September challenge: Ch-ch-changes

OK. Monthly challenge time.

Hmmmm. Well, I hope this is not too obvious, but how about writing a poem about change or changes? It's Back-to-School month, at least for most kids here in the states (I have a niece transitioning from high school to college and one transitioning from middle school to high school, so kind of major changes for them). It's the month where we transition from Summer to Autumn (at least in the Northern Hemisphere--those of you in the Southern go from Winter to Spring, of course). Football season starts (American/Canadian football, of course) and baseball winds down. We in the USA are in the last full month of a major election. I am myself looking at a life change that will probably be just a couple months down the road.

So... change. Write a poem that has something to do with the theme of change, or alteration, or mutability.

Extra points for a form that is based on changes, e.g. a sestina.

But just write something about change of any kind. That should be a vague enough theme to give you all some freedom.

You've all written brilliant poems in the previous challenges. Have at this one, folks.

Oh yeah. Here's Bowie, looking very 70s, singing our challenge theme song.

Plus ca change…..plus c’est la meme chose

I came across journals
Packed at the bottom of boxes unseen for 13 years
Years that were all about change
I married. Divorced. Had a child, raised another one.
Lived in four countries, three continents
Lost and gained God even knows how many pounds
Saw you again, inevitably.
You changed too
You no longer have that shiny red black hair
Falling over your eyes
Those neon sweaters are now cashmere
A rolex, rather than rubber bracelets on your wrist

But reading those journals
Was as silent and deep as that first kiss
My words could have been written yesterday
Or 25 years ago.
There is no difference.
And that makes me a bit crazy.

Tzara said:

Extra points for a form that is based on changes, e.g. a sestina.

Click to expand...

You have got to be joking about the sestina...how does anyone come up with something like that?

Barnes and Noble

My daughter says: Can we go to the bookstore today?
a phrase that makes me glow
and this disruptive phase worth it

Conversation now rich in questions like
What’s the difference between wince, cringe and flinch?
What joy to impart love of words!

But I must tread carefully
One false step and the remote control
May switch back on, so

I try to resist saying things like:
Cringe is what you did when I caught you at 2am watching crap TV
Wince is what I do when subjected to discussion of crap TV

And I promise to never, ever flinch when she asks for a book.

Diaper Change Needed in Room Seventeen

"Oh, Jean," I wish she said, "I never wanted
you and Tom to have to care for me
this way." But Olga likes the Five & Dime's
vanilla soda fountain shake
she thinks she drinks. She hasn't heard
the words when Katie asks her Daddy why
her Grandma needs a song. He says the rhymes
in lullabies will help her sleep,
but after Katie's rock-a-by
the baby fell, she flutters like a bird.

When Olga's aide has left to change another
Olga, I say, "If I lost my mind
would fear I'd have of losing it be lost
or re-defined as sugar sweet?"
a premonition of a bliss
which sages say no words exist thereof?
They say that sweet's the last taste that we know,
perhaps a taste of what's to come.
No matter. May there still be love
within a heart whose mind is broken now.

War, famine, death, AIDS, recession, depression
Crickets outside, darkness, traffic in the distance
Hope, change, future, scandal, live
"I Can Haz" and I stare outside, blank

Stewart, Limbaugh, old man at the counter, questions
18 bucks an hour, giving them assistance
Red and blue and black and four and five
One and two and climbing up the ranks

Waterboarding someone into a confession
While we count out pills to which we've built resistance
One, two, three, four, five, six
Nothing changes here. There's not much here to fix.

9/11

Eleven years ago
a friend said
I never thought I would see the day
when my last name
Lynch
Would get an amen in Harlem

Eleven years.
Other names have not fared as well.

Every morning is born on the back of a beetle,
preciously held under folded wings which open,
urge forward the shy, bright child onstage.
This morning I dreamed of your spine under
my lucky fingers, searching for and finding
your wings and the treasure held under them.
I dreamed I mounted your golden ball
and rolled it between us until we burned up
all flight and falling ash, shedding skin and skeleton,
scattering shells on the beach below.

on going shopping one september afternoon

the afternoon grows golden
through the napped and nibbled leaves
a sudden fascination
with root vegetables intrudes
barley, rice and maize stake claim
to shopping trolley's shrinking space
and juicy cuts of bloody meat
deny the salad's prude

Tzara said:

OK. Monthly challenge time.

It's the month where we transition from Summer to Autumn down the road.

So... change. Write a poem that has something to do with the theme of change, or alteration, or mutability.

Click to expand...

I just realized I qualify.
Ozymandias from a can
too bad PoetGuy's not around to see me do the other Shelley
Summer to Autumn
the goldenrod have turnt burnt orange
fresh, huh? avoids the whole dead green thing
i left a cliche in
this forsaken place
for the sake of cheap rhyme and as an anchor
because the whole thing is an allusion
choke cherries crowd the tiny path
but then it is soooo eminently forgettable just like the rest, eh
in case you missed it, the party line was one out of twenty
and i knocked it down to zero

I want to thank everyone who has participated so far in the challenge. Sorry I haven't been around to comment on the really interesting work y'all have submitted. I'll try to do that in the next couple of days.

I'll also try to write one of my own, but I'm still fogged by jet lag, so it might be a kind of last minute thang.

I've got one... no idea what to call it as I write so I'll just call it:
..
Changing Worlds

Pushed from a warm dark nest
into the cold bright air
where peaceful contented rest
gives way to hungered dispair
..Moments pass
Loud cry splits the air.
..
Pressed to warm soft flesh
mouth filled with swolen nipple
suck down the milks flow fresh
so begins lives of Kings and Cripples
..Nothing lasts
Quiet breath stills with nary a ripple
..
Harry

Tzara said:

Extra points for a form that is based on changes, e.g. a sestina.

Click to expand...

You suck...

Desejo said:

You have got to be joking about the sestina...how does anyone come up with something like that?

Click to expand...

I wrote up a spreadsheet for that once. I got laughed for too. Damn that Angeline chick for even telling me about those things.

Desejo said:

You have got to be joking about the sestina...how does anyone come up with something like that?

Click to expand...

..
you should have seen the August challenge
..


August Form Poem Challenge: Ottava Rima!
PandoraGlitters
..
I failed miserably

Stranger views I have seen:

Not sure I know that man
looking back at me.
Seems like his eyes are tired,
hair is tinging gray.

Not sure I know that boy
swinging that little girl
into his embrace.
She giggles. He smiles.

Not sure I know that woman
talking about clothing mandatory.
I knew a younger woman
that looked like her without the clothes.

I know that sunset.
Autumn colors flying high.
I've seen it many times,
never changes.

Submitted mine........CW

PandoraGlitters said:

Every morning is born on the back of a beetle,
preciously held under folded wings which open,
urge forward the shy, bright child onstage.
This morning I dreamed of your spine under
my lucky fingers, searching for and finding
your wings and the treasure held under them.
I dreamed I mounted your golden ball
and rolled it between us until we burned up
all flight and falling ash, shedding skin and skeleton,
scattering shells on the beach below.

Click to expand...

..
this cries (to me) for the word "shore" especially after "shedding skin and skeleton"
Am I wrong??

it all moves on
damn it all to the old ways
that died with hope in its breast
that it would continue on
ashes to dust to stone

heavy hangs the weight of
mooring chains
draped cross
the cracked deck of a landed boat

but with imagination
sweat and grit
thought
can it all be better the next time
change moves us on the breeze
of time