Enga mellom fjella: where from across the meadow, poems sing from mountains and molehills. |
Sentinel Marked as if you own me I bow before the Bitterroots and just like you my rocky soil, my withered grass lays prey to the empty sky. © Kåre Enga 2007 "Sentinel" Reader's Choice of Poems: "'heart's home'" "Glice" "Tales told over scones and hot tea" "I, Katrina" "Plain cover jacket" Reader's Choice of blog entries from my old blog "L'aura del Campo" : "Death of Jeannie New Moon" "Winter: 18 Mas'il (December 29)" "When is it proper to tell someone you love them?" "Holy day. Autumn in November. A mole." "Wheat penny. Gave in, started a forum." FACES PLACES Kåre Enga ~ until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go. ~ Elizabeth Bishop The Fish |
First two (13+ rated) verses of a longer work. Bleeding Kansas When my doberman growls grrrr, all the frankincense and myrrh will not settle down the cur nor the loves that never were. [62a] She quotes, "You had your chances prowling that leafy campus!" As if! "Bejesus, Janice, I left my heart in Kansas." [62b] KE (may 2020) |
Here you come again ... to burn my skin, cast terrifying shadows, blot out nuances, all shades of grey. I rue the day you return to make me start all over again. Like a river rinsing away the splotches of thoughts, or wind scattering them to where I can't follow. How can I gather them? Dry them out? or ... And here you come again with the promise that this time you'll be gentle, not seek to fry my brains, reduce me to dust, suck all wisdom out. But in the end it's always the same blank page. Clean! That's what YOU say, as I mourn my life's wrinkles, now denied hurts and pains, those 'insignificant' trinkets that evoke memories, what I can no longer remember. KE [177.69] (8 mai 2020) (23 lines) for
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This is 4 linked tanagas followed by a verse that sums it up. Bleeding Kansas When my doberman growls grrrr, all the frankincense and myrrh will not settle down the cur nor the loves that never were. [62a] She quotes, "You had your chances prowling that leafy campus!" As if! "Bejesus, Janice, I left my heart in Kansas." [62b] Searching high and very low Alpha, Beta and Xi Rho. "Better yet, buy some dildos," cackled ravens to the crows. [62c] "Don't try to be so clever, satisfied with whomever's great for f***ing; however, become your lover? Never!" [62d] Hark, now-ancient Raven crowed, "you settled for whatever. All those loves that never were you left to bleed in Kansas." [62e] KE [177.62] (2.mai.2020) Notes: Deconstructing. I started with the phrases: "all the loves that never were", "I left my heart in Kansas" "searching high and very low" "settling for what can't be reached" "unhappy with whatever" and worked back from there. I then looked up rhymes or in the case of Kansas near rhymes. For "were": burr, cur, blur, fir, fleur, fur, grrrr, her, myrrh, Nur, per, purr, sir, slur, spur, stir, we're For "Kansas": angus, anxious, atlas, bandit, cactus, campus, candace, candice, canthus, canvas, canvass, chances, dances, frances, francis, janice, landis, mantis, pandas, planless, prances, spanish, stanzas, trances, transit, vanish, xanthous, advances, arkansan, atlantis, bananas, romances, strophanthus There were far too many for "low": beau, blow, bro, crow, doe, dough, flo, floe, flow, foe, fro, glo, glow, go, grow, ho, hoe, know, lo, mo, mow, no, o, o' oh, owe, pro, quo, rho, row, schmo, sew, show, sloe, slow, snow, so, sough, ginkgo, dildo ... and many more. Fewer for whatever: clever, ever, lever, never, sever, Trevor, endeavor, forever, however, whenever, wherever, whichever, whoever, whomever, whatsoever, whomsoever, whosoever Notes: "The Tanaga is a Filipino verse form that was originally composed in Tagolog, which to my ear is one of the more musical of languages. (Kumusta ka? Mabuti salam at) The form dates back to the 16th century and has an oral tradition. This old folk form had a resurgence of popularity in the 20th century, died down and resurfaced again mid 21st century. The poems are not titled. Originally it was a compact poem, contained in 4 lines, each is emotionally charged and asks a question that begs an answer." "The elements of the Tanaga are: 1. a tetrastich, a poem in 4 lines. However, modern poets have modified it to longer works in a stanzaic pattern of any number of quatrains. 2. syllabic, 7-7-7-7 syllables per line. 3. rhymed, originally monorhymed aaaa. Modern Tanagas also use aaaa bbbb etc., or aabb ccdd etc or abba cddc etc or any combination rhyme can be used. 4. asks a question seeking an answer 5. composed with the liberal use of metaphor 6. untitled. But in this poetic world we kind of have to title our poems for identity's sake. |
** Image ID #2220035 Unavailable ** Too bright! You gaze at me with a grimace. Bronzed, you aim your sunniness at my pale white skin. Yours has blisters that burst in flares, bold enough to torch me. I don't seek your scorch. I hide in shadows, wait till dark to bask in starlight. Your distant cousins respect the distance we keep between us. But You? Not you. You try to draw me in, bake me into oblivion, reduce my feelings to ash. KE [177.60] (1.mayo.2020) 13 lines for:
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