Skeleton Prayer

Peter Breslin

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Guard the great lands of Ilium and Ischium tonight,
Watch out for trochanters and the dreaded acetabulum,
Arrange thy phalanges in phalanxes both distal and proximal,
Align all of thine intertubercular sulci and glenoid cavities,
May atlas and axis roll free
May the great iliac crest never fail or fade!
And so, dear fibula and tibia,
I bid thee goodnight.

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©Peter Breslin, 2018

Peter Breslin is a teacher, musician, PhD student in plant conservation biology at Arizona State University and writer who lives in Tempe AZ.  See his ‘Recycled Declaration’ here 

The Key to Happiness

Amanda Richards

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The Poem and its Inspiration, Nan Nickson

 

©Amanda Richards, 2017

Amanda Richards is a freelance writer and editor living in central Pennsylvania with her husband and young son. She enjoys baking, reading, and large cups of tea. When she’s not saving the world one typo at a time, Amanda can be found scouring local antique stores and flea markets for antique inkwells.

Autofill Ends The Affair

The autofill text-message game goes like this.
Begin a text using only one initial typed word (for example ‘Hello’), then hit the space bar. Then complete the phrase with as many of the three autofill helper words that appear above the iPhone keyboard as will give you a complete sentence. Write as many sentences as you like, beginning each with an initial typed word, then autofilling.

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Hello there you
How are you feeling
I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you today
I hope you are okay

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I have to say
Something about the way you get to have what you want
Is not a good thing

The fact is
I have a little time for a good day
You can do that for me and I’ll be okay

The fact is
I am a good person to you
And I love that I am able to give you a good life

But
My god
I hope you are most definitely not okay
I’m sorry
But you don’t know what I want

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Women should be able to make their own choices
Men have the most important things and they don’t know how to feel about it

Women are not going to be there for you
Men are not going to be there for you
Friends and family members have been there for about two days
But they don’t know what you want

Wives are not going to make you happy
Husbands are not going to make a big difference.
Children, of course, are the only reasonable ones
Babies make sure you do what they want
But they don’t know what you want.

I’m still trying to get it out there.
I’m still trying not to get it out there.
Lying is not a good thing, but
Truth is the only reason why I’m still here.
Lying is not going to make a big difference
Truth will make sure that you are not going to make a big mistake

There is nothing to say about that.
The fact that I’m still trying is just a thing that makes me sad

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Speaking about how I was really trying to be a good person
Is the only thing I want

Promises are not the only thing that you can make.

Mistakes are easy too
A great way to get the right person.
Look at you and me
Look how well you can make decisions about how things will be

Pain can make you smile but it doesn’t make you happy.

So I’m not going to see you tomorrow
I’m not going to see you
Everything is okay
But I’m not going to see you again

I hope you have a great time with your family
I’m not going to be a bad thing for you
You can be my friend
Only if you don’t have a reason to believe that I love you anymore.

Life has not always been good for me but I’m still trying to figure it out.
Men who can make me feel like a good person are the only reason why I love.
But sadness is a way to be a good person, a reason why I love:
Sad that
You are the only one who can be your own friend
Sad that
Sex was the only thing that could make us feel better
Sad that
You are able to hurt the only person that can make you feel

I’m sorry but it was just a bad idea
Loved the game but it’s not going to work
Wishing you all the greatest things
Wishing for the most amazing things to come to you

I hope you get to see the other side of your life.

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©Melinda Rooney, 2017

Canto 34

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Reposted: my first Anthology submission (actually, I asked my former student if I could use it, and she said yes). Tori’s Canto 34 is the response to my assignment (set out below) to my freshman Western Heritage class at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin in the Spring of 2016.

[NOTE: the New Yorker cartoon below appeared several months after Tori composed her Canto.]

