In the following passage from A Portrait of an Artist, Stephen Dedalus contemplates the power of words:
"He drew forth a phrase from his treasure and spoke it softly to himself:
---A day of dappled seaborne clouds.---
The phrase and the day and the scene harmonized in a chord. Words. Was it their colours? He allowed them to glow and fade, hue after hue: sunrise gold, the russet and green of apple orchards, azure of waves, the grey-fringed fleece of clouds. No, it was not their colours: it was the poise and balance of the period itself "(160).
In class on February 8, you had the chance to create your own found poem from a treasure trove of words in the newspaper. Please share your treasure with the world by posting your poem here.
"He drew forth a phrase from his treasure and spoke it softly to himself:
---A day of dappled seaborne clouds.---
The phrase and the day and the scene harmonized in a chord. Words. Was it their colours? He allowed them to glow and fade, hue after hue: sunrise gold, the russet and green of apple orchards, azure of waves, the grey-fringed fleece of clouds. No, it was not their colours: it was the poise and balance of the period itself "(160).
In class on February 8, you had the chance to create your own found poem from a treasure trove of words in the newspaper. Please share your treasure with the world by posting your poem here.
20 comments:
Fireworks
"I ain't got no money."
"I ain't got no gas
to take You,
on a date."
Confetti King,
Head under a running faucet,
High Wattage Smile,
Peeled like a Blood orange.
Hot Hands.
Go Cold.
Yet another adds to
The Tangle,
Warm as the inside of a
Circus Peanut,
Rubbed into the floorboards.
Chasing Returns
Fast-Growing emerging markets;
Mountains,
Of investment dollars abroad.
Net ouflows turbocharge growth,
Bulwark against economic
Uncertainty.
Morgan Stanley Capital International Index,
outsizes returns.
As long as I have a stomach,
for plus,
or minus,
50%.
Not a switch be turned on,
and off,
In portfolios while chasing
returns.
Will H
His voice-guarded confidence
The thrall of early love
Rich in history
Low on glitter
Unlikely sweet dreams
That was then
Non-committed lovers
Non-human voices
Secrets of our own clocks
This is now
Head under a running tub faucet
Just to keep out of the fray
Bitter logis trumps creamy reality
Every journey needs a journal
These scribbles echo
"That Day"
Just to keep out of the fray that day
I abanded my friends at the bay that day
O how the sun burned that day
They decided to lay out on the piles of hay that day
the confetti king couldn't have made it that day
O it was as warm as the inside of a circus peanut that day
Banana boat was not seen that day
Only Ray Baan fought to protect them that day
Truman Capote captured them in words that day
All at once not knowing of the pain to follow due to that day
They peeled like a blood orange that day
They missed out while I partied all night
The Bungalow
Rubbed into the floorboards
Of the timeless and sweet bungalow
The lives of owners past
Lay soft and cloudlike in the wooden grain
Warm as the inside of a circus peanut
the bungalow lies nested in the Hawaiian tropics
Rich in history and low on glitter
A structural bulwark
The tiny bungalow
Shelters its native inhabitants
Lest they (and it) be peeled like a blood orange
Sunlight pierces the luxuriantly flowering plants
Life has sprung forth from the volcanic mountainside
Vibrant petals on the wet, black bow
Every journey needs a journal
To reveal the secrets of our own clocks
Noncommitted lovers and nonhuman voices
Stand peeled
Like a blood orange
Dripping down the page
These scribbles echo
With pealing bells that rise
from groves like flowers
Taking flight.
In the thrall of early love,
I've seen hot hands go cold
Just to keep out of the fray
When creamy reality
Steps in to trump
Bitter logic, when dreams
lay rubbed into the floorboards.
Smudges, only smudges--
Yet another adds to the tangle.
Creamy reality trumps bitter logic.
Soft, cloudlik light wraps around her.
Secrets of our own clocks
confound the wise.
Warm, rich fantasy tackles sensibility.
Engulfed in happines, she is lost.
Voicing guarded confidence
Frightens the unrelentless.
Unlikely sweet dreams become reality.
Sunlight pierces the pines, she is caught unaware.
The thrall of early love,
Timeless and sweet.
The Butterfly
These scribbles echo.
Words.
Phrases.
Etches on Time's pages.
They peal.
Peal like a blood orange
And the pop of a warm colonel.
Reverberating against the noiseless silence.
These scribbles echo.
Thoughts.
Dreams.
Imaginations of what could have been.
They scream.
Scream.
Scream!
Until chaotic chords of color erupt.
Echoing across--
The oceans
The skies
The Eternities
Will it ever settle?
Will ever these lines
And dashes
Echo in one's heart,
Like mine?
A butterfly
Invclaved
In a sludge-filled
Burrow
Scribbles remain.
Hidden
Darkened
Unknown forever.
In the confines of my unbreathable cacoon.
The secrets of our own clocks
Echo nonhuman voices
Their piercing hot hands
Go cold
Like the ripples in water silk
Timeless tempos
That could otherwise become Sluggish
Are grounded
Just to keep out of the fray.
Ticking Stops
The secrets of our own clocks:
The moment that the ticking stops,
They will not be surprised.
