Poem Dump
So apparently I've been going on a bit of a poetry kick. Huh? Anyways, here's another one, starting off with a line that's been begging me to be turned into a poem since sometime last year. I know it looks like free-verse, but it's actually what I've started calling a syllable poem, following the syllable scheme that I set up in the first verse. (In this one I think it's 8-7-7-8, then 7-7-7-7 until the the final verse where it reverts back to the original pattern of 8-7-7-8.) I don't think it's technically an official form of poetry, unless you count haiku - and in case you were wondering, 'Acid Rain' is also a syllable poem.
With no further ado...
Tides of Life
In my blood there's a fish-woman,
Scale-slick silver sinuous,
Sirens' calls and whale-bright songs
Echoing under rolling waves.
My breath sighs in, and out, and
It's wind on rippled waters
Whipping up whitecaps and spray.
Gulls call, circling for fish, free.
Surf crashes through me, surging
In and out, in smooth rhythm -
Tides of life, circuituous,
Salty serendipity.
In my blood the fish-woman sings
To drowning men and selkies -
To silver fish - mourning whales -
Calling them home, calling them home.
Except I'm also a dork, so I wrote another one based on another idea that's stuck with me for a long time. The syllable pattern in this one is 6-8-8-6. Why? Because. There. Go read.
Mythos
This is where gods are born,
Sleeping light in every tree,
Whispering in mist-green grasses
And laughing in the streams.
There's mysticism here
Deep-laid in the bones of this land.
Flesh thick with time and history
Slips from its skin, snake-like.
The past's a step away,
Just through wav'ring curtains of heat.
The air is thick with sleep, and charms,
And dead oracles' chants.
White stone lies crumbled, pure
As the day that it was quarried
From the bones of Mother Gaea,
Testament to old faiths
Of temperamental gods,
Divine and human, fallible -
Imperfect, and that much more real.
Once they lived, by bright faith -
The land itself believed,
And raised them from every rock.
Oracles wailed and spoke in tongues,
Offering smoke-sent prayers.
The sky is thick with smog.
No one believes the old stories.
Cities of glass and grey concrete
Rise from ancient ruins.
The land itself believes,
And all the gods sleep deep in stone.
Just past sight, oracles still moan
And time pools, depths stilling.
With no further ado...
Tides of Life
In my blood there's a fish-woman,
Scale-slick silver sinuous,
Sirens' calls and whale-bright songs
Echoing under rolling waves.
My breath sighs in, and out, and
It's wind on rippled waters
Whipping up whitecaps and spray.
Gulls call, circling for fish, free.
Surf crashes through me, surging
In and out, in smooth rhythm -
Tides of life, circuituous,
Salty serendipity.
In my blood the fish-woman sings
To drowning men and selkies -
To silver fish - mourning whales -
Calling them home, calling them home.
Except I'm also a dork, so I wrote another one based on another idea that's stuck with me for a long time. The syllable pattern in this one is 6-8-8-6. Why? Because. There. Go read.
Mythos
This is where gods are born,
Sleeping light in every tree,
Whispering in mist-green grasses
And laughing in the streams.
There's mysticism here
Deep-laid in the bones of this land.
Flesh thick with time and history
Slips from its skin, snake-like.
The past's a step away,
Just through wav'ring curtains of heat.
The air is thick with sleep, and charms,
And dead oracles' chants.
White stone lies crumbled, pure
As the day that it was quarried
From the bones of Mother Gaea,
Testament to old faiths
Of temperamental gods,
Divine and human, fallible -
Imperfect, and that much more real.
Once they lived, by bright faith -
The land itself believed,
And raised them from every rock.
Oracles wailed and spoke in tongues,
Offering smoke-sent prayers.
The sky is thick with smog.
No one believes the old stories.
Cities of glass and grey concrete
Rise from ancient ruins.
The land itself believes,
And all the gods sleep deep in stone.
Just past sight, oracles still moan
And time pools, depths stilling.