The Assignment

WRITE YOUR OWN INFERNO CANTO, WITH YOURSELF IN DANTE’S SHOES: AUTHOR, CHARACTER, HERO. DO WHAT DANTE DID. DRAW ON

  1. ‘THE REAL WORLD’ (PEOPLE, PLACES)
  2. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: FAMILY, FRIENDS, GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION, KEY LIFE EVENTS. HOW ARE YOU LIKE DANTE?
  3. IMAGINATION
  4. PREVIOUS ‘ARTISTIC’ INFLUENCES—MOVIES, BOOKS, TV SHOWS, VIDEO GAMES
  5. YOUR OWN TALENT!
  6. THOUGHTS AND IDEAS WE’VE DISCUSSED IN CLASS
  7. THE ESTABLISHED LITERARY FORM OF AN ‘ALLEGORY’

Think about how Dante pulled off this amazing piece, as we broke down its qualities and characteristics when we were studying the text, and focus on implementing them in your canto:

the sense of ‘epic scale’
the vividly rendered ‘sinner’
the clarity and variety of the immediate close-up details
CONTRAPASSI: symbolic punishments befitting the sin
the dramatic quality of human conversations
sections of Christian doctrine
the shifting emotional tone (humor, terror, disgust, anger, fear)
the constant sense of movement up and down and around
the developing awareness in the Pilgrim-Narrator (that would be YOU) who has to make emotional and conceptual sense of it all.

 

The Canto
‘Canto 34’

Tori Jadczak 

Downward still, we travelled, my guide so fixed to his path
that we nearly missed the split in the rock, so clearly discarded from the main trail,that I wondered if its intent was to remain so perfectly hidden.

I pointed there, finger outstretched,
to the putrid lichens that devoured the stone where it parted,
so sharp and spiteful I would fear to near it if not for intrigue,

my guide halting where he stood and looking back
as a child caught ignoring the wishes of his mother
when he otherwise meant to avoid them.

“What foul matter lies beyond, that hides behind these overgrown spires of stone,
that you would pass by as we have not yet done before?
Were we not to visit the entirety of hell?”

To this he replied, his mouth in as tight a line as ever I had seen it,
“I would not have dared to journey there unless you so desired,
but as your hand reaches, so there we will venture.

But as we diverge to a path only meant to be travelled by those who deserve it,
make strong your heart and your ears for a deafening thunder,
for surely what awaits us was not meant to be heard by living flesh.”

With trepidation, I followed his steps through the narrow path in the jagged stone,
sharp and pointed rocky teeth shadowing the air
that brushed us as we passed between,

distantly bringing tidings of the canyon ahead with echoes
that brought dark tidings for the stretch ahead
and rang off slick rock and skin alike.

As we descended further, the din grew to a stew of sound so thick and frenzied
a single source I fought to recognize just as a man seeks his friend in a crowded street,
but to no avail, the squealing thunder deep and grating all at once.

Eager to see what manner of beasts could unleash such a sound,
I rushed to the final ledge,my guide behind me, reluctant to lead,
he stood a cold comfort at my back.

And there they loped toward us with frightful gaiety,
creatures of such nature that at first I thought my eyes deceived,
in guise of children laughing as they skipped,
so merrily that it would seem they had forgotten
hell itself was to be their eternal home, then,
as gleeful as they were in the deafening mire.

My master, aghast, threw up his arm in front of us as they approached,
though the only heed it seemed they paid him
was to brandish instruments within their delicate hands, colorful kazoos.

“Come no closer, wretches. We are sent by One with power greater than your own,
for this, my charge, must witness the poor souls who dwell here
and remember them well. Your meddling will not go unsuffered.”

At the front of the band, with golden hair and a smile
so unsettling that no such gruesome things I had witnessed thus far
had yet sent fear’s cold hand to grip me quite as quickly,

a young boy laughed shrill enough to pierce the thunderous veil
of the raucous onslaught around us
and in response the others mimicked his cries.

Through gleaming teeth he did exclaim, with mockery
and enthusiasm that spoke the opposite intent of his words,
“Wait a minute…who are you?”

