Sijo (a Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka)
~ three lines of 14-16 syllables each
~ a total of 44-46 syllables
~ a pause near the middle of each line
~ first half of the line contains six to nine syllables
~ the second half should contain no fewer than five
Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure.
Modern Sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.
Read more here: Wikipedia
A haze struggles to dim a light traveling the distance that binds two bodies.
Our growing world of disconnect, challenged by invisible connections. Clouds shift,
strain to cast shadows, oblivious to the aura framing them. Different wavelengths of light,
thoughts conflicting, gelling. Powerless to impede, branches sway their hips to its pull,
the flow from one chamber to the next echoing tidal forces, defying the disconnect, absorbing
those wavelengths in a way not imagined but realized. The embrace of affirmation, a kiss.
This is from a reading at The Gumbo Bottoms Single Pot Still Poetry Society … Gumbo Bottoms Ale House, Jefferson City, MO (09 Jan 2023).
First appearing in easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, edited by D Ellis Phelps, The Intent of Moonlight and Ethereal Synapses is now included in my poetry collection, Glass Awash, published by Spartan Press.
Should I wake and fail to find familiarity in the face beside me or the arms that surely have embraced me, know that I would want you to hold me even closer, whisper in my ear words to wake within me memories of our moments together, that I may once more know the joy we have shared.
Jamais Vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer’s impression of experiencing something for the first time, despite rationally knowing that they have experienced it before. Jamais vu is sometimes associated with certain types of aphasia, amnesia, and epilepsy.
“Perhaps I will become a ray of sunshine, to be embraced by your colours.
I will paint myself on your canvas.” Amrita Pritam
The words have flowed
from the moment I met you.
With paper as my canvas
I paint the words you bring.
From a distant beacon
over darkest waters
to the romantic light
of a candle’s flame.
From the subtle light
of a full moon’s glow
to the faintest light
of the farthest star.
These words of love,
the paint on my canvas,
are revealed to me,
found within your light.
This is my response to Poetics: Woman are people: Invoking Amrita Pritam, the prompt at dVerse Poets Pub in which Punam asks us to write a poem using one of five lines by Amrita Pritam as an epigraph.
Your hand reaches to hold mine, pulls back as they touch. Nerves frayed by discomfort, the pain that sears your wrist subsides as you turn it to stroke my arm, reassurance that no median will separate us.
I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t travel all this way for nothing.
What was born within notes of jazz and poetry, beside blue water beneath the stars, knows no end.
The truth, yours and mine, is found in the Nebulous Collection and all that has followed.
Forever and Always.
This is my response to Day 18 at napowrimo.net, which is to write a poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is being answered.