Tag Archives: poetry

A Wish for Your Place⤴

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A wish for my place
A wish for my place flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

Today’s TDC  says

Today is the National Day on Writing. Today, make a wish for your place. This activity is taken from the Write Where We Stand Choice Board

Go outside where you are, take something to write with, and find a comfortable place to sit for a few moments. Take in your surroundings.

  • What do you notice about your place?
  • What do you notice about the natural environment and the human-made things around you?

Now, consider what your place was like in the past. Then, switch your perspective and consider your place and its future.

Draw, write down some words, gather details – capture what you notice and imagine in a way that works for you.

Now, close your eyes, imagine you are blowing the seeds of a giant puffball dandelion flower, and make a wish for the future of your place. What would your wish be?

I went to stand outside, but it’s pretty rainy so I didn’t stay out for long. I noticed a hole in the fence though, where a fox had dug a path out of our garden last night. However, I appreciated the quiet of the morning – no workmen using powertools, no neigbours shouting over the fence. So here’s my wish for my garden.

I hope that the birds keep visiting and brightening my day with their songs
I hope that the brambles keep growing despite the fox’s antics
I hope the bugs find a cosy place to rest amongst the fallen leaves
And I hope that we can call this home for many years to come

Lemon Poem⤴

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350/365 Lemon Meyer
350/365 Lemon Meyer flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license
Today’s TDC says

Write a three line poem about lemons without using the following words: lemon, yellow, round, fruit, citrus, tart, juicy, peel, and sour.

I wrote a haiku:

Sunlight on a branch
Zesty tingles on the tongue
Summer in a glass

Anarchist calisthenics⤴

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Today’s TDC says

A suggestion linked by Austin Kleon in his newsletter

“Every day or so break some trivial law that makes no sense, even if it’s only jaywalking. Use your own head to judge whether a law is just or reasonable. That way, you’ll keep trim; and when the big day comes, you’ll be ready.” (Or, in the words of Wendell Berry, “Every day do something that won’t compute.”)

What trivial law will you break today?

Well, this is a tricky one. For one thing, in we think that rules about remix are just made to be broken. But, on the other hand, this blog is public – so I would say that my approach to rule breaking in my professional life is Kantian. This means that when acting on behalf of my institution I always keep the rules, however silly I think they might be. However, as a scholar is is my public duty to Sapere Aude (dare to be wise) – so I must say  publicly how silly I think a particular rule might be. This is from Kant, An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment). And I would never, ever, shirk off my daily work to write this blog post or play at remix. No, no me, never!

So here’s a poem I wrote in my scheduled and allowed tea break:

Aude somniare

When your work day is dragging,
Put down your work and dare to dream
Watch the clouds scuttle across the sky
Turn up the volume on your radio and sing along to your farourite song
Dance around the room with a hairbrush as a mic
Play hopscotch on your way between boring work meetings
And find pictures of those in charge and decorate them with wigs and facial hair
Share these small acts of resistance as you will
And always remember to smile like a crocodile

 

 

War Pigs⤴

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Today’s TDC says

Audrey Watters‏ said, “repetition of the word ‘masses’ in the first 2 lines of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs is the most disappointing failure of imagination in the history of rhyme.”

So let’s give Geezer some help. What else could he have used for the second line? Rhyme on.

Well, actually I don’t mind the repetition – as it reminds me that there is more than one meaning of ‘masses’, but here goes. I tried a couple of my own:

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches in dark glasses

or

Generals gathered in dark glasses
Just like witches at black masses

And they I asked ChatGPT, which was- um – not great. I asked

can you please rewrite the first two lines of this song so there is no repetition of the word ‘masses’. It gave me:

Option 1 – closest to the original:

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at midnight gatherings

Option 2 – darker:

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at darkened masses

Option 3 – more natural:

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at their blackest rites

Option 4 – keeps the “black” imagery:

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at blackened rites

So I said:

please ensure the first two lines still rhyme

And got:

Generals gathered in their massesJust like witches at their darkened passes

Generals gathered in their massesJust like witches casting blackened glasses (more surreal)

Generals gathered in their massesJust like witches practising their classes (less sinister)

Generals gathered in their massesJust like witches in their shadowed passes

Generals gathered in their massesJust like witches at their midnight passes

I think mine are better.

 

A random word poem⤴

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Autumn Morning
Autumn Morning flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

Today’s TDC says:

Use this random word generator and write a haiku (5, 7, 5 syllables) about the first word you generate!

The word I got was drift:

A crisp autumn day
Clouds drift across the skyline
Trees dance in the breeze

I took a photo through my study window, it’s at the top of this post

Sestetle⤴

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During the month of August I will be participating in Blaugust, a month long blogging challenge.

Sestetle
Sestetle flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

Today’s TDC is a familiar one, though not a remix. The last time the prompt was to write a sestetle, which is more appealing than today’s suggestion:

Give Mark Sample’s Sestetle generator a spin for a 6 line poetic stanza made of 5 letter words, generated Wordle style, then wrote a lofty sophisticated title for its appearance in some snobby journal.

Meh, TDC rules are made to be broken, and I really don’t feel like writing jokey titles for academic journals, given the news this weekend. So here’s the poem, as it was given to me

Those
Wiser
Dares
Curry
By the
Proof

And a version by ChatGPT, with me asking it to write a poem with these words in each line:

Those who wander wonder where the answers lie,
Wiser hearts can read the secrets of the sky.
Dares taken boldly lead where dreams may hurry,
Curry-scented evenings warm away all worry.
By the moonlit river, shadows softly move,
Proof enough that life is stranger than we prove.

And the image that NightCafe gave me from the original words:

Those Wiser Dares Curry By the Proof
Those Wiser Dares Curry By the Proof flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

Then I asked ChatGPT:

Can you write me a title for an academic paper with thee words in the title? Those Wiser Dares Curry By the Proof

Here’s the response:

Those Wiser Dares: Curry by the Proof

That’s made me laugh!

Silly Solage⤴

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During the month of August I will be participating in Blaugust, a month long blogging challenge.

Today’s TDC asks us to

Make a silly solage

A silly solage is a happy poem of three lines, two of them as long as you dare, the third is one word. The third word is surprising and silly.

As far as I can tell this is a form of poetry just made up by Kathryn Apel as I can’t find it elsewhere in an internet search. She describes them as a type of joke, but mine’s more of a definition than a joke:

I like to be in the way
At all times of the day
CAT

Less working, more stroking
Less working, more stroking flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

How do I complete thee (the TDC)?⤴

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A great TDC today – to write or change a poem so it contains instructions about how to do it. I don’t think I quite did that, but I had a lot of fun changing the words to Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43.  Here it is:

How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

And here’s my version

How do I complete thee (the TDC)?

How do I complete thee? Let me count the ways.
I complete thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I complete thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by phone and laptop light.
I complete thee freely, as others strive for right.
I complete thee openly, as they turn from praise.
I complete thee with the passion put to use
In my remix play, and with my bricoleur’s faith.
I complete thee with a love I seemed to lose
When other websites died. I love thee in every way,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if the Rev and Cogdog choose,
I shall but complete thee better day by day.

Cinquain⤴

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A cinquain is a five-line poem. Line one has one word and is the title. Line two describes the title in two words. Line three uses three words to express action. Line four uses four words to express a feeling. Line five uses one word that restates the title. Here’s mine for TDC5305

Hot
So hot
Very, very hot
This is too hot
Melting!

Sunset
Sunset flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license