The children did not move, and indeed seemed curious
despite their leering grins and voiced mutterings, which to my surprise
I heard the deep voices of adults slip past their youthful lips.

What horrors were these, then, who wore the skins of playful children?
Pity seized my breast for them, these wretched beasts,
who jabbered with ill-suited tongues and jumped in excitement where they stood.

“Master, what are these creatures, who seem so youthful,
and carry such strange instruments? Pray, tell me where we are,
for I had not thought to encounter such a place in our descent.”

And as he sought to answer me, they began to buzz in unison,
a cacophony of frightful and unsynchronized melodies
upon the kazoos they held, the noise saturating the air as a thick veil over our ears.

All around us they began to dance, trumpeting their horrid symphony
until their leader gave a sign, at which they dropped to all fours
dragging their knees against the ground as forward they crept.

“I’m a big, tired cow,” the leader laughed, and he began a note
so low and deep it echoed through the canyon above the din below,
the other joining in, advancing with an abhorrent lowing
of which the Minotaur himself would be jealous to conjure,
and our young pursuers chased us deeper towards the souls that writhed below,
in such a fashion, sounding as a dozen bulls from their kazoos.

Their leader relented while the others continued on, and grasping at my arm unbidden
he dragged me through the lamenting souls, beset by similar horrors,
of such a sort the deafening thunder was no longer a mystery to me.

Performed by such malevolent children, each soul was set to torment
by some variety of provoking sound in horrid concert,
some with kazoo renditions of “Careless Whisper,”
others still with serenades of “Hot Cross Buns” on the recorder,
played by groups of children each just a bit off time with the other,
all as skilled as any unpracticed musician and his first instrument.

I began to lose sight of my guide, I called but could not hear him
through what encompassed me, and wailing
faintness touched my head, amidst such rancor, I feared I’d lost him.

Until the masses began to clear, the horrid child guided me
towards a great monument at the canyon’s center,
where my guide awaited me, disheveled from the crowd.

The sinister imp on my arm released me to dance around the pillar
and giggling he joined the other children atop it,
freeing me at long last as I stumbled.

Atop his pedestal, an ominous creature sat chained,
so fearsome to look at that I averted my eyes, for such a soul I had not yet seen,
in every circle I had yet journeyed through, this was the most wretched.

His pallor belonged to that of an orange, which forgotten
had been left to sit at the bottom of a crate for a great many weeks,
only sparing his squinting eyes to be colorless sockets.

Loose across his face, his skin hung as slack as his jaw,
flapping about, words from his lips were lost to the noise around him,
his head bobbing as if seaborne in a storm, his eyebrows desperate oarsmen.

His torment was the loudest yet, a great section of brass about him,
tubas and trumpets all, each blown by several children each in long, thundering bellows,
which whipped his loosely flowing updo to every side just as a bird that struggles in flight.

“Silence! I beseech you, delinquent pests!” My master roared,
“So that we may speak to the one whom you torture, quiet your tumultuous gale,
and you may soon again return once we are finished.”

As they grew quiet, the soul’s attention turned, and my fearsome guide commanded,
“Tell us your name, O sinner, my companion may yet carry your name
back to the realm of the living, for you cannot go there.”

To my amazement, he paused in his speech before he answered,
“Who am I? You want to know who I am? Well, that’s a good question.
People call me many things, you know, but my people call me Trump.”

To which I urged my master, “If he can continue on, should he tell us
which sins have been committed to bring him here,
what merits such a symphony, I would like to know.”

And my guide replied, “It shall be so. Please, then,
recount to us the accord through which you have obtained your suffering,
troubled spirit, that we may find reason to pity you.”

