Hundreds. Good thing I have made them all disappear I actually have kept probably 35 poems of all that I've written. They are the ones that keep showing up over and over again (after I delete them all). LOL.
ohooooooh wedding stuff. bleh.
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Odd isn't it? That people need to be reminded to notice things? I wish I could stop noticing things sometimes, turn it all off.
I, like the Nurse feel unsure of the first image but that is okay cause it has made me ponder each time I have been here to read it. Trying to "see it"
I don't think this is really what that damn uNmUse was screaming..... was it?
Friday.
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no, but this managed to shut her up a little.
I dunno about the heron, that's just how it was. Not necessarily how I should tell it, I know. The problem is "glanced" and that not enough time has passed.
tankee, darlin.
you off galavanting???
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noting these kinds of things is what keeps me sane
or from drowning in all the horrors
makes me want to do my own list
amber light heron glance
surly
good word hey?
sweet noticings
k
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well, I thought maybe it would show I was grouchy about the moon and other romantic cliches that keep imposing on my consciousness.
Thanks, Kat, you're a doll, you know that, right?
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gentle observation
made vivid and bold
well done
elaine
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Thank you, Elaine
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hmmm
well... we do a group in work called "5 things I've liked about today" ..... can be simple things... like seeing daylight or the sun is shining.. or it isn't raining
but yes... detail, always detail. I love the last part, very palyful and almost childlike.... if this is how your inner child plays out.. then i like it..
it is quite like how we'd see things through a child's eye... as they can be very matter of fact, yet explore the detail of a moment
i'm liking this
although.. i keep wanting the heron to dance not glance... dunno know why?? lololololol
my silly brain
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Brain not that silly - stop that!
"glances" wrong. Right word yet to come.
5 things good about today seems a lofty task for the best of us. I like it.
oh, and thank you, my friend friend one.
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Next installment - "why?"
This is good. Is study how you and Lisa you make the list into poetry. Is not as easy as one might think, (or not for me) but I think you manage it here. I can't yank that moonsicle down no matter how high I jump.
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Yes, I know, the goddamn bloody moonsicle. Invades all the dark places. I'm such a PollyAnna. Lists are the easiest thing when you start to go senile. Ask Stef - he ought to know, if he truly is my twin.
Thank you , BearyOne, for stopping by. Have I ever told you my bear stories? Remind me, I will some time. We have a close affinity, bears and me.
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This is most enjoyable. A wonderful bit of advise.
John -
Notice six things every day? I may have to try that. I wonder, do you notice things you otherwise would not have?
I didn't like how you started all but the end with "how." It was too obvious, if you could have worked the six things in more subtly, that would have been good.
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