Practicing zen? No.But I am drinking water and not using a prescribed poetic form today. I thought, “What could I do that would be different and interesting… to me?” POOF! (It, maybe, wasn’t instantaneous…) An idea was born.
I took a topic I bumbled across and I wrote it into 3 tercets of 8 syllables each followed by 4 Quatrains of 8 syllables each.
Why tercets and quatrains? I just liked the idea of three stanzas of three lines each, followed by 4 stanzas of four lines each. It may not even be an original idea, but I haven’t seen it before, that I can recall. It’s interesting to me.
Why 8 syllables per line? Why not? I am conscious that I wasn’t paying much mind to the meter other than syllable count. I don’t care how the stresses fell. I kinda thought the poem fells a little more zen-like, experimental, and jazzy. Maybe it’s all just dumb. Whatever. Don’t like it? Get your own blog or follow someone who likes following rules and coloring inside the lines.
So, here it is:
Plain talk
Sometimes I see when poetry
does not seem to have clarity
that straight talk alone may impart.
Perhaps a real thought so expressed
With a few clear words, black and white
Lacking false technicolor.
No obscurity in meaning
No dandy words convoluting
Flagging in the poet’s bluster.
Like when I say, “Do Ya wanna”
then you reply simply, “I would…”
and the doubtful me then portends
a virtual “but” in the air.
Looking back three hours later
To when I stop and consider
The invisible “but” may be
An unspoken yes, then unseen.
I think I should have said, “Will you?”
The answer to which is more clear.
Precisely Yes Please, or Hell no,
where I would know what to do next.
But unthinking as I can be
I let it sit for much too long
I acknowledge I may have missed
A chance to spend some time with you.
©2021 Tim Geoghegan - All rights reserved
Cheers!