Eyebrows raising and lowering as if to fly from his brow, he replied,
“Am I suffering? Good question. Well I think it’s fair to say that some people are suffering
and that I am one of them. Suffering is the foundation upon which this great
institution was built and if I were to be suffering I would know it. I have people
who know about suffering, and let me tell you, there are a lot of experts on this who
agree with me, that I am suffering. You know, those other guys,
they don’t know about suffering like I do.
I have stocks in suffering, and you know what?

I really do a lot of deals in suffering. Huge deals. So yes,I think you could say
that I do a lot with suffering and that I know about suffering. We can make suffering great
again.”

And without a word, my good guide led me away on his own,
the deep brazen notes roaring again as we turned our backs,
to drown that loose tongued soul’s words as he yet spewed them.

Incredulous, I followed without word, for what could be said?
The speech had been so surely given, and yet I found
that nothing of value had been spoken to us.

My master, as we departed back to our intended path, asked me,
“Tell me now, what sins do you now think the souls here commit to
befit such torture, now that you have witnessed it?”

My reply was swift, “Souls who speak without purpose, or for the purpose of speech itself,
possess an incontinence as wicked as those in circles before us;
their tongues are as foul as the serpent’s was in Eden.”

And so back to that fateful road we climbed, ascending once again,
to follow its trail to yet fouler depths, the raucous concert
fading far behind to smother the rampant tongues of the souls we left behind.

©2016 Tori Jadczak

Tori Jadczak attends Carthage College and is majoring in Biology. In her free time she writes, draws, and plots to crush the patriarchy. 

unnamed

Cartoon by Paul Noth, The New Yorker

Page 52

download

Page 52
25 Books
Sentence 5

Renunciation is realizing that nostalgia for life’s vicious cycle is full of shit:
the waving grass, intermingling with a rich profusion of wild flowers, the most beautiful sight I had ever gazed upon;
our own dark environment, where our only companion is the smell of our own sweat.

(One option beyond these two seems to be the attempt to organize and defend the new sphere of civil society not as mediation but as an end in itself.)

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And yet
And still
If it had ever become ‘necessary’
(I can find no other word)
to strengthen the central supporting column without too much enlarging it or adding to its weight,
no better formation than this spiral could be conceived,
and an almost exact parallel to it occurs
in the air-tubes or tracheae of insects
and the water-tubes of plants.

Although a prisoner’s internal experience
(the smell of his own sweat, her own dark environment)
may be close to
or identical with
that of another person suffering severe pain
from burns
or a stroke
or cancer
or phantom limb,
it is, unlike this other person’s, simultaneously being externalized:
waving, intermingling,  a rich profusion.

Ignorant what to do, he is stupefied;
he neither lets go the reins, nor is he able to retain them
(life’s vicious cycle: full of shit)
nor does he know the names of the horses.

She forgets that she is talking to listening children; she lives with the fairy folk,
or the kings
and queens
and beautiful ladies, whose adventures she narrates,
modern propaganda,
a consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events
to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise,
idea,
or group.

Father Arnall’s low and gentle voice:
I wanted to amass information against the enemy we were capturing on the battlefield.
In the fire of the visiting sun their faces shone like the faces of children lit by a golden lamp,
The most beautiful sight I had ever gazed upon.
They began as useful and practical goddesses who cared for springs and wells and cured disease and foretold the future.

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Archaeological excavations of sites thousands of years old have revealed bodies that show signs of medical attention:
broken limbs that have been set,
dislocations replaced,
wounds treated successfully.

Relief is not complete cure, and may proceed from different causes:
a few preparatory experiments,
a panegyric upon modern chemistry
useful and practical goddesses.
These colors,
produced when thin slices of material are placed between two polarizing plates,
have been used to investigate the structures of many natural objects
including crystals,
rocks,
and hailstones,
battlefields and wells.

Nature is abundant, but Grace is not abounding.
The book says so.
It is the best of those of your poems that you have let me read.

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All that I could do was to wait until the tide was at the highest,
keeping the raft
with my oar
like an anchor
to hold the side of it
fast to the shore,
near a flat piece of ground,
which I expected the water would flow over;
and so it did.

