Category: Poetry

~*~The Blue Elephant~*~ and ~*~Taily Pole~*~

I guess I should have looked ahead on my syllabus before my free writing 😂😂. My two prompts were to be made into formal or “traditional” poems, one being a sonnet (like Shakespeare) and the other being a villanelle, pantoum, or a third option that I don’t remember. A sonnet about a stuffed elephant or Taily Pole?? 

Whatchu talkin’ about, Willis?

Since I’m currently obsessed with Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, specifically listening to him reading it (which is awesome), and it is a villanelle, I chose to create a Taily Pole poem in that form. The elephant poem was to be a sonnet by default. I think one of the most known Shakespeare sonnets is the one that Roger Rabbit reads while jumping on the bed in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? about counting the ways he loves Jessica Rabbit. (The ADHD force is strong today 😒.) 

Now, I don’t like checking my grades because of severe anxiety, so I don’t know if these were graded yet. If I’m awaiting feedback, I keep my eyes averted and just read the feedback without looking at the grade. Unfortunately, my week 1 paper for literary theory received an F(!) since I missed some points on the rubric, but my awesome professor allowed me to redo and resubmit. The resubmission got an A. That was pretty devastating for me, but I am so glad he gave me a second chance and gave me the feedback I needed to fix it up. Anyway, on to my poems! Click/tap on the poetic form below for the definition of each. 

Sonnet

From Google AI: A 14-line poem with a fixed structure and rhyme scheme.  Sonnets are often written in iambic pentameter, which means each line has 10 syllables in five pairs.  The emphasis is on the second syllable in each pair.  Sonnets are usually divided into two parts – an eight-line section (the octet) and a six-line section (the sestet).  The Shakespearean sonnet rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

~*~Ode to a Blue Elephant~*~

Oh, dear blue elephant of childhood days

A blind witness of our sibling fights

We marched you back and forth in moonlit haze

No words, no punches, just a game of spite



You had no name, no charm, no specialness

Your stuffing crinkled like a florist’s foam

But then bedtime came, and you were the best

And so through the darkness we each did roam



You came to us from fair or Father’s hand

We cared not for you but only the rise

It gave us when we snatched you from the land

Of dreams and sleep and made each other cry

But when my brother left, the game was done

The elephant was lost; so was the fun
Villanelle

From Google AI: A villanelle is a 19-line poem with a strict structure.  It has five three-line stanzas, called tercets, followed by one four-line stanza, called a quatrain.  Villanelles use a specific rhyme scheme, ABA for the tercets and ABAA for the quatrain.  They also have two repeating end rhymes and two refrains.  The first and third lines of the first tercet are repeated alternately at the end of each subsequent stanza.

~*~Taily Pole~*~



Please, tell us the tale of the Taily Pole

As we sit ‘round the fire to combat the breeze

Your soft, intense voice makes the story whole



We beg you for story time, and you play your role

Reluctant storyteller, yet you give in to our pleas

Please, tell us the tale of the Taily Pole



You’re covered in blankets draped like a stole

As the cool wind blows through the trees

Your soft, intense voice makes the story whole



We giggle and shiver, feeling both hot and cold

Waiting patiently with elbows on knees

Please, tell us the tale of the Taily Pole



You lean in and shout, we shriek and roll

Laughing at our temporary unease

Your soft, intense voice makes the story whole



Years later, your memory still warms my soul

As the great-grandkids gather at my uncle’s feet

Please, tell us the tale of the Taily Pole

Your soft, intense voice makes the story whole
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Elephant Blue, Dilly Dilly

I have a poetry workshop this semester and have finished this week’s work. We were to do a couple of writing exercises that will be the base for poems. I’ve not attended a poetry workshop before so I don’t know how this works. I took workshops for statistics class, which was great and super helpful, but not something that dealt with creativity. I had to choose a couple of prompts from the required reading and free write, which is another thing I’m not experienced in, most likely because of AuDHD hindrances. 

Now, this required reading mentions people not being able to write a poem in 20 or 30 minutes and makes it sound impossible to actually do so, and that made me question its credibility completely. When I have an idea for a poem, I will sit there and write or type it out in a few minutes. I don’t make a chore out of it (I don’t write every day, either, so that might have something to do with it). 

Also, it was published in 1997 and devotes two chapters to getting recognized and getting published, as in subscribing to magazines and using 🐌 mail. I don’t know why there aren’t newer editions, especially since it’s required material for the class. It’s very common for school books to be updated in subsequent editions. 

Anyway, the prompts I chose were the base for Elephant Blue, Dilly Dilly and Taily Pole that I decided to share here 😊. I have to squeeze poems out of these two writings. Talk about a challenge! 

Elephant Blue, Dilly Dilly

There is a stuffed blue elephant that sits in my spare room.  It was a point of contention for years.  There is nothing special about this stuffed animal.  It is the blue of a summer sky.  Its neck no longer supports its head, most likely due to the nighttime chokeholds it’s endured.  The body is neither soft nor coarse, and the stuffing is that weird stuff that just feels wrong and unpleasant, a slightly more malleable version of that green Styrofoam found in the bottom of floral arrangements.  I can feel and hear it rubbing and crinkling every time I pick the toy up.  It sets my teeth on edge.  I wonder why it didn’t when I was a child.  Maybe it did and I ignored it out of spite. 

