week 93 ~ some moments were never meant to last

some moments were never meant to last
watch as the streamers slip from your hand
and so the present becomes the past

all the balloons sail away too fast
while you’re stuck trying to understand
some moments were never meant to last

everyone says when more time has passed
you’ll realize your life’s not an island
and so the present becomes the past

and the future still can’t be forecast
but you’re no longer stuck in quicksand
some moments were never meant to last

push off from the shore it’s time to cast
a net for those tomorrows unplanned
and so the present becomes the past

as you find without warning those vast
oceans of promise can still expand
some moments were never meant to last
and so the present becomes the past

Written by mairmusic

July 28, 2010 at 8:45 pm

Posted in July, villanelle

Tagged with future, hope, loss, moving on, past, poetry, regret

18 Responses

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there is a great scheme to your poem…lots of repitition…which drives home…this moment that passed.

brian

July 28, 2010 at 9:14 pm

Reply
- thanks! it’s the villanelle form– wonderfully obsessive!
  
  mairmusic
  
  July 28, 2010 at 9:41 pm
  
  Reply
I love the repetition and how well-constructed it is, the last stanza summed it up so beautifully!! I enjoy your writing and the sincerity with which you explore. Awesome poem xxx

buttercup600

July 28, 2010 at 10:48 pm

Reply
- Thanks– this blog is my chance to shake my world up a bit and see what comes out. 93 weeks & still interesting…
  
  mairmusic
  
  July 28, 2010 at 11:03 pm
  
  Reply
Wow… the content was true to the core!!
How quickly the present turns to past, one just doesn’t realize…
I really enjoyed the way you’ve constructed this poem… the well-timed repetitions, the rhymes… it was just too good put together!!! A lovely piece !

Kavita

July 29, 2010 at 12:35 am

Reply
- Thanks! I’m still trying out the villanelle form & its repetitions. It can be sing-songy if one isn’t careful. This is the first one i’ve written w/ a 9-syllable line.
  
  mairmusic
  
  July 29, 2010 at 8:28 am
  
  Reply
Another great villanelle my friend! You write these well. I wish I had your tenacity with them. Guess what? Inspired by you, I just wrote my first decimá… it the latest post on my blog. Thought you might like to see it (they’re so rare, they’re not even listed in my dictionary of Lit terms! Crazy). On the Facebook Poetry Circle I admin, we had a bit of a decimá-fest, everyone gave it a go… was lots of fun.

Cheers

Luke

Luke Prater

July 30, 2010 at 5:12 pm

Reply
- V.cool! I do wish Facebook would let outsiders in to look. But I still value privacy over membership.
  
  mairmusic
  
  July 30, 2010 at 5:30 pm
  
  Reply
True words. I like the way you always follow the prompt. Hope you’re doing good. Nice to be here.

Cheers!

Emmanuel Ibok

July 31, 2010 at 8:18 pm

Reply
- Thanks1 I’m fine, if a little blue. Hope all goes well for you!
  
  mairmusic
  
  July 31, 2010 at 9:24 pm
  
  Reply
you see things in depth at some point.
well done!
;)

Jingle

July 31, 2010 at 9:56 pm

Reply
- Thanks, Jingle!
  
  mairmusic
  
  July 31, 2010 at 10:26 pm
  
  Reply
4 u:)

http://hoiden.wordpress.com/awards/friendship-awards/

hoiden

July 31, 2010 at 11:05 pm

Reply
- Thanks so much for your friendship!
  
  mairmusic
  
  August 1, 2010 at 10:37 am
  
  Reply
A finely wrought poem . . . the choice of poetic structure certainly helps get the message across . . . Well done, Marilyn. :-)

Jamie Dedes

August 2, 2010 at 10:23 am

Reply
- Thanks for reading. I have come to love the villanelle.
  
  mairmusic
  
  August 2, 2010 at 10:38 am
  
  Reply
I come here for the joy of reading what you write, and the joy never fails. The education I get is just icing on the cake…I will, after all is said and done, try my hand at these forms you are so adept at. Thank you for all…

Tracy H

tracyhsays

August 7, 2010 at 7:46 am

Reply
- You are v.sweet– thanks! It’s lovely to be read and appreciated.
  
  mairmusic
  
  August 7, 2010 at 8:39 am
  
  Reply

Who am I?