Eviction can be contagious that way.
So I have to watch it–be its eyes.

Renunciation, Nostalgia
Organize, Defend
A consistent, enduring effort
Is it about faith or is it about grief?

Well, you’re the detective, aren’t you?

[with gratitude to the original authors, from whom I beg indulgence for the theft and for the occasional tweak for scan and sense]

©Melinda Rooney, 2017

 

Ode to a Nigerian Prince

324277

A formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea. Its stanza forms vary.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org

You, tired prince in plastic sandals
A table in a room, a chair
A foreign land
Bereft of incense, street scenes, color,
Tourist-free
Instead a chair, a table, couch, down the street a KFC,
Cheap fluorescent ring or bar that buzzes, pops, assailed by moths
A laptop wired to link your world,
Oh weary prince with yellowed eyes,
To mine: a housewife, novice writer, decent lighting, central air
NPR, a custom workspace
in a corner of the new kitchen

As you read this, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me
Because, I believe,
Everyone will die someday.

You could be anywhere

I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I have never really cared

You could be anyone

Permit me to inform you of my desire

You could tell me anything.

Which one should I use, you wonder, fingers poised above the keys
What killed my wealthy father this time?
(and if by chance you hate your father, what fun these tales must be to write
Right?)
Car accident: they lost there lives?
Esophageal Cancer?
AIDS?

My father was a cocoa merchant
Poisoned in a plan gone wrong
Treachery! His trusted partners!
Discussing on a business deal.

(You stop, consider;
Is ‘on’ correct there?
Google Translate, it will tell you:
Leave it in or take it out.
Fucking English, so complicated)

Abidjan, in the Ivory Coast
Is where he drew his final breath
Secretly called me on his bedside
Suspense account, a local bank
A simple and sincere business

It would be nicer, don’t you think,
Were your fingers stained with ink?
Scratching with a reed or feather
Dipped into a little pot
A scroll, or parchment,
A woven ribbon, wax to seal,
Leather pouch in which to send it, hand to hand, across Africa,
To a packet boat, perhaps,
To sail across and land here on my desk?

These bytes and keystrokes, digital packets,
Not much romance there, for sure.
You strain after the exotic, a tool to entice,
A compelling narrative
But some things only work the old-fashioned way.
You sense instinctively, I think,
That you have to up your game.

I prayed over it
This letter, not intended to cause any embarrassment
But just to contact your esteem
Self-following
The knowledge of your high repute

There you go. Flattery. Never fails.
Now, follow with a plea.

Please, my dear, I repose great confidence in you
Please, I need your assistance to make this happen
Please, do not undermine it

Next, appeal to mutual interests:
It will,
Also,
Be a source of upliftment to you,
Also.

Finally, appeal to my desire for risk, as I languish here in leisure, desperate for a story:
You have absolutely nothing to loose in assisting us,
Instead
You have so much to gain.

I mean, why not!
What could possibly go wrong?
And isn’t it, when I’m honest with myself, the fact that something could go wrong that
Tempts me for a second?
Crash and burn this life
My husband’s money
My children’s college
(none of this is really mine)
That jerk of the steering wheel while crossing the bridge
That moment at the edge of a cliff
What if I did?

You need a cast of characters, you need a set of actual names:
A Jewish businessman, Mark Rissar
The then head of state General Sani Abacha
A Lebanese banker, Chagoury,
Junior brother
(did you mean younger?) Ahmad
The present civilian administration of
Chief Olusegun Obajanso

And you’re good with details, I’ll give you that:
Bearer Bonds and Treasury Bills
Certificate of deposit
Promissory notes
My family’s cash lodgement
(I’ve not heard that one; a term of art?)
A security firm abroad
The Federal Government Of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(N.N.P.C)
A Foreign Firm in the
Petroleum Trust Fund
Which I have these information in my custody now.

