Personal Challenge #2

Well I am "It" to the Personal Challenge from Michael (aka grapeling).  

As some of you know, I invited him to join and connect with poetry communities last April 2013. He accepted by writing a poem "Caterpillar" in response to my lune poem.   

"In honor of how I came to the garden, please select from at least one of your fellow Toads, a poem from their recent catalog, and craft a reply / commentary / inspiration from their pen, up to a total of 3 poems. What I'm going for here, is a sense of tribute to the influence we have on each other as poets. We support one another by comments - this challenge, is about paying homage via a pen to another poet's work. "

My challenge includes penning a series of lunes with a maximum of 75 words.   I have decided to use my split personality voices  to Marian's challenge on Living or being stuck in the Past. My first two poems are based on Kerry's Imperfect Recall.   Our head toad is inspiration to all of us.   I thank her for all the encouragement she has given me over the last 2 years.

Shapes from the Past by Mike Worral

Imperfect Recall 

spoon this liquid
and your muscles will cease
to strum strain

under insomniac ceiling
blue stars will glow faultlessly
to repulse shadows

laboring by window
your eyes will mist missing
ingredients scattered thinly 

in an ellipsis 
your right hand grasps book
wrinkled bitten flayed

yet each page
stretched taut over gaping wound
is jade adorned

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

Pill

I am pink

and faithful at first swallow.

I treat disconsolate

with potent blows. 

All becomes ivory, where once

words bruised lavender.

I fill blanks

with happenstance, aches with honey.

I am river

rewinding what glowed,

fleshing what is absent : You

circling back to

Me. An arrow

separates us.   Thicker than magnet.

Murmuring a past

   perfect & luscious. 

As your lips wild tango

with my tongue.

                                   
                                                     ~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~


Nectar

       Morning taps gently
          I stir to see sun 
          bearing marmalade, coffee

       Sugar-glazed, cinnamon, spice-
         we inhale deeply warm silence
         with yellow-breasted birds

       Your eyes moon-drunk
         meet mine over soprano sky-       
         savor this -  sip ! 

To complete the cycle of words, my third poem is based on my very first encounter with Michael's poem - SIP. His strong & unique voice inspires me too. 

There is no Mr. Linky for this personal challenge post.   However if you feel inspired to write a response or craft a lune, single or series, feel free to leave your link in the comments & we will visit you.   Here is a quick refresher on lunes form. 

Thanks so much for reading and wishing you all Happy Tuesday ~

Grace (aka Heaven)

The Sunday Mini-Challenge : Lune

Hello to all the Toads and Pond Dwellers!   

On April 25, 2013 at 21:57, we will see a full moon.   So, I think it is timely that the poetry form we tackle today is called Lune, which is French for “moon”.  In mathematics, the lune is a shape that is similar to a crescent moon.

© picture by MamaZen

This 3-line poem has been called the American haiku and has two variations:   

Robert Kelly Lune:

Robert Kelly, an American poet,  invented the Lune poetry form.  He felt that adhering to the strict form of Japanese haiku (5-7-5 syllables) in English creates a different poem than the Japanese intention. He invented the Lune to remove these differences, and the only requirement is the 5-3-5 syllables. There are no other rules i.e. no need for a cutting word or punctuation.    Rhymes are fine; subject matter is wide open. 

In his book, Lunes, Robert Kelly has a short foreward:

Lunes are small poems that spend half their lives in darkness & half in light.  Each lune has thirteen syllables one for each month of the moon’s year. 

a minute ago

that tree was

still full of blackbirds

~0~

is this form too short

love alone

makes do with less

Jack Collom Lune:

Jack Collom created his version by accident.  He was, "beginning to work with schoolchildren when he misremembered Kelly's idea as a count of 3/5/3 words, rather than syllables." In doing so, he created a new variation of the Lune. As a happy coincidence, this variation made it easier for kids to create Lunes, since words are easier to count than syllables.

Here is one from Kim Nelson:

Tucson's winter moon

peaks down at desert life

chilling deepest night

In writing the lune poem, be guided that the intention is to make the minimal reverberate to the maximum.  Each lune is a separate poem.

So, our challenge today is to write a new lune poem either using the following:

Kelly Lune -Three lines containing a syllabic count of 5-3-5 (thirteen syllables).

Collom Lune -Three lines containing a word count of 3-5-3 (eleven words).

This can be a single lune or a series of interlocking lunes.  

I look forward to your words.   Happy Sunday to all ~ 

Grace (aka Heaven)