This unremarkable, cheap blue elephant was at the center of many underwhelming moonlit “fights” between my brother and me.  Wherever the elephant (not even important enough to have earned a name) began its night, it ended up in a different bed in a different room by morning.  No words were spoken.  No punches were thrown.  Simply here today and gone tomorrow.  Our level of tiredness would dictate how many trips the elephant made in a night. 

My brother, two years older and the opposite sex, took great pleasure in annoying me and making me cry.  The elephant, possibly a prize from one of the crappy games at the county fair, possibly given to one of us by our deadbeat dad who still held hero status at our ages, was an easy rise for both of us, two kids who inherited their father’s temper and temperament. 

I’m not sure what importance the elephant held or if it was merely a pawn in a game I could play with my brother without fearing physical repercussions.  It stayed behind with my mom and me when my brother moved in with Dad at 16.  I was happy he was gone for about a week and then I was done with this new game of being an only child and I wanted my Bub back.  The elephant was forgotten about, tucked away in the closet, then in a black trash bag with other stuffed toys.  I had clearly won but I didn’t really care.

The elephant moved with us to a new home, then went with me when I was briefly married.  Upon returning to Mom’s, the toy was tucked away, still in a bag, in a storage unit, and then at my aunt and uncle’s.  Time passed.  Dad died.  Mom died.  I remarried; my brother gave me away to my new husband.  Bub died.  I now had room at Mom’s house for my stuff, so everything from my aunt and uncle’s house was returned to me.

So many memories!  A stuffed clown with buttons and zippers, a homemade Care Bear with an A stitched on its chest, and that glorious Blue Elephant.  He is magnificent; the beautiful blue of a summer sky, floppy and worn in.  Precious memories contained in this priceless stuffed Elephant. 

Taily Pole

I come from a decent-sized family on my mom’s side.  I grew up with the Parents (Grandma and Papaw), the Kids (my mom and her four siblings), the Spouses (except for Mom) and the Grandkids (me and my 8 cousins).  Every weekend, we had almost a complete turnout of the family with the exception of one aunt and uncle who lived four hours away.  This changed as we got older, with cousins getting into dating or school sports, but it stayed true for years.  I’m the second youngest of the Grandkids, so Papaw and Grandma were getting up there in age.

Being the younger of the Grandkids, I loved hearing Papaw tell stories, which was a rare treat.  One story in particular, Taily Pole, was a favorite of everyone, not because of the story itself, but because of how it was told by Papaw.  It was most effective when he told us the story outside.  We frequently had cookouts in the cooler months, complete with marshmallows to roast.  Getting comfortable was a feat; sitting near the fire was way too hot, sitting away from the fire was way too cold.  It never failed that someone would drag blankets out of the house with one being confiscated by those sitting on the ground. 

Once everyone was nice and cozy, we grandkids would beg Papaw to tell Taily Pole.  No other story was ever requested during these cookouts.  He would do the obligatory hemming and hawing while all of us grandkids pestered him to the point of acquiescence.  Wrapped up in his own blanket and sitting on a patio chair in the mouth of the single-car garage/potato cellar, he would start the story off low and slow. 

The younger ones couldn’t help but giggle in anticipation.  We knew what was coming, yet we didn’t know how soon and how animatedly it would be delivered.  When Papaw got to the end of the story, he bugged his eyes, magnified by his glasses, and leaned forward, shouting, “I ain’t got your taily pole!”  The story always ended the same and there were always a few who squeaked out of shock, which set everyone else off laughing.  I was usually one of the squeakers but also one who wanted to hear it again and again. 

Years after Papaw died, one of my uncles told Taily Pole to the Great-Grandkids.  I smiled with delight and excitement seeing the little heads poking out of blankets, hearing the nervous laughter, watching the kids, eyes and smiles bright, looking around to see if Mom and Dad were listening, watching the flames flicker in my uncle’s glasses as he bugged his eyes, leaned forward, and shouted, “I ain’t got your taily pole!”

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I’m Self-Centered, Poetically Speaking

I just read an article on The WEIGHT Journal and I didn’t like it one bit. No idea what I was googling (usual for me), but I came upon a piece talking about poetry format and how center-formatted poems are considered written by amateur poets and a lot of editors will reject these poems without even reading them. Like. . .what? Center-formatted poems are considered outdated and modernist or “traditional,” which are eras we are not currently in, although I personally think the eras need to be updated since “modernist” means late 1800s to mid-1900s; I guess we’re in modern (no -ist)/contemporary now. That may be a lie; I don’t really pay attention to poetic eras and movements. I just read what I like, but I digress.

I have been center-formatting poems since I started writing them back when I owned only notebooks, then briefly on a word processor that took 3-1/2″ floppies. It’s been a while, to say the least. I think it looks better to center them and makes them easier to read, and I like the shape of the poem if each line has a different word count or a graduated word count. I have two or three non-centered poems that were intentional and aesthetically pleasing to me. That’s three out of 50+. 

