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week 413 ~ floating toward the exit door take me

floating toward the exit door take me
far from this opera forever more
make me pack my bags buy my ticket soar
far as far as I can finally see
an empty calendar with days weeks free
to laugh write sleep hum I want to grab for
the brass ring to unfurl my dreams before
asking if they’ll find room to grow to be
ready for whatever uncharted course
might reveal itself before it’s too late
before the entrenched path closes off all
other options to explore maybe force
a new ending for my story if fate
abhors a vacuum catch me as I fall

Written by mairmusic

September 23, 2016 at 4:48 pm

Posted in September, sonnet

Tagged with change, free, future, life, new, opera, poetry, run, uncharted, unknown

week 331 ~ madrugada breaks slowly as midnight

with 2 comments

madrugada breaks slowly as midnight
crosses to dawn the invisible line
that’s passed before you notice shapes entwine
with colors as the world embracing light
surrenders to beauty morning returns
daily its changes hard to register
in sunrise colder today or later
details of no matter for hope relearns
what it needs to survive I’m learning too
redrawing my boundaries to rethink
time perched precariously on the brink
of sweeping across night’s horizon through
to what doesn’t exist yet where I’ll know
the seeds of change were planted long ago

[madrugada is the time after midnight and before dawn in Brazil and Argentina]

Written by mairmusic

February 16, 2015 at 5:48 pm

Posted in February, sonnet

Tagged with dawn, daybreak, future, hope, horizon, madrugada, melody, midnight, music, mystery, new, poetry, time, unknown

week 283 ~ spring rain easy to recognize 

with 2 comments

spring rain easy to recognize
lighter hopeful humidity
melting the frozen earth slowly
as seasons change before our eyes
we are ready to realize
life returning green through barren
hard ground for we remember when
flowers bloomed and before we met
snowdrops crocus daffodils set
the stage for now to rewrite then

Written by mairmusic

March 18, 2014 at 3:47 pm

Posted in decima, March

Tagged with flowers, green, love, new, poetry, rain, seasons, spring, transformation

week 74 ~ I’ve got a blank book

with 14 comments

I’ve got a blank book
and a new story
I’m not scared to look

now that love’s sly crook
has cleared it for me
I’ve got a blank book
unless I mistook
the allegory
I’m not scared to look
at lost words that shook
my faith profoundly
I’ve got a blank book

it’s time that I took
an inventory
I’m not scared to look
or even unhook
my identity
I’ve got a blank book
I’m not scared to look

Written by mairmusic

March 18, 2010 at 9:46 am

Posted in March, villanelle

Tagged with blank, book, new, poetry, story

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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Celebrating a Year

Posts Tagged ‘new’

week 413 ~ floating toward the exit door take me

week 331 ~ madrugada breaks slowly as midnight

week 283 ~ spring rain easy to recognize

week 74 ~ I’ve got a blank book

Who am I?

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What is this?

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“Years 2 – 6” — so what’s changed?

The material on these pages belongs to me

What’s a sonnet?

What’s a villanelle?

What’s a rondeau?

What’s a decima?

What’s a pantoum?

Search poems by type

Posts with music attached

archive: past posts

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