Poetry Decathlon

[Lecram06]

Even a slight breeze
can make an old cottonwood
flutter and glitter.

A power house of meaning in twelve words.

[Lecram06]

"Blank Verse"

I would do for you what spring does for the cherry blossom

Were I at last devoid of winter storms,
were heavy snows a burden of the past,
the buoyant winds would cradle from the south
sweet touch of warmth robins want to bring,
and I at last would thaw, would melt away
the chill that wraps my love a step too slow.
Then I at last would venture in the sun
and offer you the cherries of our spring.


*Pablo Neruda, Poem #14 Love Poems and a Song of Despair

[Tracy Mitchell]

Wow, Marcel! 

Invoking the imagery and music of Neruda -- love this.

T

[Lecram06]

Wow, Marcel! 

Invoking the imagery and music of Neruda -- love this.

T

merci.  I'ts a joy to find these gold nuggets in the literature. Marcel

[Lecram06]

.

 

 Poetry Decathlon

Write ten poems -- one each of the following listed poems completes the decathlon.  

If at the close of the Fest you have posted poems from five of the categories, then you have completed the pentathlon.  If you have posted seven, then you have completed  the heptathlon.  

The poems you post need to be new poems, written for this contest.  

There is no requirement that you post them in the order listed below.  You may post in any order.

When you post a poem to this thread, please identify what form it is.  Keep a list of your poems to date.  If there are numerous participants, this thread could get long, and if each participant updates their own list in progress, then it should make it an engaging thread. 

Best of luck to you all.  Remember, if this was easy, everyone would do it.  Even prosers.  Ooops, sorry prose writers.  :) 


Before the close of the Festival on August 10, 2019, write and post one of each of the following:

   1. Haiku / senryu / Kerouac haiku
   2. Limerick 
   3. Cinquain - any recognized form of cinquain
   4. Etheree / reverse etheree / double etheree / double reverse etheree [triples and quads count too]
   5. Acrostic poem or square poem 
   6. Triolet or septolet
   7. Sonnet or Sestina
   8. Blank Verse minimum two stanzas
   9. Free verse - free form
   10. Wild Card / Cook’s Choice - author’s selection of any form, no form, etc – just a poem.


~
  

OK!!!! Where is the elusive Mitchell and his decathlon???? Marcel
 

[Tracy Mitchell]

OK!!!! Where is the elusive Mitchell and his decathlon???? Marcel

Shakin' the bush, Boss, shakin' the bush.  

 

[Tracy Mitchell]

#4  Etheree


   Cliffside 

poised 
shit-pants’ed
trembling wild 
on narrow ledge– 
here I be, matey, 
one step from the abyss– 
swaying in wind so fervent
I hold pause then feet-first screaming
lurch from the cliff in terrored descent
to plunge feet first into cold-splash success!

.
    
    
 

[Tracy Mitchell]

.

#3 Cinquain [Crown Cinquain]
    

Chaser Cairn 

Perchance 
our sight bends past 
people holding to us 
like the gravity of dead stars.
Tonight.

Of course
we have held on
to less, for longer, but
seldom have we held to better.
This tight.

A wind 
blows soft into 
cupped hands, to make a sound 
mourning doves above the clearing.
First light.

The creek 
sounds unending 
melt high in the mountains,
reluctantly descending toward
twilight.

We make 
piece-work progress
you and I, toward mirrored
bits of sky catching our mothing
sight.

.


 

[Tracy Mitchell]

.

#6    Triolet



       Chugging the Dogma / 
Twist Not Sober These Defective Thoughts

Clear the pate, if so, of what prattling prate    
Might twist sober that which we truly await,     
The hate of what we ourselves might abate– 
Clear the pate if so, of what prattling prate
We recreate to elucidate our hate,
To then conflate and desecrate – all too late– 
So clear the pate if be, of what prattling prate 
Might twist sober that which we truly await.


.

[Tracy Mitchell]

#7   Sonnet*



       Beyond Color

White dot finger tip smudge – 
a puff moon in late day blue sky 
lording above stones at work
ripping, at a crawl, new ravines
through timeworn settled sediment.
Wisps of sun-swallowed cloud drift 
eat bloodshot peach and cantaloupe smears
above stillnesses of high plains in repose– 

entangled swaths of lime-yellow sweet clover 
brace to detonate into night conjury– 
I am afloat with alchemy and exorcism,
blood japing illusions and remembrance
before a dawning light rediscovers
day’s common, cognizable colors.



------------------ - - -------------------------------
*Note to skeptics:  I know this doesn't look like a traditional sonnet, but here's my authority:
Freeform Sonnet – http://thepoetsgarret.com/2017Challenge/form16.html