And this, perhaps the best of all, so vivid we can nearly see it, feel it, chilly, in our hands:
A metal box consignment with Security Deposit Number 009GM

And here we are, the buried lede, the crux of the matter, the big reveal:
$12,500,000.000
(you’ll want to drop that last zero, by the way; you don’t want errors tarnishing your authority)
881-631-410-574
60 percent
30 percent
Invoiced to the tune of

I’ve been told I’m lost in details,
Overly enamored of description.
It derails the story, bogs it down
My reader grows impatient
I’m impressed with how you pull it off

Perhaps it helps to have a goal in mind,
Desperation,
A proposed exchange
An attempt to forge connection between the reader and the art:

  1. YOUR FULL NAME
  2. COMPANY’S NAME
  3. POSTAL ADDRESS
  4. PHONE AND FAX NUMBERS
  5. YOUR BANK NAME
  6. YOUR BANK ACCOUNT AND BENEFICIARY NAME
    [You must be the signatory]

Here is the difference between us, prince:
You know why you write
Rhetorical purpose
It always eludes me
Wanting to be heard is not enough.
In this way, I suppose,
I mean, I suppose you could look at it this way
You are more honest than I am
Your motives more pure, if base,
For of course there are such things, marriages of opposites
Strange bedfellows
Like you and me, prince: two different kinds of parasite.

And time is of the essence here
I’m a mere civil servant
Who needs this money out
Before the newly democratically elected government ever think of making enquiries as
 regards the various activities of the past military government.

Kindly contact me above
So that we can swing into action
As time is not on our part.
Yours Faithfully

Mine faithfully,
Mohammed Abbas, weary prince,
Thanks for writing
Take my money
I will take your words.

[all misspellings are verbatim]

©Melinda Rooney, 2017

No Laundry Blues

Hillary Fields

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I stared at the laundry.

I stared long; I stared limpidly.  I stared with an impassioned intensity that promised much, if only…

I batted eyelashes; I pleaded breathlessly. Tender tears trembled at the tips of my lashes, and I sighed, longing.

‘Twould not do itself.

I changed tacks, swearing stormily, pouting, stomping my sockless foot (no socks left).

Still, ‘twould not do itself.

I bargained, I cajoled. I made promises I daren’t speak of.

‘Twould not, alas, take that small yet necessary leap into the machine.

At last, I threw in the towel (the towel was dirty too), and resigned myself to going commando.

I got the no laundry blues.

 

©Hillary Fields, 2017

Hillary Fields is a New York-based novelist and essayist. Her most recent novel is Last Chance Llama Ranch, published by Redhook books. Learn more at https://hillarymfields.com/

Google Search

 

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Past, Present, Future http://dolfinitygallery.com

 

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Who was the first President
Who was Deep Throat
Who was Jack the Ripper
Who was President during Katrina
Who was the second President

What was the Cubs score
What was the Cold War
What was Watergate
What was The Marshall Plan
What was the Holocaust

When was Millennium Park built

When was Hurricane Sandy
When was Hurricane Katrina
When was the Civil War

When was Jesus born

Where was Abraham Lincoln born
Where was Game of Thrones filmed
Where was pizza invented

Where was Jesus born

Why was the Berlin Wall built
Why was Clinton impeached
Why was sense8 cancelled
Why was NATO formed
Why was the Civil War fought

How was your day
How was your day in Spanish
How was the Grand Canyon formed
How was the moon formed

How was God created

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Who is the Night King
Who is the richest person in the world
Who is the next Bachelor
Who is the host of the Gong Show

What is the weather
What is the meaning of life
What is the score of the Cubs game
What is the temperature now

When is Trump’s press conference today
When is Labor Day
When is Father’s Day
When is Memorial Day
When is the next full moon

Where is the Grand Canyon
Where is the love
Where is the nearest Walmart
Where is the nearest gas station

