And Sometimes I Wonder (poems)

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IMG_1103 (2)

 

The challenge from Jilly over at dVerse is to write a poem using repetition, the snag is that the poem has to be written to a particular form; the forms being either villanelle, terzanelle, pantoum, triolet or chant. Check out Jilly’s fascinating post for examples and definitions of these forms. I have to admit, having never studied poetry beyond high school (and not much at that) I find these forms intriguing and a little daunting, so I decided to go for what I thought was the easy one – chant; this proved to be a bit more elusive than I had imagined. Here are 3 attempts, the first one is new, the other two are edits of previous posts.

And Sometimes I Wonder

and sometimes I wonder
why it’s easy to curry lamb
but hard to curry favour

and sometimes I wonder
would a defibrillator
stop Donald Trump lying

and sometimes I wonder
are all Donald’s lies
by definition, white

and sometimes I wonder
living comfortable lives
can we legitimately claim suffering credits
from our parents, the past.

Smart Phone (with apologies to Dickens and Darwin)

’twas the best invention
’twas the worst invention

’twas communication’s new dawn
’twas the end of communication

’twas a pain in the neck
’twas incipient myopia

’twas why we evolved
with opposable thumbs.

Auto

auto-didact
auto-deduct
auto-redact
auto- instruct
auto-emphatic
auto-erratic
auto-erotic
auto-neurotic
auto-symbiotic
auto-despotic
auto-dramatic
auto-Semitic
auto-semantic
auto-romantic
auto-demonic
auto-symphonic
auto-bubonic
auto-ironic
auto-motive
auto-emotive
auto-mobile
auto-labile
auto-manual
auto-mandate
Otamendi*
Otamendi
Otamendi.

 

*plays centre half for Manchester City.

 

 

30 thoughts on “And Sometimes I Wonder (poems)”

  1. Alex

    good defender . expecially when he was playing at Valencia . at city..he has to wait for Kompany to get injured but,honestly,he is not a world class defender as he makes huge mistakes somethimes . city could of done better than him . just an opinion …

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      1. Alex

        at uts he would rock !!! of course , untill Mourinho would blast his confidence with 2-3 words…
        i don’t get it. ok, Mourinho has a huge bonus for being sacked but ….c’moon !!! man.utd can afford to pay him 20-25 mil pounds and hire a manager who can manage a player like Martial,pogba and expecially Rashford…

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  3. Jane Dougherty

    I like the rather off-kilter thinking in the first one, though I think Trump gets too much air time. They say it only encourages them, if you ignore them they go away, like Hitler did…

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  5. Lona Gynt

    These chants are powerful and clever Jim, I especially like the following line, which really spoke to me in my soul:

    “auto-erotic”

    oops, did I say that? (darn this backspace new fangled smart phone, I haven’t figgered out how to delete!!! let me go get my daughter to help me)….

    wait, I guess I don’t want to splain my typo (yeah tha’s right – typo) to 10 year old tech support.
    Well, anyway, Jim, I do like these, but I guess I will just have the nice curried chicken. Lona.

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  6. Lona Gynt

    And, I really do especially love the first poem, perceptive and difficult question it poses about comfortable lives. I think no matter how good things are, there is a part of our wiring that can’t work without suffering, it helps us to move forward, so sometimes we make it up, but ususally we don’t have to. Scuse my silliness, couldn’t resist. 🙂

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    1. sdtp33 Post author

      I’m all for silliness, after all this is a poem that suggests that a defibrillator could prevent fibbing. Thanks for your very thoughtful reflection on the poem, made me think a bit more about what I was trying to say (an advance in itself) . I think I’m questioning the legitimacy of co-opting other people’s suffering. Jim

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      1. Lona Gynt

        Co-opting? Perhaps. Or maybe there is legitimacy in trying to understand another’s suffering at least in some small measure, such efforts may amplify the meaning we can derive from our experience as a species, even if we can’t claim congruent experiential empathy. It’s not a bad thing to try to understand the real thing, even if such understanding is not itself the real thing. Also, when using the latest tech to prevent lying, always ask for the defibrillator and not the defibulator. Otherwise ya won’t have a leg to stand on 😏

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  9. Steve Simpson

    With sometimes wondering, a thought-provoking piece, I also found myself wondering, although I can’t curry much, a curried egg sandwich perhaps. The last verse: it seems we may claim all sorts of credits from our ancestors, as if we don’t have enough problems with modern versions of hereditary power.

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  10. Pingback: I Should Never Have Started This Villanelle | Stopdraggingthepanda

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