The Snowflake Chronicles

Caveat Scriptor

Creating poetry requires
A warrior’s ability to grab
Victory from the arms of defeat;
Everyday the muse must track
Animal spore across
The wilderness of memory and desire;

Select from a multitude of pheromones
Critical aromas
Revealing the spark of inspiration hidden beneath
Icons both sacred and
Profane, which are concealed behind
Throne covered rose scented walls
Of dungeons that descend into the poet’s ID or castle towers that
Rise above the poet’s head.

Learn your craft well, Bards of tomorrow’s odes.
Each image you inscribe or intone in stanza and line
Takes on a life of its own.

The Frankenstein monster you create,
Has the power the destroy nations and planets;
Express your thoughts in honeyed coated poisonous words.

Write your thoughts in acid inks,
Red tinged stanzas that
Ignite, like candles,
The silk curtains of selfish desire;
Etch into the steel towers of Babylon the
Rhythms and rhymes that bring the walls crashing down.

Beware, Poet’s of tomorrow, those who offer gold,
Expensive jewels or a Dragon’s hoard to
Write the epitaphs of their enemies.
Ask the hard questions of humanity
Rather than turning your back on either wealth or poverty
Embrace them both, learn and proclaim their secrets to the universe.

Tomorrow poetry month begins. To celebrate I am reading Creating Poetry by John Drury. It was an accident that I chose this particular book. I reached into the bookcase, without looking, and drew it forth. Divided into 12 chapters, this book has a map of poetic terms in the introduction. The book also contains writing exercises. Everybody has to warm up and writing exercises warm the poet up.

I took a course on writing poetry or maybe it was a creative writing course and the focus was poetry. Anyway, that’s where I got the book. I kept the book because it gives exercise on writing specific poetry forms. Those aren’t the only writing exercises listed in the book. Each chapter has a different group of exercises. Exercises are good, especially when confronted with writer’s block, they give you something to sink your pen in while waiting for your muse to attack.

Maybe I’ll write a poem about housework or doing dishes. I’m doing dishes the old fashion way at the moment. I’ve finished the dishes that were left on the kitchen counter when I took Mom to the emergency room on March 12. Ok, I’m not an efficient housekeeper or maybe I just don’t work efficiently. I don’t have a good excuse for letting them set that long and I regret it now. I still have to take the dishes out of the dish washer and finish them, clean the dishwasher out and spray it with febreeze.