Tag Archives: poetry

Apples Eating Zebras

Here is a new Golden Shovel poem. I admit I’ve become a bit addicted to this form (here are the rules in case your unfamiliar).

Ars Poetica (an excerpt)

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit

Dumb

As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleave-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs

by Archibald MacLeish (1892 – 1982)

The following is a Golden Shovel poem from the first line “A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit”

Apples Eating Zebras

Apples eating zebras and z’s to a

I cobble together words in a poem

Making nonsense I should not but should

Gobble up wobbles and play vocab tricks to be

Escaping tricky corners with palpable

Tight and twisty turns and

Flamboyant gestures of an eloquent mute

Breaking forms with made-up rhymes as

A wanna-be unknown poet throwing a

Bucket of colorful words upon a globed

Canvas and calling it a bowl of fruit.

Apples Eating Zebras

What a fun one? Want to give the Golden Shovel a try? Join the “Get Your Golden Shovels” collaboration. Here is a link to this week’s prompt.

Be well,

Monty

Winter Worn Souls

First please check out this absolutely gorgeous poem from the English poet, Robert Herrick.

The Coming of Good Luck

So Good-Luck came, and on my roof did light,

Like noiseless snow, or as the dew of night;

Not all at once, but gently, as the trees

Are by the sunbeams, tickled by degrees.

by Robert Herrick (1591-1674）

Inspired (and not in the mood to do my day job), I decided to try and craft a Golden Shovel poem from the line “Are by the sunbeams, tickled by degrees”. If your not familiar with the Golden Shovel poetic form, here is a description. Also, if your interested in trying this form out, I’m currently running an experimental collaborative project called “Get Your Golden Shovel”, which you’re welcome to join.

Winter Worn Souls

Winter worn souls are

Warmed by

Midsummer night campfires, heads resting upon the

Birchwood log pillows heated by the day’s sunbeams.

Memories tickled

Awake by

The cold, clear nights’ stars shimmering in the sky for 360 degrees.

I might continue to work on this and expand to include more (or even all) of the lines from the original poem. The line “Like noiseless snow, or as the dew of night;” would also be a wonderful line to work with.

Be well,

Monty

Monty Goes Iambic Pentameter

At the recommendation of a fellow student of poetry (thanks Mom), I’m going to try my hand at a little iambic pentameter. The idea is that this will give me a feel for the meter, which will translate into more musicality in my work. Let’s see if I remember how to count my syllables. Haha.

Iambic Pentameter

The clock says it is just past noon this day;

In a rain cloud darkened room I sit;

Tapping out ten syllabled poetry,

In a classically metered rhythm.

Summoning a Shakespearean-like muse;

Counting words bit by bit under my breath;

To get this iambic pentameter prose.

Is it working? Or is this just a ruse?

A form living long past its rightful death?

Just re-teaching me how to count my toes?

All I know is I’m enjoying myself

And, that’s what really counts I suppose.

Well that was fun. I did struggle a bit on counting the syllables and had to make some corrective edits (I tended to overcount and I wasn’t so sure how to handle the contractions). I ended up using an online syllable counter to double check, so it should be all good now.

Be well,

Monty

Daily Droppings: “Drunk”

With #bloganuary out of the way, it’s now time for something fresh as we (hopefully) ease out of winter and into an early spring. Luckily, I’m not the only one that’s been thinking about this and Sandra from What Sandra Thinks has created a series of daily prompts for the month of February. Looking over the prompts, I felt they had a lot of promise so, let’s do this!

Thanks to Giggling Fattie at No Love for Fatties for her post that introduced the opportunity. And, of course, special thanks to Sandra for all of the inspiration.

The prompt: “Drunk”

“Intoxicating” – originally published in Monty’s Very Short Shorts

Be well,

Monty

Get Your Golden Shovel! No. 01 (a collaborative series)

This is an invitation to all of you poets (or potential poets, which is all of you) out there to join me in a new collaborative series I’m calling “Get Your Golden Shovel”. Here is how it will work.

Each Saturday in February (as an initial experiment and then I’ll decide whether to continue), will be Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll post a prompt consisting of one or two lines from a well known poem on Saturday, then we all will create a new poem using the Golden Shovel technique and share it with each other. I think it will be very interesting to see how different each of our pieces are despite pulling from the same source of material.

What is the Golden Shovel technique, you ask? It’s a poetic form originally created by the poet, Terrance Hayes. Check out the “rules” here. There is also an example provided.

Golden Shovel No. 01

“Time says hush. By the gong of time you live.”

The Gong of Time by Carl Sandburg (Honey and Salt)

You can either post on your own blog and link to the prompt post so that we can all see it and further share or include it in the prompt post’s comments section.

While there is not any hard deadlines, the intention is to share your Golden Shovel poem during the prompt week before the following Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll target posting my own poem along with some of yours with links in a recap post ahead of the following weeks.

That’s it. Today’s the the first prompt. Feel free to give it a try with the prompt line above if you want to get your feet wet.

I’m looking forward to seeing what develops from this. It should be fun!

Be well,

Monty

Daily Droppings: “Bad Idea”

With #bloganuary out of the way, it’s now time for something fresh as we (hopefully) ease out of winter and into an early spring. Luckily, I’m not the only one that’s been thinking about this and Sandra from What Sandra Thinks has created a series of daily prompts for the month of February. Looking over the prompts, I felt they had a lot of promise so, let’s do this!