Rupi Kaur, for one, is all over the place with her intentional formatting. One of her poems is in a diamond format meant to represent a woman’s vagina. For one to be so arrogant as to say they refuse to read a poet’s work due to formatting is downright blasphemous and ignorant to me. It’s like, “I’m sorry, you’re an outright wordsmith, but I could not tolerate looking at your words in the center of my screen. Good luck with your endeavors.” How can you call yourself an editor or poet or professional, making statements like that? Anyway, it pissed me off and set my PDA (pathological demand avoidance) into overdrive, obviously. 

So, I was mega-banned from Reddit because of an immature left-wingnut in a sub and that doesn’t bode well for my PDA, either. They made some BS statement about how the alt-right isn’t welcome in the sub they moderate, and I asked if they had the same rule for the alt-left, so I was banned from that sub (an “inclusive” ADHD sub, btw). I’m neither alt-right nor alt-left, but the hypocritical bigotry infuriates me and my elevated sense of equality and justice. I told Adam about being banned from the sub for saying what I did, so he went to that sub and asked the same question, and that got me permanently mega-banned via fingerprinting, which means the entire household is banned from Reddit. RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria), come join PDA! It’s even more infuriating that I care and have been crying about it and I wish I didn’t and haven’t been. 

To combat my hermitness, I’ve joined Tumblr, and I don’t know what to think of it. It doesn’t seem to be my cup of tea so far, but I am not much of a Facebook user and I don’t like X/Twitter. Instagram is pretty boring to me. I just get so bored not having anyone to talk to or relate to. I feel invisible 99% of the time in life and Reddit has ferociously reinforced that. Even my service dog-in-training prefers to be with Adam. How can one ignore that? 

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Look What You Made Me Do

I restarted school this week, and jumped into full time, because…why not? Being a glutton for punishment, I chose Studies in Poetry and Intro to Philosophy. I like writing poetry, but I don’t like reading poetry, especially ones written by “the greats.” Why are they great? Emily Dickinson was a miserable, lovelorn woman who left her room only for social occasions (which is more than I can say for myself). I don’t know what she is writing about at any time. Robert Frost…I’m not sure I’ve read any of his work. The same goes for Walt Whitman. I think of chocolate when I think of Whitman.

I know the names but that is about it. I do like Poe’s work, but I don’t read it much because of the language barrier. I need things spelled out for me 95% of the time. I’m not a fan of non-rhyming poetry, which is apparently what my class is going to focus on. How is that a poem and not an essay or stream of consciousness? I can string words together as I think of them but I’m certainly not a poet. I was very drawn to Jewel’s poetry, and I don’t think she received the attention and notoriety that she deserved. I don’t know why I liked her stuff, but it’s possible that it was because she was new on the scene and I adored her debut album. I think her work is the only thing I have liked and related to that did not rhyme.

I’m pretty much kicking myself over choosing philosophy as an elective. I don’t understand a lot of things, philosophy included. I do have questions about everything and wonder about the same things philosophers wonder about, but I never know any answers. I ask Adam questions all the time about life and events and human behavior (the latter is more a sociology thing) but those questions stay between us for the most part. When I ask someone on the outside something, I get blank looks or laughter. Adam and Mom both get/got me and how my mind works. I hate looking and feeling stupid, which I’m sure most people do, so I keep things to myself or between my husband and me.

I am a junior in college now and am on my fourth major. I was doing great in school with a 4.0 GPA until my brother died unexpectedly a couple of weeks into a semester. I could not deal with his death, work, and school; it was just too much. Foolishly, I just left the classes without dropping them officially or talking to my student advisor or professors. Because of that dumb move, I received Fs for those classes instead of incompletes or withdrawals. I tried returning to school before I got my medications adjusted and ended up dropping out again because I did not like the classes I was taking and I didn’t like the major I switched to (marketing). More Fs. I’ve ruined my GPA by doing that, which I really hate and regret. It’s a B average, but I was previously making the Dean’s list every term.

I’ve always loved reading and writing, and everyone thought I would become an author, but I’ve not had the desire or motivation to write for years. I don’t know what happened, but it’s just not there. I have nothing simmering in my brain; no poems, no stories, no essays…nada. I am hoping the poetry class will ignite something since I’ve wanted to be an author since I was very, very young.

Not to say that my head is empty. I’m always thinking of things constantly, even when I don’t want to, like when trying to sleep or read or figure something out. It’s terrible thinking about stuff when I’m trying to read or do homework or work work! I just space out and completely gloss over what I’m reading or watching and I have to back up or stay lost.

People have no idea what it’s like to have ADHD, and for them to be so dismissive of it, to the point of some stating it doesn’t exist, is infuriating to me. It is not a lack of willpower and/or discipline; it is a very real disorder with very real chemical imbalances, and my husband could certainly attest to it. Oddly enough, I have the inattentive type and my brother had the hyperactivity type with some inattentiveness thrown in for good measure. We must have been hell on Mom growing up!

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