ordinary life

Say It and Play It, Billy – NaPo 2025 Day Eleven

Today I was to write a poem that incorporates song lyrics – ideally, incorporating them as opposing phrases or refrains (I didn’t). Though not specifically prompted, I felt like the poem should be a “loose” villanelle which, like the example, doesn’t rhyme (much).

Just to Feel Good for a While

To forget about life for a while
We hear the songs and drink the wine
and you got us feeling alright

Everyday life is one more trial
We feel abused by the tyranny of time
To forget about life for a while

We sit and we cry when we sing
Sadness and resistance break down
And you get us to feeling alright

We laugh until it hurts in a good way
Looking forward to this now all week
To forget about reality for a while

It seemed so much like just yesterday
When love, I thought, was here to stay
And your song and the grog got us to feeling alright

With midnight closing in
As we feel it and see it all in the air tonight
To forget, for now, about life’s pain for a while
And your song got us feeling alright

Look both ways on the hardest of days to find a break in the clouds.
Mind the gaps and learn the words of all the songs and poems you love.

Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt #350 – Vapid

Click on graphic for Sammi’s blog and more special vapid writes.

An Ordinary Rage

Ordinary wine works just fine
for normal people like me.

My sister-in law explained,
(about damn near anything
she liked): “it’s all the rage!”

Like mid-eighties, vapid looking,
overpriced, Cabbage Patch Dolls.

Ordinary is good. Strength
resides around the center of a bell curve.

If everything must be so damn special,
think about that, my friend—
because (then) nothing is.

Look both ways because weddings are wonderful and funerals are not.
The first is an option while the second celebrates death more than life.
Mind the gaps and be skeptical of outliers.

Understanding Poetry

Let’s face it. While poems are to express a feeling or an idea in a certain style, we don’t always understand them. I love poetry. I try to write it. I admit that it can be more complicated than we prefer, and perhaps more than this Old Texas Aggie’s gray matter can process.

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Sometimes, as with music, it just sounds so damn good, even though I have no clue about the subject or purpose of the piece. Poetry sounds especially wonderful when read by the right, good voice. It works for me, even with my uncertainties about understanding the art.

I like the synonyms for poetry, chiefly versification, metrical composition, balladry, and the archaic (and perhaps politically incorrect) poesy. Occasionally, I run across a fine piece of balladry that I not only enjoy and understand, but I also relate to with some internal passion — Hell Yes!

I love irony in life, in writing, in humor, and in verse. It strokes my silly ego to find others who give a pass to the literal minds of the world, and share my ironic reality. Last week I was handed a poem that was published in Stanford Magazine (Jan/Feb 2017), written by Mary Poindexter McLaughlin, titled: Alma Mater.

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For me, this poem glorifies the wonderful simplicity of ordinary lives, and it resonates in me the value of things like freedom and love and family and friends. All of which wear the tag: priceless!

ALMA MATER

My apologies for using a link, but the publisher is unable to grant permission for me to republish at this time. Please click here to read the short poem from the Stanford Magazine page.

Because this is from the magazine of a prestigious American University (Stanford, I did not go there, but she did), I think Mary is referring to her alma mater. But, she could also mean any parent, friend, or muse who we believe had greater material expectations of us. It reminds me of that meme, “How do you measure success?”

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Here are four lines of my own poetic dribble. I have been massaging this clunker for a while, there is more, but it’s nowhere near finished. I wonder if it conveys the right emotion.

Always, you’ve been here with me,
As children, we survived my foolish resistance.
While we ponder our thoughts, I sense yours in me,
As we bind together, into one two-sided life.

 

poetry-1If you wanna write some, there are on-line poetry challenges, such as NaPoWriMo during April (sign ups begin 1 March 2017). You will be challenged to write a poem each day. I do the A-to-Z blog challenge during that month, so not sure that I could keep up. Maybe.

…. Great love. (In tribute to Pat Conroy)

Poetry or prose, mind the gaps and look both ways.