Maria’s Poem
Where do I go when my Neurons start dancing
to a tune that is not in the book
when my body gets rigid and I stare into space
with that empty and far away look.
Where do I go when my body is twitching
a life of its own it demands
when people are staring
and children are fearing
but all is out of my hand.
Where do I go when my body and mind
take a trip into different spheres
I am tossed in the wind
like a dry leaf in autumn
and neither part of myself cares.
Where have I been I ask after each trip
confusion, lost time give the answers
Forgetfulness comes, is it mercy or curse?
Together they sway , two unacquainted dancers.
So, we travel along, holding each other dear
it will lessen the fear.
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ReplyDeleteMaria's poem is Maria's; it doesn't quite follow any ordinary form, though at first glance it seems to. So, obviously, it is not free verse because it is patterned. But it is not a sonnet -- it has too many lines before the ending couplet. The first quatrain is technically a "simple four-line" [dancing/BOOK/space/LOOK], The second stanza has five lines, so it is not a quatrain at all, but it has the same rhyming scheme as Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken." The next two verses follow the pattern for another famous Robert Frost poem, "Fire and Ice," [MIND/spheres/WIND/AUTUMN/cares//trip/ANSWERS/curse/DANCERS] except it slyly employs a sight rhyme [mind/wind] and has "curse" in the place where there should be a rhyme for "trip" -- or, alternatively, ANSWERS/CURSE/DANCERS could be an off-rhyme triplet. And of course, the second line of the concluding couplet is truncated in half. As I said, it is Maria's own.
ReplyDeleteFor the sake of comparison I append the two Robert Frost poems alluded to. You should be able to see the similarities and differences.
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
FIRE AND ICE
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
I love reading Maria's work. It is always hauntingly beautiful. Anyone who has ever suffered a seizure or lost a sense of reality and then returned to "normality" will immediately relate to this fine poem.
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