Where is the fire

Why is the sky blue
Why is the ocean salty
Why is the ocean blue
Why is the Governor of Texas in a wheelchair

Why am I so tired
Why am I so hungry
Why am I so cold
Why am I so dizzy
Why am I so gassy

Why can’t I pee
Why can’t I focus
Why can’t I eat
Why can’t I find a job
Why can’t I get a girlfriend

Why is the FBI here

How can I keep from singing
How can investors receive compounding returns
How can I watch Game of Thrones
How can I make money

How should I cut my hair
How should I dye my hair
How should I dress
How should I invest my money
How should I style my hair

How do I embroider eyes
How do I get home
How do I get a passport
How do I love thee

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Who will I marry
Who will be the next Bachelor
Who will be the next King of England
Who will be the next James Bond
Who will save your soul

What will happen on September 23, 2017
What will the weather be like today
What will a hydrogen bomb do

What will happen to Illinois

When will Irma hit
When will I die
When will Irma hit Florida
When will the world end
When will it stop raining

Where will Hurricane Irma hit
Where will Irma hit
Where will Hurricane Irma go
Where Willy went
Where will the 2020 Olympics be

Why will Trump be impeached
Why will the world end

Why, William Blair

Why will Steam not open
why will anyone hire me

How will I know
How will I die
How will Game of Thrones end
How will the world end

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©Melinda Rooney, 2017

 

 

Donald’s Villanelle

The villanelle is a poetic form with its origins in Italian rustic song (‘villanelle’ deriving from the Italian word ‘villano,’ which means ‘peasant,’ or, perhaps, from ‘villa,’ Latin for ‘farm’). Speculation locates it in a tradition of ‘round’ songs (remember those from kindergarten?) sung to accompany the repeated rituals of agriculture: sowing and reaping.

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Jean-Francois Millet: Buckwheat Harvest: Summer; 1868-1870; pastel

It evolved into its present form in the 16th century, in French poetry. Throughout history and up to the present day, poets have been smitten with the villanelle, ensuring its ongoing evolution even as it resonates with echoes of the past.

Its structure is as follows:

  1. It is a poem of nineteen lines.

  2. It has five stanzas, each of three lines, with a final one of four lines.

  3. The first line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas.

  4. The third line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas.

  5. These two refrain lines follow each other to become the second-to-last and last lines of the poem.

  6. The rhyme scheme is aba. The rhymes are repeated according to the refrains.

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Donald’s Villanelle

I’ve done nothing wrong, you know
Russia, kickbacks, it’s all lies
I hope that you can let this go.

The fake news witch hunt, on it goes
Sad! Their whos and whats and whys
I’ve done nothing wrong, you know

There’s a high road, there’s a low
Drain the swamp and scrape the skies
I hope that you can let this go

Crooked H, bad hombres, foes
So-called judges, leaking spies
I’ve done nothing wrong, you know

Walls and tariffs, jobs and dough
You’ll tire of winning, all you guys
I hope that you can let this go

Believe me, time will tell and show
Great Again, Tremendous Size
I’ve done nothing wrong, you know
I hope that you can let this go

©Melinda Rooney, 2017

[I’m indebted to The Making of a Poem: a Norton Anthology of poetic forms; Mark Strand and Eavan Boland, eds. New York, W.W. Norton & Company; 2000.]

Recycled Limerick

Kimmy Allan

…public service announcement meets poetic form. Result: recycled art with a message.downloadThere once was a girl named Renee
Who recycled things every day
And because less trash
It meant far more cash
For she had more money to play

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©Kimmy Alan, 2017

Kimmy Alan is a wannabe poet from the land of Lake Woebegone. A retired steel worker who was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, Kimmy Alan pursued his love of poetry as a distraction while undergoing chemo and radiation. For him, poetry has proven to be a powerful catharsis, as he is currently in remission. When he isn’t writing he spends time with his four wonderful nieces, whom he says “are driving him to pieces.”