Knowing all along, that to ourselves,
We'd lied.
With warm content we live,
Forgetting time, to give
A thought of death
No chance to scarce draw words
With just one breath.
The secrets of our own clocks:
Held in cabinets, barred with locks.
So here in ignorance, we are left to dwell.
All clocks will stop, and we will know
If we've been sent to heaven or to hell.
The secret of your clock:
The time is near.
For you I fear.
Every journey needs a journal
Just to keep out of the fray
Funny kind of
Sort of
Precisely
Secrets of our own clocks
Rubbed into the floorboards
Yet another adds
to the tangle
Concisely
These scribbles echo
Thrall of early love
"Creamy reality
trumps
bitter logic"
as the
child dies
and
man cries
out his
last words
before his
head
is picked clean
and the sun glean
reflects
on the bones
of his bare skull
yes logic
is bitter
and really
real reality reveals
how life is full of glitter
while logic logically
finds
answers but forgets
the love cream knows
in how the wind blows
and goes
against our dreams of
real reality
"Creamy reality
trumps
bitter logic"
as the
child dies
and
man cries
out his
last words
before his
head
is picked clean
and the sun glean
reflects
on the bones
of his bare skull
yes logic
is bitter
and really
real reality reveals
how life is full of glitter
while logic logically
finds
answers but forgets
the love cream knows
in how the wind blows
and goes
against our dreams of
real reality
Peeled like a blood orange,
Shedded like a crispy rattlesnake skin,
Hope lays shattered and dusty on a bleak square of sunlight against a neglected wood floor.
Flakes of old skin and dirt clutter around secrets of our own clocks,
Darting away with the faintest breeze and wisping freely through the air; dancing to its own song; painting its own pattern.
We avoid this room, just to keep out of the fray,
Just to pretend the surface is clear and untouchable.
We have no visitors, we have no judges here inside this house--
only silence.
Embarrassed of how green things look in blue, we mask our lives with curtains--
a satin veil over a polyester sheet.
But we leave the dust,
for the pain of the memories keeps us away, but the awareness that the dust remains forces us to remember.
The scribbles against the wood walls echo through the soundwaves of hollowness.
A cat enters the lifeless room and becomes a Confetti King,
adorned in snow-white crystals against soft black fur.
But he hates it
and tramples away-- suspicious
of the engendered, filmy revelation of sentiment trapped in the room.
Longing for release, aching for eternal relief, the room screams--
neglected,
unkept.
ignored.
Hiding beneath heavy dreams of stillness,
thick craving beneath thin tissue.
We remain.
Chained to the dust.
Unable to cast our eyes upon it,
and incapable of baring the weight expected from cleaning our musty closet...
of facing our indefinable shadow.
So we watch.
In silence.
These scribbles echo
in a color triad
a frenzy of handprints and lines
Shifting ratios of abstractation
and semicircular blurs
into a crosshatch of flagrant hues
Of orange, green, and purple that further agiatate
the ancient lantern of a long ago time
the unoticed tangles remain unnoticed
in the heap of a growing mind
imagination
Creamy reality trumps bitter logic
peeled like a blood orange, the secrets
of our own clocks revealed
imagination
runs like flowers taking flight
thrall of early love
timeless
and sweet bungalow, dripping dreams
creamy reality trumps bitter logic rubbed into the floorboards,
wrinkles in time add to the tangle
reality lurks
escape
imagination runs like flowers taking flight
Vibrant vistas,
Crowned in Clouds,
Nature's dress,
Her finest garment.
Sunlight piercing the pines,
Untouched, unmolded,
Free from manipulation,
by the reality of civilization.
Then they come,
Hot air dancing on pavement,
Sleek and metal and brick,
Unnaturally symmetrical and complete.
"Contact us a 800-541-9424 or info@pronghornclub.com"
Hot hands go cold
sky becomes grey
world is silent
movement ceases
Eyes shut
hearts stopped
heads turned
they walked
It ended
Unlikely sweet dreams
become creamy reality
timeless and sweet
as I step for the first time, again
on the floorboards of hope.
The bitter thoughts melt away-
another challenge trumped by faith
The trials are not over-
there are many more to come
but the sweet victory
of my second first steps
feels as if I am taking flight
stunning those around
accomplishing the seemingly impossible
Fear peeled away
while hope shines through
Internal pain begins to whither
while the physical creeps up
The mountain gets steeper
but the rewards-
greater
Defying science, doctors and realism
The journey is not over
The fight not quite won
For my unlikely sweet dreams turning to creamy reality
have only just begun.
Yet another adds to the tangle
Rising from the groves, Secrets of our own clocks
To which only few know.
Under a timeless and sweet bungalow
You sit and guard you eyes,
Keep you from the escalating fray
From which there is no disguise.
soft, childlike light
wraps around her reclining body,
warm as the inside
of a circus peanut
a sense of buoyancy:
sunlight piercing the pines
an ancient lantern flashing on
head scarves at school
her body is scored with faint lines
bells pealed
head under a running faucet peeled
like a blood orange
creamy reality trumps bitter logic
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