Thanks to Giggling Fattie at No Love for Fatties for her post that introduced the opportunity. And, of course, special thanks to Sandra for all of the inspiration.

The prompt: “Bad Idea”

A Bad Idea

Oh girl, you’re a bad idea.

Wild and reckless,

Tempting me with your cool indifference

For my welfare,

Exciting and dangerous,

Just my type,

Mom’s worst nightmare,

Oh girl, let’s do this!

Dare me with your wicked ways;

I’m ready,

Light the fuse,

My devilish muse,

I can,

But won’t,

Refuse.

“Property of the Devil” – originally published in Thirteen Words (Vol III)

😈,

Monty

January Hits & Misses (#bloganuary recap)

Well #bloganuary has come to an end and while I’m grateful that this event helped bring me over to the WordPress platform and significantly increased the level of my engagement with the blogging community, I’m also VERY happy to see it’s conclusion. I made the best of it and I will give the benefit of the doubt to the WordPress team for having the best of intentions, but some of these prompts were a pretty rough. As a relative newbie to the blogging world I applied my fresh energy to the challenge and tried my best to create some interesting content. Here is a recap of the top three posts from the series, and the worst performer (based on number of views).

No. 1: Living Courageously

The Stats: 32 views

The Prompt: What does it mean to live boldly?

Analysis: This one required some research to get started, which is a different from most of my writing as I tend to write from what I (think) I know. The result was a poetic list that feels right.

No. 2: I Don’t Feel Strong

The Stats: 29 views

The Prompt: Write about what makes you feel strong.

Analysis: This was my favorite post of the series by far. I had no idea where I was going to go with it when I started. I just knew I didn’t feel strong. The result is a bit of poetic prose that really resonates for me.

No. 3 (tie): Sun, Happiness, Coffee, Writing & Gratitude

The Stats: 26 views

The Prompt: What are five things you’re grateful for today?

Analysis: This one just flowed naturally (which I was grateful for)

No. 3 (tie): Past Present Future

The Stats: 26 views

The Prompt: If you could, what year would you time travel to and why?

Analysis: [Spoiler] There’s no time like the present.

The Flop (No. 31): Road Trip!

The Stats: 2 views

The Prompt: What is a road trip you would love to take?

My Response: This was a five-for-one so you all missed a great deal. My only guess as to why this one performed so poorly is that it was very early and I hadn’t established an audience yet (but I can’t explain why it outperformed the first post of the series). *shrug*

Be well,

Monty

Get Your Golden Shovel! (Collaborative Series)

This is an invitation to all of you poets (or potential poets, which is all of you) out there to join me in a new collaborative series I’m calling “Get Your Golden Shovel”. Here is how it will work.

Each Saturday in February (as an initial experiment and then I’ll decide whether to continue), will be Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll post a prompt consisting of one or two lines from a well known poem on Saturday, then we all will create a new poem using the Golden Shovel form and share it with each other. I think it will be very interesting to see how different each of our pieces are despite pulling from the same source of material.

What is the Golden Shovel form, you ask? The Golden Shovel form was created by the poet Terrance Hayes, whose poem “Golden Shovel” (from his 2010 collection Lighthead) is based on Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” which references the phrase “Golden Shovel”. Here are the rules:

1) Take a line (or lines) from an existing poem (I’ll provide this as the prompt for the week)

2) Use each word in the line (or lines) as an end word in your poem.

3) Keep the end words in order.

4) The new poem does not have to be about the same subject as the poem that offers the end words.

5) Make sure to credit the poet who originally wrote the line (or lines) and link to my prompt post.

6. Have fun! If the rules are too rigid for what your muse is calling for then break them!

Golden Shovel Example:

Prompt: “Cursing the winter solstice sun” (from Under the Solstice Sun by Monty Vern)

New Golden Shovel poem:

Winter’s Curse

Honey sweet lips cursing;

Stoking flames, melting the

Frozen timepieces of winter;

Summoning summer’s solstice;

Accelerating earth ‘round the sun.

I’m only using my own poem as an example. The prompts will come from poems that I admire of find interesting in some way by other poets.

While there will not be any hard deadlines, the intention is to share your Golden Shovel poem during the prompt week before the following Golden Shovel Saturday.

You can either post on your own blog and link to the prompt post so that we can all see it and further share or include it in the prompt post’s comments section.

That’s it. We’ll be starting on Saturday, February 5th with the first prompt. Feel free to give it a try with the prompt line above if you want to get your feet wet.

I’m looking forward to seeing what develops from this. It should be fun!

Be well,

Monty

Missing You

31st post for #bloganuary (a WordPress event)

The Prompt: How do you feel when you look at the stars?

“Missing You“ – originally published in Monty’s Very Short Shorts

Be well,

Monty

Under the Solstice Sun

30th post for #bloganuary (a WordPress event)

The Prompt: Describe yourself as a tree.

Under the Solstice Sun

Stripped naked;

Discarded garments scattered under soiled feet;

Exposed limbs reaching high in defiance;

Cursing the winter solstice sun;

Drawing upon my last reserves

To defy death once more;

Another circle of life added to my core.

Under the Solstice Sun was originally published in Gnashing Teeth’s 2021 Winter Zine.

Be well,

Monty