Tag Archives: Blue Unicorn

Using form: RHL, ‘Formal vs Free’

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Look: formal verse can be china for tea,
a golden goblet, a mug made of clay.
Free verse is putting mouth to stream to drink.
Yes, you could cup your hands… but do you think
museums want to buy that to display
your “memorable skill”, your “artistry”?

*****

‘Formal vs Free’ is published in the current ‘Blue Unicorn‘, in a section loaded, as often, with verse about verse.

Photo: “Red-figured Greek Red-Figure Kantharos (Drinking Vessels) with Female Heads 320-310 BCE Terracotta” by mharrsch is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Iambic heptameter: Simon MacCulloch, ‘Jasmina’

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Jasmina is the doorway, Jasmina is the key;
Jasmina walks the path beside the pearl-infested sea.
The angels peer bewildered from the god-infested sky;
Jasmina is the only how that doesn’t need a why.

I see her in the morning in her robe of melting frost;
She visits me at noontime when the meaning has been lost.
At evening she invades the nooks the spiders thought their own
Till night demands a moon; she stoops, and hurls it like a stone.

I used to think her complicated, now I know she’s not
(A how that doesn’t need a why has little use for what).
I used to think she’d care for me, if only for a while;
I used to think a lot of things before I saw her smile.

I never hear her speaking though I think she has a song
Which many claim to know although they always get it wrong.
She feels like furry gossamer and tastes like perfumed smoke;
I often hear her laughter but I never learn the joke.

Jasmina is a destiny, Jasmina is a doom;
Jasmina is a woman but with stars within her womb.
The demons peer demented from their hope-infested hell
And beg her for a story, but she hasn’t one to tell.

*****

Simon MacCulloch writes: “Jasmina is a slightly offbeat take on the great western goddess motif (Aphrodite, the Virgin Mary etc). It is not based on anyone I know.”

Simon MacCulloch lives in London and contributes poetry to a variety of print and online publications, including Reach Poetry, View from Atlantis, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Spectral Realms, Black Petals and others. Jasmina was originally published in Blue Unicorn.

Photo: “mask” by new 1lluminati is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Blank verse: Gail White, ‘Eve Discusses Adam’s First Wife’

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You tell me Lilith has become a fiend,
a vampire, a screech-owl, one who preys
on children (I‘ve had three and she has none),
sentenced for disobedience to run wild,
hideous now, howling for all she lost.
You tell me I was taken from your side
that I might always find a refuge there,
a warm and nestling creature like the cat,
safe from the free but haunted world of dark.
And I’ve adjusted splendidly, I think.
My apple fritters are the best you’ll eat,
go where you will.  I keep domestic life
tidy and clean.  I never stir abroad
for fear of Lilith’s shriek and bat-like wings.
Yet when our first son killed our second son,
I – the good mother and obedient wife –
had one quick moment’s envy of her life.

*****

Gail White writes: “You won’t find the story of Lilith in Genesis, but in later Jewish commentary.  She was created simultaneously with Adam – God made them out of mud – and she used this joint creation to claim equality with him.  The world was not ready for Lilith as First Feminist.  She was banished, and Eve was created within Eden and presumed to be more docile.  I tried to give her a little flash of independent thought.”

First published in Blue Unicorn.  

Gail White lives in the Louisiana bayou country with her husband and cats.  Her latest chapbook, Paper Cuts, is available on Amazon, along with her books Asperity Street and Catechism.  She appears in a number of anthologies, including two Pocket Poetry chapbooks and Nasty Women Poets.  She enjoys being a contributing editor to Light Poetry Magazine.  Her dream is to live in Oxfordshire, but failing that, almost any place in Western Europe would do.

Photo: “Adam and Eve (and Lilith, the serpent) (Notre Dame, Paris, France)” by runintherain is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Short poem: RHL, ‘Vibration’

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It’s quite a ride.
We took off in a cloud of dust and noise
and, while it might look steady, silent, from afar
above the clouds I’m feeling more and more
a rattle in the cabin and my joints
as though the bolts are shaking loose;
you trust the plane will land safe, smooth, three points . . .
but one way or another, all flights end.

*****

‘Vibration’ was recently published in Blue Unicorn.

Photo: “Ready for the ride, but Someone is a bit nervous…” by Just Us 3 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

RHL, ‘Cultural Context’

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Between the Prime primeval Evil
with its shaky tale of taily snake and fruit,
and the (only medi-evil)
Renaissance and lute,
come Greeks and Romans, Arabs, and
(skirting the border
of anything that looks like law and order)
Vikings searching for new land.
From all of these
I draw my science and mythologies.
It’s all intriguing, never scary –
at least, to me;
ymmv.

*****

For those not familiar with this particular piece of slang, “ymmv” is an abbreviation for “your mileage may vary”, itself an abbreviation for the idea that different people have difference experiences and perceptions. What I like about its use here is that it provides the missing rhyme for either of the two previous lines, depending on how you say it.

‘Cultural Context’ was published recently in Blue Unicorn.

Photo: “Straight out of the Holy Land!” by One lucky guy is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Potcake Poet’s Choice: David Galef, ‘Nohow’

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I do what I don’t
If I can’t and then could.
I wouldn’t say won’t
When I mustn’t but should.

Do I never need not
Any time that’s all now?
Should I get what I’ve got
Nowhere here but not how?

When the whos turn to whom
As I do till I die,
I will rumor the room
And stop asking why.

David Galef writes: “Nohow, besides being a homage to Cummings, is the kind of celebration of sound and sense that people always seem to enjoy. First published in Blue Unicorn.”

David Galef has published over two hundred poems in magazines ranging from Light and Measure to The Yale Review. He’s also published two poetry volumes, Flaws and Kanji Poems, as well as two chapbooks, Lists and Apocalypses. In real life, he directs the creative writing program at Montclair State University.
www.davidgalef.com

“‘Why?’, Mike Luckovich, Pulitzer-Winning Political Cartoonist (1 of 4)” by Tony Fischer Photography is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0