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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

There and Here (a cleave poem)

there, come upon a greening once
in ticked and timely woulds
where all footed plantings have danced and swirled,
he takes a speculative girl
they tip-toe tentative steps of belonging
to meet, to part, join fingers and twirl
till they reach an inevitable verge
but with each successive passing
of the will to do and was not true
she grows fainter in his mirrored should and
their shy shadows wobble in recognition that
her hands can only feebly grasp at
what's lost is found, but never bound to
this fading pane of here



The Day 14 NaPoWriMo prompt from ReadWritePoem is to write a cleave poem. This is a form created by Dr. Phuoc-Tan Diep, and the goal is to have two halves that can be read both separately and together. It proved both a challenge to write and to format.

12 comments:

human being said...

wow! wow! wow!

this is stunning, Francis!

the way the lines can be read together or separately... the story you tell (really cuts deep)... and the way you play with word... such as woulds, pane,...

also i liked the pace... that fading theme is felt in the pace too...

lovely!

human being said...

' his mirrored should '

ahhhh...
so sad... so sad...

susan sonnen said...

I'm with Human Being...WOW!!! :D

Francis Scudellari said...

@hb I'll admit taking some inspiration from your horror story and its windows :). Sometimes the words just come, and I'm not sure where they'll lead me. This was one of those occasions.

@Susan Thanks... we're almost halfway home on NaPoWriMo!

Megan Duffy said...

Left a comment on this over at FOS. I'm liking this a lot. Really, really well done!

flaubert said...

Francis,
"join fingers and twirl" Nice image there, really well done!
Pamela

human being said...

crow is happy and honored to be a source of inspiration... especially for a poet like you...

:)



words always lead us to some wonderful hidden places... on the winding paths of the world...

Francis Scudellari said...

@Megan Thanks... I loved that piece you posted to FOS today too.

@Pamela I like to mix a little sweet into my sad :).

@hb I've learned to let the words take the lead in our dances. And I should have that crow drawing I promised you ready by next week ;).

human being said...

holy cow!
you painted it? really?

i'll be counting the days... impatiently... to see it...

to see?!
or to watch?

perhaps to touch...
:)

Kay Tracy said...

Francis,this is truly wonderful. I love the line "in ticked and timely woulds." Would haves and could haves always pain us. But, what you've done is follow it with "where all footed plantings..." which makes me think of the "woods." I love the way the forms of the words even seem to mirror each other. Awesome work.

j said...

I really liked the sound of this, "the fading pane of here."

We have a book called Dragon Dragon which has poems (from various writers) on mythological beasts with illustrations by Eric Carle. It's a kids' book with some wonderful poetry and one of the poems is (I now know) a cleave poem about the Phoenix.

Francis Scudellari said...

@Kay Thanks... sometimes the words seem to fall into place and shape themselves in interesting ways. I can only take partial credit.

@Jennifer That sounds like a cool book. I hadn't heard the term "cleave poem" before this prompt, but I'm pretty sure I've seen it practiced elsewhere.