Poetry Blog Week One

chaste pomegranate
glitters merrily, owls slide
slide, fear

Courtesy of: http://www.everypoet.com/haiku/default.htm

This website creates haiku poetry by randomly pairs words together in the haiku form, which for the record, follows a 5-7-5 beats or syllables.

I was inspired by all the Haiku poetry and tried my hand at a few. Here are my attempts:

Stupid moth I am
Captivated and drawn in, you
Incinerate me

Smiling with bruises
Received while laying with you
Neath your pepper tree.

It is amazing the change in effect if you alter even one word in a haiku. But when you are dealing with a sum total of roughly 12-15 words, one word does make a huge impact. This is actually a very good lesson in poetry writing. I played around with the wording on the first haiku to different effects. The one that I liked second best was:

Blissful moth I am
Captivated and drawn in, you
Incinerate me

I submit for my poetry journal this song by Jewel, entitled Rosy and Mick. The song is very beautiful and I found something about the lyrics entrancing.

Mick came home late last night
he drank enough beer to take the edge off a knife
She opened the door
looking older than before
He said "Rosy, you're too girl a girl"
She let him in and lifted up her dress
like an apology he began to kiss her neck
he felt much relief
as the ceiling fan tapped out a broken melody

And she said "Do you remember when we were younger,
bitter words were said
making up was always your favorite part.
Well I ain't young no more
and 'I'm sorry' can not mend a broken heart."

He came back home
threw his things on the floor
she worked up the courage to say what she never had before
the words got lost inside
he got that look in his eye
and the sun went shining on

Do you remember when we were younger
bitter words were said
making up was always your favorite part
well I 'aint young no more
and "I'm sorry" can not mend a broken heart

The church knew well Mick was a violent man
She got a few head lines
she got a slap on the hand
And there ain't no villains
and there ain't no heros
people on both sides of the tracks
try to add a whole bunch of zeros
time marches on
until its all gone

She said, "Do you remember when we were younger
bitter words were said
making up was always your favorite part
I ain't young no more
and 'I'm sorry' can not mend a broken heart

I would say that this poem is about a crisis. Rosy is having a crisis over this man she loves, Mick. The force that propels this poem is that of a love story gone wrong. That the poem is mostly in present tense also leads me to feel that the narrator is telling a story to the audience, which can be anyone who wants to listen.

What surprised me about this poem is that I found it initially to be a love poem. However, upon further inspection, I decided that it is a poem about a woman who is abused by her lover, who in turn, gets even and kills him. The stanza that starts with “the church knew Mick was a violent man” is what really got me thinking that perhaps this is a poem about a battered woman. For me, this is where the poem shifts gears and changes to tell something different from a love poem, man and a woman together. The lyrics that follow this line only deepen the complexity and mystery of the poem. This particular stanza confuses me and therefore, I cannot provide concrete proof to substantiate my suspicion that this is the stanza that explains that Rosy has killed Mick. What did she do to get a few head lines in? The song beaks here also, the beat changes and Jewel stops singing and speaks. This all leads me to feel that this is a significant part to the song and poem. The narration of the story changes from being one of a story to being one that is talking about “no heros, no villains,” and it is almost like this is the conclusion of the story, but it doesn’t really explain anything. The poem in a way, is talking to itself here. I find this to have a haunting effect. I start asking questions like “what caused the broken heart?” This poem seems to have a narrator who is speaking to anyone reading the poem. The narrator is telling a story about Rosy and Mick. The chorus is what grounds this poem, especially since the ending of the poem is what would be the chorus.

Additionally, I thought that the words were “Rosy you’re too good a girl” not “Rosy you’re too girl a girl.” This line confuses me. Also, when I hear the song, the line “take the edge off a knife” sounded like “take the edge off the night.” My words seem to make more sense to me. However, I like the intended lyrics since they add more mystery to the poem.