Writer. Educator. Artist.
Thank you Readers -arlene s bice
Thanks to all who read
My poetry challenge of 30 days
Completed it all, instead
Of easily failing in many ways
It was fun to revive
Words strung together
Poetry did survive
All kinds of daily weather
My thanks.
W H AUDEN QUOTE
“A poet is, before anything else, a person
who is passionately in love with language.”
W.H. Auden (1907-1973)
This quote from one of my favorite poets
sits with truth on my lips, slides down to
my heart and nestles there, as it finds a home.
In love with language, words that tickle me,
making me laugh; sometimes outright giggle
words can impress me with their sincerity
depress me without any reason just because
they are a word that forms an unhappy picture.
Poets take these words and move them around
write one higher on the line to make it jump
or rest quietly to let you sigh, take a deep breath
be happy to see it, special words can be italic
to touch you, you will remember those words
so precious that they imprint on your mind
and stay there
Bards play with accents as in persona poems
where you use the voice of another, allowing
your words to come from their mouth or is it
their words from your pen, after stepping into
their shoes, testing their waters, feeling how
some one else thinks. Is that possible?
Or is it guesswork and misunderstanding.
Playing with words on paper is part of that
love of language; moving them around
forming an outline of a heart or a tree
simply for pure delight. The power of a
printed word in image, to impress another
or catch their eye while playing like a child
hoping to leave a mark on the reader.
I find myself calling on a word
that I love to say as it rolls around my tongue,
tingles in my ear and bursts out into the universe
on paper it turns the page into a bit of happiness
that I share with others that they may enjoy it, too
but I wonder
do other ears tire of hearing
the same old, same old words expected from me
when I open my mouth to speak, to astonish another
with a new idea but using the same old, same old words
as excited as I am that I cannot call upon a word unused
often by me
so many words that I love to say;
delighted, sensuous, passionate, positive, synchronicity,
words of a musical bent that sing in my head in the kitchen,
fettucine, proscuitto, zuppa inglese, freschi, funghi, castagne,
words that sound more promising on the Italian menu than
at the diner
foreign words slipped into our language
may need practice but once you learn them, say them often
and they become fun to form in your mouth even for one
who prefers to write than to talk, to listen to the rhythm
in the voice of someone else, to hear if they are using their
same old, same old words
© Arlene S. Bice, 2012