painting by franz von stuck
Sisyphus
Just do it because you can’t help it,
must do trumps might could, almost hit;
scribbling madly on dinner napkins,
quibbling sadly with verbs in trash bins.
Disturbed with Dali’s tall elephants,
perturbed with hippos that try to dance;
dreaming tattered corners in scrap books,
screaming at reflections of dark rooks.
Honey dripping from my cleverness,
money lost in poet’s wilderness;
muddied memories needing fresh air,
bloodied images taking a dare.
Only a poet will need weeping,
lonely, adrift, and never keeping;
making some sense of their angry eye,
breaking conventions before they die.
Glenn Buttkus
April 2012
Posted over on dVerse Poets-FFA
Would you like to hear me recite these framed couplets?
14 comments:
I bow low
and take my hat off.
So well done.
And sound too.
I could read this over and over again. It speaks to my corners.
I love Dali; I scare my husband when I tell him those are the kinds of visions I see inside my head when I close my eyes.
I suppose many look like white rooks, or even cream, but see black reflections in the mirror.
This line sounds like dripping honey, so I suppose it illustrates your point well: "Honey dripping from my cleverness"
rosemarymint.wordpress.com
Great job with the form, Glenn, and for me, the last stanza was the high point.
Masterful in the framing. I love the subject. It's perfect for the form. This is an excellent piece. I am rewarded! Thank you.
Glenn- Really well done... I especially like the last two stanzas.
just freaking fantastic! The finish...a killing blow! (she says as she hangs her head and considers deleting her own!) Awesome!
Awesome write. Love the allusions in hear, really, as allusions always do for me, opened another layer or two to the piece. Great use of the form as well. Thanks
Wonderful--I especially like the beginning-the scribbling on dinner napkins and quibbling with verbs in trash bins. K.
ha i have a box of dinner napkins and receipts and each day push the stone back up the dang hill...smiles....this was def well spun sir...some really nice touches along the way as well....
I am so glad you are posting your OWN poems because they are AWESOME!!
xo
Fantastic job with this form!
Writing poetry feels like reenacting Sisyphus a lot of the time... and I have lost my share of money too :P
(trying to enter the CAPTCHA is a Sisyphus-like experience as well)
Bloody beeping brilliant, a modern-day Shakespearean sonnet with an extra couplet, a modern day Sonnet 66
money lost in poet’s wilderness
As it should be, Poets (and Philosophers) possess an ambition of a different sort
screaming at reflections of dark rooks.
LOL screaming at screams (rook=raucaus, crowing) -
"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you" - but that is the only way to write, the battle is with yourself....
Well done! Not only keeping to the initial rhymes of the framed couplet, but using those initial rhymes to drum an insistent refrain in the reader's mind, raising a hypnotic atmosphere as surreal as Dali's work.
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