Grand theft poetry

Dejah told Lisette and Melinda about "grand theft poetry." It's basically a mash-up of different poems. Here are some of the results from today's writing club.

The duck-billed platypus isn't easy to imagine
it began to go beserk
break, break, break.
Good bye proud world! I'm going home
I'll detonate to smithereens.
Melinda

She walks in beauty, like the night
Out of the misty eastern cave

beyond this place of wrath and tears.
And up the mountain-sides of dreams
Into a sea of dew
I think that I will never see
the darkest evening of the year.
Melinda

Great is the sun and wide he goes
close to the sun in lonely lands,
the solemn hour of midnight
and the mome raths outgrabe
those that I guard I do not love
on a whitened beach.
Lisette

"The splendor falls on castle walls,"
Said a whiting to a snail
with a cargo of ivory.
I shant be long-you come to
of the straw for a bedding
who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me?
I have spread my dreams under your feet
watch the wall my darling
and they went to sea in a sieve.
Lisette

Of sparklers and dirt

Lisette found a leftover sparkler in the closet last week. I was going to just throw it away, but Lisette wanted to light it. Here she is framed in a ring of fire!




She also wrote a poem today. She said, "I only did it because Mom made me."

Dirt

Most dirt is compost,
Made of dead plants and apple cores,
And sometimes even dung.

Ok, now here is a poem about Lisette's poem and Lisette's sparkler. Keep in mind, this isn't the greatest poem in the world, this is just a tribute.

Soil
Rich humus,
Food for worms,
Dung of worms,
Home for worms.
Wormy worms.
Sparkler
Fire-sticks for children
Burning sparks of pain
Sting tender skin on hands and arms.
Wonderful light,
Making night shapes.
Sparkly sparks.

Ode To Tomatoes

When Melinda and I were dating, she told her family that I had several bad qualities. I skied, swam, hiked, wore shorts, played the guitar, played the oboe, and worst of all - I liked poetry. Melinda was sure that anyone who liked poetry couldn't possibly be stable. I'm not really "into" poetry and I haven't even read some of most famous poets. But I had recently had a Spanish literature class and I really enjoyed some of the poems we read, so I happened to mention that to her.

Really, the only poet I know much about is Pablo Neruda. The way I see it, who else matters? I know I'm prejudiced toward him because he is Chilean, and I have a soft spot for all things Chilean, but really he is the best. He is know in Chile as El Poeta, The Poet. If anyone refers to The Poet, it's Pablo Neruda.

Interestingly enough, Chile has two noble prize winning poets, Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda. He was actually a student of hers when he was very young in the south of Chile. There are statues and monuments to Gabriela Mistral all over Chile, and she has her own currency; she is on the 5000 peso bill. But Neruda was much more prolific and important poet than she was, but his politics made him more controversial.

Some of my favorite poems that he wrote are in Odes to Common Things. He was the voice of the common person; all the hard workers of Chile. In Chile a very common dish is ensalada chilena, Chilean salad. It is made with cut up fresh tomatoes, onions (they usually soak them in salt water first to make them milder), olive oil, lsalt, and parsley or cilantro. It's a basic food that everyone eats. So before the tomato harvest is over this year, let's give it up for the tomato!

Ode To Tomatoes
Pablo Neruda

The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.

Ian is a poet and he didn't even know it

Here is a poem that Ian wrote this year in his poetry workshop.

As the icicles
Rose higher into the sky
It made the fog grow dark
Until midnight suddenly struck.
There was a sudden crack
There was a strike of lightning
Across the sky.

The sun struck red... it was a traffic light.
I couldn't couldn't figure out what kind
So I trotted to the scientist museum
And suddenly there was a strike of tornado.

It was a thunder, bunder tornado.
As the thunder bunder tornado crept
Towards the scientist museum
It went under the scientist museum,
Spinning the scientist museum around and around.

It was so loud it work me up,
I had a nightmare.