Triolet: Azimuth

I am considering challenging myself to a triolet a day in 2024.

Triolet is an eight-line poetic form utilizing repetition and rhyme originating in 13th-century France:

A (first line)
B (second line)
a (rhymes with first line)
A (repeat first line)
a (rhymes with first line)
b (rhymes with second line)
A (repeat first line)
B (repeat second line)

I do love structured forms that utilize repetition.

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An azimuth away, we’re so close
in this year of bitter tidings, we could
reach, if we had grasp enough, those
an azimuth away, we’re so close
to pushing through, give us just one post-
elegiac skin-cracking shrapnel day; one good
azimuth away, we’re so close
In this year of bitter tidings, we could.

No Cover

My brain needed a little break post-April writing marathons. But I miss it, I do. I miss the daily writes and camaraderie.

So here’s a shower poem:

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No Cover

The twenty-one year old summer of
nicotine and Slim-Fast. 2am coffee,
we danced all night. Our lung function
a wonder. Energizer bunny bar hop.

The night I was mugged, the bartender
gave me a free Diet Coke. The door
guy let me in, no cover. Rice
and potatoes and lentils, we
lived cheap, danced late.

The cocaine boys, the club bathrooms,
the maybe shady alley downtown
will a $2.50 vodka cran prevent
a urinary tract infection, the inevitable
parking zone violation ticket? We danced

until dawn.

April 30, 2024: the myth, the legend

Today’s prompt is to write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend.

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Rumplestiltskin at the Spinning Professional’s Social

You wanna know a secret?
I actually prefer flax. It spins
Silver-sweet, cool,
Like morning dew.
None of this high-noon
Fields of gold stuff. I’m
A night owl.

It’s really soft, you know? That’s
Why I like it so much – I can mold
It into anything. I like
Beads and glass and pretty
Tiny things. To tuck away.

But the only jobs in town are straw.
My fingers itch and split.
Spin, spin, spin.
Maybe if I raise my rates?

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April 29, 2024: Look What You Made Us Do

Today’s prompt is Merriam Webster’s 10 Words from Taylor Swift Songs. Pick a word or more, and go!

I couldn’t help but explore some some facts and offer some tips o’ the wing to the great seabird albatross. I’ve made more than a few references to other, extant, works, as might be expected from this mighty creature. As the very long—and very short!—month of April winds down, let’s have a bit of a lark, shall we?

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Albatross

All the hype and all the hate, it’s
Impossible to understate
The enormity of that big bird.

Seven days is an eternity in this cycle
When the weekend’s done, I can’t remember
What Friday weighed me down. Set sail.

Around my neck and in my lungs
I soar, I crash, I burn. This air
gliding hunger to dive down deep.

A lightweight worsted fabric is in my wings,
A mollyhawk, a goonie bird, I am not a gull.
I am a prince. Grey clouds I stalk. I burn.

Do not weep salt tears, do not follow
Me from coast to rocky shore. I am consistently
Under par and over head.

I am a single word, circled. You know what
The first rule of flying is?
Never look down.

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April 28, 2024: a sijo

Today’s prompt is to write a sijo: a traditional Korean three-line form. Typically, each line of the sijo has 14 to 16 syllables and the poem progresses through a theme in line one, extrapolation in line two, and the third is a volta, often broken into two clauses.

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Here’s three for the day.

Halley comes around again in twenty sixty one: a show!

Twice a year we cross Halley’s track and meteors glow.

In space we fly a rocky course. Our dusts sparkle when they meet.

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take two:

The day lengthens with grass / Spring blooms tall each morn.

The chickadees at five am / are up before the sun.

The cat, a nibble, the landlord mows. I would rather sleep.

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Saturday night’s eight little pills / go down quick at bed.

Sunday’s effects are just enough / to have a day of rest.

My Puritanical ancestors’ grim. I dance with grace.

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April 27, 2024: a sonnet

Today’s prompt is to write a sonnet, perhaps even an American sonnet, which, like so many things American, may or may not have stated rules. While I love writing in some forms—often those that include rhyming and repetition—sonnets typically give me hell.

Today’s write is influenced by yesterday’s writ, by Terrance Hayes (swoon!,) by my love for medical terminology and what the body does, and by the rabbit hole I delved in last night: Reddit’s r/deathcertificate, where I read late 19th and early 20th century death certificates before bed. For fun. So, thinking about all the ways in which we die, and how they do and do not change over time, how deaths are interpreted by the coroner/registrar, and the stories that do and do not get told. And, an eight-syllable line.

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r/deathcertificate

Hello. My name is -itis, I’ve
been here for a very long time.
Pleuritis, meningitis, dip
-theria is a cousin. We’ll
close your throat up tight. That ear in
fection gets around, networks like
nobody’s business. Faster than a
lightning strike, electrocution.

Atherosclerosis is
also mine, we’re thick. We’ll break your
heart. Peritonitis, subject
to a self-managed secret sin.

This body is a meeting. This meeting
is adjourned.

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April 26, 2024: sounds

Today’s prompt is to play with sounds: assonance, consonance, alliteration. (none of these look like I’ve spelled them right.)

And, oh, hey, another WTF, body? poem.

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This Corporeal Body

This body, this being, is a sentinel
event, a horizon. Is everything, is
nothing, is a black hole baby.

Mortality and morbidity; a meeting
in the morning. To discuss: the whys
the wheres, the whose, then whens.

Syringe in the bathroom awaits, unprimed,
a luer-lock left open, a gauge
for your thoughts? A penny in time?

A promise. Corpus luteum and lacriminate
this corporeal body, this crash cart
criminal hearing is adjourned.