questions | Celebrating a Year

Posts Tagged ‘questions’

week 304 ~ look around this is where I am

look around this is where I am
within sound of a hurricane
underground where the brave remain
lost but found time runs on the lam
as dawn navigates the logjam
asking where I’ll be when it comes
following love’s fresh trail of crumbs
within sight of the horizon
questions obscure the conclusion
while tomorrow hangs by its thumbs

Written by mairmusic

August 16, 2014 at 9:46 pm

Posted in August, decima

Tagged with dawn, doubt, hurricane, love, poetry, questions, time, weather

week 252 ~ sleepy-headed dreams

with 5 comments

sleepy-headed dreams
tumble past my eyes
is life what it seems

navigate extremes
wait for the surprise
sleepy-headed dreams
hold the sun’s last beams
scanning text for lies
is life what it seems

while the future gleams
well beyond surmise
sleepy-headed dreams
watch as night redeems
expurgated sighs
is life what it seems

cataloging themes
ransacking good-byes
sleepy-headed dreams
is life what it seems

Written by mairmusic

August 10, 2013 at 11:38 am

Posted in August, villanelle

Tagged with dreams, future, life, poetry, questions

week 247 ~ life constrained

with 2 comments

life constrained
what’s in store
unexplained
life constrained
foreordained
wanting more
life constrained
what’s in store

Written by mairmusic

July 4, 2013 at 11:50 pm

Posted in July, rondeau

Tagged with celebrate, constrained, future, hope, poetry, questions

week 239 ~ time dissolving slowly

with 6 comments

time dissolving slowly
stalls as the light should change
even then we can’t see
time dissolving slowly
sorted by memory
lost pieces rearrange
time dissolving slowly
stalls as the light should change

Written by mairmusic

May 9, 2013 at 7:39 pm

Posted in May, rondeau

Tagged with confusion, dememtia, memory, poetry, progress, questions, time

week 233 ~ when true

with 4 comments

when true
turned false
who knew
when true
was through
its waltz
when true
turned false

Written by mairmusic

March 30, 2013 at 9:01 am

Posted in March, rondeau

Tagged with false, poetry, questions, true

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 ‘questions’

week 304 ~ look around this is where I am

week 252 ~ sleepy-headed dreams

week 247 ~ life constrained

week 239 ~ time dissolving slowly

week 233 ~ when true

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

Search for words and phrases

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