Woke
He’d not yet
gone to sleep,
he was that
far from woke.
Woke
He’d not yet
gone to sleep,
he was that
far from woke.
When the Twittering Stops
it’s all fun
and games ’til
the body
bags come home.
Too Many Questions
U is at?
Is u at?
At issue?
Is it u?
*a slimverse using only 6 letters
let it be
the answer
lies in the
wondering
Vancouver Jazz Festival (Re-Mix)
a humid
lion house
hogo hangs
on the air
dogs and trees
dogs and trees
free jazz, jazz
for free, the
bass player
leans like a
drunk around
a lamp post.
Well, 3 posts into April – Month of Slim and I’m wondering will this 12 syllable madness ever end? I asked Slim if he found this verse form, this 3 syllable line too confining. Did he not want to escape its shackles and roam free, go for 5, 6 syllables or even stretch a line across the width of the page. “Au contraire”, he said. He actually said that, “au contraire”, and I thought that’s a bit effete, a bit foppish for a bald guy with gravity issues.
“Au contraire, in fact I find it liberating to escape the tyranny of free verse, the endless decisions – upper case, lower case, line length, is it really a poem or is it just chopped up prose, if I am writing a poem about a flower, should the poem be in the shape of a flower, should I rhyme or not rhyme, what is doggerel anyway? – this is like fundamentalism, the boundaries are clearly defined, this far and no further, the Lord gave you 12 syllables, make the best of it!”
Well, that answer was a bit more than I needed or wanted, if I owned a watch I would have been looking at it.
“Got to go, Slim” I said.
“Hang on” he said, “talking of religion, I saw that movie ‘Spotlight’, here’s my review.
Spotlight (slim review)
Catholic
priests find the
immoral
higher ground.
Closing Time
barman’s stare
stacked chairs legs
in the air
like dead flies.
Well, after a brief diversion into haikuland, April – Month of Slim returns with the first sighting of slimverse outside of North America (well, actually, outside of this blog) and it comes from Stiofan O’Broin (over in Ireland/ Italy ?) who shows a complete mastery of the form in his first attempt! Here it is:
Slimverse
a slimverse
is an odd
metrical
exercise.
On closer examination, this is actually a poem in which the poem is the subject of the poem itself, a kind of poetic selfie. It’s like writing a sonnet about a sonnet, or a haiku about a haiku. For example:
Haiku
haiku: seventeen
ineffable syllables
five, seven and five.
I think we’ll call it a“ Narcissus”.
Here’s a vaguely related blast from the past from Slim:
The Pre-Selfie Years (a slimverse)
fifteen years
ago, no
one could spell
narcissist.
(Be sure to check out Stiofan’s blog, it’s an eclectic mix of poetry, Irish politics and music and always interesting.).
Autumn
The leaves have abandoned
that chlorophyll thing
and are leaking yellows and reds
like a paint store catalogue.
Death (a slimverse)
A God’s voice
roaring: You!
You are not
in control.
Conversation with Slim
Me: Slim, in a previous post “Slim’s Advice Part 2” you said and I quote:
“Avoid Autumn and Death
they’ve been done before
there’s little more to say
on either score.”
Are you being ironic here in a self referential way?
Slim: No.
Me: “Slim, the first poem here is an outtake or revision of a previous poem (Slim’s Advice Part 3), are poems ever really finished?”
Slim:
“Words can be ‘
rearranged
if you just
talk to them.”
Lately, Slim has taken to talking in these 12 syllable bites he calls “slimverse” and I find it irritating and more than a little disturbing. So, as gently as I can, I say to him:
“Slim, that makes absolutely no sense to me, do you not think you are being a tad cryptic, a tad gnomic, if you keep on like this, you are danger of turning into a fucking garden ornament”
We haven’t talked since.
Stephen Harper (a slimverse)
your glass stare
your helmet
hair, you don’t
care, do you?
Ahh, Joe, I
thought you were
just Biden
your time. Ouch!
Jeb Bush
Jeb B, no
offence, it’s
not you, it’s
your brother.
Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz, it’s
just that your
views are so
…..confusing
Rand Paul
Rand Paul, is
that really
all that you
have to say.
OK that’s enough.
The Future
Grandma, can
I see your
tattoo, the
dragon one.
And No Tom
Danger Mouse
Modest Mouse
DeadMau5. It’s
all Jerry…….
*************
Image courtesy of [Mister GC] at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
First Impressions
When they meet
he insults
her. It’s love
at first slight.
Sign Outside a Funeral Home
Martin Bros.
Coffee’s on.
Come in and
say hello.
Magic
If life is
an illus
ion, who’s watch
ing the show?
Slim is experimenting with a form, 12 syllables, 4 lines, it doesn’t always work out neatly. He was thinking of calling it a “quatrain”, but that has a familiar ring to it.