Well, this was fun! I haven’t rhymed this much in a very long time. Let’s just say, I’m very grateful to my Rhyming Dictionary and Thesaurus of the Senses for bolstering my recall of words. I used an older idea I hadn’t worked on yet, involving a metaphor for two people in my life.

Poem prompt: “Today’s resource is the online galleries of the Tate Modern, where there’s oodles to discover, including a sculpture that sort of makes us think of the Loch Ness Monster holding a beach ball, a swirly bit of op/pop art reminiscent of either candy or a mustache, and this interesting exploration of five different artist-made books.

And now, here’s today’s (optional) prompt. Below, you’ll find Theodore Roethke’s poem, “In Evening Air.”

In Evening Air

1

A dark theme keeps me here,
Though summer blazes in the vireo’s eye.
Who would be half possessed
By his own nakedness?
Waking’s my care–
I’ll make a broken music, or I’ll die.

2

Ye littles, lie more close!
Make me, O Lord, a last, a simple thing
Time cannot overwhelm.
Once I transcended time:
A bud broke to a rose,
And I rose from a last diminishing.

3

I look down the far light
And I behold the dark side of a tree
Far down a billowing plain,
And when I look again,
It’s lost upon the night–
Night I embrace, a dear proximity.

4

I stand by a low fire
Counting the wisps of flame, and I watch how
Light shifts upon the wall.
I bid stillness be still.
I see, in evening air,
How slowly dark comes down on what we do.

So, let’s face it: this poem is weird. The rhythm is odd, the rhymes are too, and the language is strangely prophetic and not at all ‘conversational.’ Despite – or maybe because – of this, it has a hypnotic quality, as if it were all inevitable. Your challenge is, with this poem in mind, to write a poem informed by musical phrasing or melody, that employs some form of soundplay (rhyme, meter, assonance, alliteration). One way to approach this is to think of a song you know and then basically write new lyrics that fit the original song’s rhythm/phrasing.”

The Call and the Caw

The call of the goose 
and the caw of the crow 
percuss 
needles of spruce 
spear a gossamer toe. 

Solitary gander through snowfall dives 
next to her neck, stretches beak to cheek— 
finds her wherever he thrives 
to call her his home, beacon of light 
under the sight of gray stratus night. 

The call of the goose 
and the caw of the crow 
percuss 
needles of spruce 
spear a gossamer toe. 

A crow without a murder in tow 
waits for the gander to withdraw, 
beady eyes on her cherry hair bow. 
He flies to her shoulder from the fallen leaves 
and hisses polyglottal secrets from yester-eves. 

The call of the goose 
and the caw of the crow 
percuss 
needles of spruce 
spear a gossamer toe. 

Winter morn is full of woe 
when Van Goghs go pianissimo. 

Winter morn is full of woe 
when she's the sole oratorio. 

Winter morn is full of woe 
when there is no more honeysweet show. 

Please 
spear my gossamer toe.