A mandolinist, a bandolimist, a writer, a photographer, a wannabe Brasileira. Check my webpage for information on my music and my sometimes life in Rio.

What is this?

I made a plan, beginning on my birthday- October 16, 2008 - to keep creativity in focus in my daily life, spontaneously, reflectively, and with intention, by setting in motion several series of small events. Every day I take a photo and record a thought. Every week I write a poem and post a photograph of myself in the context of my life. i don't post every day, but I maintain the schedule of each series and post as often as I can. Before I began I wrote, "I think this will be fun, may be interesting, and will result in a considered year of small moments stolen from a busy life and strung together to make... who knows? At this point it's just a plan. Wish me luck~ here goes!"

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“Years 2 – 6” — so what’s changed?

I decided to continue on after a year, because this document had become a treasured reflective spot in my life. There are some changes in "Year 2," expanding options for my weekly poem beyond sonnet to add some other forms-- rondeau or triolet, villanelle. I added the decima in late January 2010, and the pantoum in August. Definitions of each form appear below. I continue to post a photo daily, but may post several pictures taken on one day over the course of a week if I have an interesting series. I may even post an old photo if I'm writing about something I'm thinking back to. I'll continue to have fun with this project; I hope you will too. For Year 3 I tried including other people in the self-portraits that accompany my poems, adding "Musical Sundays" to post mp3s of my music, but these petered out in a few months. This is simply a place for my daily thoughts & photos, and weekly poems in the forms I love. Onward...!

The material on these pages belongs to me

Everything published here was created especially for this project and is owned and copyright by me. When the project is complete I may do something concrete with some of it. So enjoy, but please, if you want to share more than a quote or two send people here, don't displace my work from its context or authorship.

What’s a sonnet?

A sonnet is a 14-line iambic pentameter poem with a unique and characteristic rhyme scheme. They have been written in Europe and England for centuries, and usually combine viewpoint and reflection in a personal yet universal way. I call mine blank-verse sonnets and try for a simple casual scan that observes yet obscures the form. Inspirations are the American sonnets of e. e. cummings and Edna "Vince" Millay.

What’s a villanelle?

A villanelle is an early French form with 19 lines using only 2 rhymes, traditionally broken into 6 verses. It's kind of obsessive, with lines 1 & 3 repeating alternately, the 4th time as lines 18 & 19. The lines can be any length, but don't seem to vary within a poem, and subjects include love, loss and challenge. Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath all wrote them, and from the minute I typed villanelle in "Year 2 begins" I was itching to try it out because I've never written one. My first appear in Weeks 53 & 56. I've run some verses together, as many modern writers have done, for continuity and a cleaner line.

What’s a rondeau?

A rondeau is a form of medieval poetry that pre-dates the villanelle and also uses only 2 rhymes. The earliest come from an 8-line song form with 2 lines of music that repeat-- line 1 as 4 & 7, and line 2 as 8, rhyming the rest in a characteristic pattern. The result is a sturdy little poem that makes its point thoughtfully, and less obsessively than the villanelle, perhaps because the generating couplet is unrhymed, and the lines don't need to be the same length, just able to be sung or spoken in the same amount of time. The first ones appear in weeks 55 & 57. Sometimes the poetic form, sans music, is called a triolet.

What’s a decima?

A decima is an early 10-line Spanish poetic form, with a distinct break after the first 4. It uses an 8-syllable line and has an unusual but characteristic rhyme scheme. It's also a 19th-century form of improvised Cuban song so I thought it would work well in this blog format. My first appear in weeks 66 & 69.

What’s a pantoum?

A Malaysian form from the 15th century-- how exotic! It's a series of quatrains, w/ lines 2 & 4 repeating as lines 1 & 3 in the next. The last quatrain also uses lines 1 & 3 from the first quatrain, with the first line ending the poem. So every line is used twice. My first one is week 95.

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