According to Robert Lee Brewer, on his wonderful poetry blog, Poetic Asides, Shadorma is a Spanish syllabic poetry form, structured in 6 lines of syllables like this: 3/5/3/3/7/5. You can link sets of 6 lines together, he says. Here’s my first attempt:
Shadorma
Sounds like a
warrior princess
on the side
of good poems.
Soldiers, peasants, conquered foes
listen as she reads.
Their faces
open like windows
long shuttered
as each poem
echoes off her pink armor.
Another war, won.
Mari is flighty and giggles. Her voice is high-pitched and she talks too fast about absolutely nothing. Clothes. Shoes. Boys.
But——the way she looks! Tall and pale, with wild dark curls and a pink, pouting mouth. She looks like you’d imagine Collette looked. That is, if you’d never seen a picture of Collette.
So, we hired Mari. Her job is to sit at one of the tables near the sidewalk, with a small white cup of espresso and a leather sketchbook. Also, an ashtray, but we have to keep it filled ourselves, since Mari doesn’t smoke.
We tell her to dress only in black. Tap pants. Skinny jeans. Little velvet flats. Or stilettos. Black cashmere turtlenecks, with a Hermes scarf and a Mont Blanc pen and her pink lips painted bright red.
Her job is to look pensive. Intense. Artistic. Setting the tone for all the harried customers in suits, late for meetings on sales projections. Giving them some hope, a glimpse of another kind of life.
She practices in the mirror every morning. Mari is a good girl, who takes her job seriously.
Remember when you were little
and made up jokes?
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Potatoes.
Potatoes who?
Potatoes for dinner.
Is that funny?, you’d ask.
If I admitted, no, it wasn’t all that funny,
you’d ask, astonished and aggrieved, Why not?
Tuning yourself
like a dial,
learning to hear
what is worth laughing about,
stubbornly convinced
that you already knew what
was funny: Everything.
Absolutely everything.
I dreamed I opened a book with pages tipped in green. Everything alive must die, it said. That’s a rule. And there’s a limit to our physical size. That’s a rule, too. But there was an appendix, lists of classifications narrower than species. Smaller and smaller names for angels or atoms, dominions and principalities. Here’s the very last page, where we’re all the way down to the little categories of shuffles and coincidences.
Yesterday, one black bird feather
Landed at my feet
In the busy doorway of the grocery store.
Were you on your way in
Or out?
Did you leave the feather
As a message?
If so, I must tell you,
The message is unclear
And you should send more details.
As it is, the message could mean
Warning
Or Welcome
Or I’m Watching out for you
Or Buy more Birdseed
Or Buy More Cat Food
Because none of us want him hungry.
You, a boy who can’t usually find his own shoes,
who has come home with the same exasperated message
about not working to your potential
written on so many report cards over the years
that I ought to have it printed on t-shirts, or business cards,
or your forehead.
You, who can play music,
and write songs and sing them–
A way you forged for yourself:
Desire, practice, practice, and beauty.
You, who can choose to charm
most anything you want from the world
which shakes its head and hands it over,
with a smile.
You, who carries all that weighty potential so lightly—
like sun inside a loose-lidded box.
A red-tailed hawk swoops from the telephone pole,
Glides above the marshy stand of cattails, stalking mice.
The god of his particular world. I try to turn him into
a reminder to myself–something about the beauty of nature.
Impossible today. I worry about those mice and can’t let go
of the moment I’m replaying as I drive home
—the boy who assured me he doesn’t care if
he passes her class,if he never graduates,
doesn’t care about anything at all, is aggressive
in his Loud Declaration that he just doesn’t care.
I wish I could tell him to lay down
those twin weapons of aggression and apathy
which do not serve him well
but he is not a boy who Listens to Advice.
I wish I could warn him about the hawk,
but he is one unhappy mouse in the world–
not the kind who hums through his days,
not the one who cowers in the high weeds,
afraid that every shadow might be the hawk.
No, this boy would be the mouse who
pounds his fist against the base of the telephone pole
shouting up to the hawk, Just try and catch me,
See if I care. He is the mouse who will still be criticizing
the world below
as the hawk carries him away.
“It is as if you are writing in a beautiful new language that utilizes English vocabulary and syntax but is not quite decipherable to an ordinary speaker of the language.” ~Steve Kowit, In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop on the technique of cross out poems, which involve circling or crossing out random phrases from a variety of newspapers, magazines, and poems, then mixing the phrases together to create something new. To read a much better description, with examples, consult Mr. Kowit’s inspiring book.
I.
Fortune and sweet smelling waves
tell the history of summer,
rain and words falling like open blossoms
formless as a mist on your hair.
Rosemary and peaches, deep blue air
and ten thousand books
full of the philosophy of kids
which dictates something for lunch
(meaning pastries and cakes)
days of board games and the virtues
of winning a second round.
II.
The next moment,a parking lot
covered in moss
nothing but oaks westward
into the silent woods
and down to the water’s edge.
Pleasant, a romance shimmering.
She grew still for a moment,
like touring the Swiss Alps
knowing when to yearn, dressed for home,
holding a ticket stamped Open Return.
III.
Across the street,
this new world wasn’t easy in the air.
They said it was a path to the sky,
direct and westward, into.
But what proof do we have?
Silence and the warm wind.
Our cat has nominated me for Human of the Year,
All on account of me knowing the important spot behind his ear,
And the promise of a steady supply of tuna.
In my acceptance speech which, I admit, I’m already writing in my head,
I’ll generously acknowledge the team that made it possible:
The tuna himself, plus those two small children
Who lobbied hard for you, finally convincing me on the day
They were so desperate for a pet that they named a ladybug.
I’ll thank the ladybug,
and the volunteers at the animal shelter
And the luck that led us to meet each other’s eyes,
Mine brown, yours brilliant green
And make our choice.
Now those children are on their way out into the world
Transforming you from a family pet, to mine,
And transforming me from a mom raising kids
To a woman with a cat.
Not your fault, I’ll say in the speech,
And bow for applause.
This is just to update you
on conditions here:
Our wireless access points
used up their vacation days months ago,
but keep disappearing anyway.
We suspect they’ve been in Bermuda,
because when they show up and work
they are sun-burnt and wearing shorts.
The power cords you delivered last week
are frayed and send off sparks
when we plug them in. This fills our heads
with static. We’ve attached the bill for
extra hair product this requires.
I am writing to you on ordinary paper
because my computer’s screen
is all blue, again.
A color I’ve come to detest.
Also, the email program won’t open.
Its door has been locked so long that
virtual cobwebs cover the keyhole.
In short, our technology problems
come and go
like the real mice in the walls
chewing away at important wires
electric with energy.
there's a poem in every day
aka: The Happy Bookers
Artist
I came to where you were living, up a stair. There was no one there.--John Ashberry, "The New Higher"
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