nth time’s the charm

Have been in a bit of a slump recently. School’s busy, the only stuff I’m making in school is stuff I want to stuff away, and when I do get that brief respite I want so badly I end up practically hibernating.

But enough excuses. We all get writer’s block, we all have to take a poetry forms class despite despising poetry forms (right? please tell me I’m right), and it’s better to be writing shit poetry than no poetry at all.

So, I’ll share a WIP with you. I’ve yet to put it through the next round of serious revising that I’d like to, but sometimes it’s fun to post an old draft here and then post a “final” later (how final is final anyway).

This poem is a ghazal (“guzzle”). I suggest taking a look at the form either before or after reading it so you know what to look for, though that’s up to your discretion (but you damn well better look at it okay I hunted down this site and hyperlinked it for you and everything).

Of all the things I’ve written for my forms class this quarter, this is the only one I actually feel excited to work with.

And if I can find one diamond in the rough, well hey! That’s a goddamn diamond in my grasp. Good for me.

I’d like my sonnets scrambled, please

I’m in a forms class this quarter. I hate forms. But anyway, here’s a sonnet:

---

A little cactus shares my windowsill

with phalaenopsis, pensive behind wet

perspiring glass. It is September, yet

the orchids seem naïve—petals still

resound from every flower spike, until

I can’t afford to keep the heater set

to 70 degrees. The cactus lets

itself contract, exempt from autumn’s chill.

He’s seasoned for the rancor of the swart

black night, one hundred ridiculing thorns

that reach for wormy orchid roots. He scorns

them like a child, itching for the sort

of fortune that befalls the beautiful

and mum—resign, irreprehensible.

---

And here’s that sonnet rearranged by my classmates:

---

perspiring glass. It is September, yet

of fortune that befalls the beautiful

black night, one hundred ridiculing thorns

that reach for wormy orchid roots. He scorns

them like a child, itching for the sort

and mum — resign, irreprehensible.

He’s seasoned for the rancor of the swart

the orchids seem naïve — petals still

with phalaenopsis, pensive behind wet

itself contract, exempt from autumn’s chill.

I can’t afford to keep the heater set

to 70 degrees. The cactus lets

resound from every flower spike, until

A little cactus shares my windowsill

---

Disjunction! Beyondsense! My old friends. So happy to see you two wrecking havoc on my sonnet. Stay a while, will you? I’ve missed you bastards dearly.