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weather poem part 3: the hurricane (renga) (Haiku) by nypoet22
Everyone mentions the weather; the wind calls back cracks and fells branches. Each day branches, grows moments tethered to your heart, flows in the stiff breeze. Breezes carry drawn scenes to the eyes you stare through before loves shatter. Limbs shatter and fall, sneer, snicker, sheath their leaved grins beneath cracked windshields. Trucks hide their windshield faces kissing trees with tongues dampened in dewdrops. Dewdrops wake the day like a strewn palm frond fallen on a slalomed street. The hurricaned street punished, pounded with shouting children in her ears. Cover ears with palms mouth jacked open, jawbone set the storm will find you. You will stand speechless waiting, mouthing words written on a paper soul. Your soul, a willow, lowers her head, locks hanging over hiding eyes. And don't your eyes hide some mischievous greatness hatched from the egg carton? Chicks, cartons of smokes, nicotine working the room, grinning like white wine... Wham! Thud. Wine is blood aged fine like a drunk Jesus munching matzah balls. Balls-up bitten kid falls off his board, skins his knee, lies flat on the walk. Flocks of ducks follow, walk in his wake, hunt for crumbs to find his way home. There his home is your heart piping, gushing red gold in racetrack circles, Five hundred circles follow cars in flowing waves that shoot through your veins. Veins on the train tracks fight to hold moments, heading for that same railyard. The railyard in late November makes thanksgiving for each day living. Know that living is the present, gifted each day and remembered less. Less worth valued more is the way our days progress; so goes inflation. Inflation balloons from latex orbs at parties, rises to the sky. A dusk sky yawning tastes of peach and magenta, nectar on her claws. Desire's claws sharpened by each stare, each wayward glance held to the grindstone, Stone and flesh meet hard, come together with a crack of cane freshly cut. We play a cut scene of writing by candlelight; the power is out. Night creatures come out, the walls glow red with shadow dipped in God's own dark. Sweet dark breaks apart mangled by a brash, buzzing gas generator. Generator bits burn, bumble, hum some old tune too soon forgotten. I have forgotten where this hurricane began, lost in the moment. Keep this moment please protract its heart in your heart and remember me. Hear me call your name softly in the silent dark, wait, hold me, stop, stay. Shadows just stay here waiting, watching, hungering to breathe in your arms, Asleep in your arms, frozen in your eyes; goodbye, the eye of my storm. Twenty-three storms break swarm the Gulf with a rumble with a flash and crack. Branches crack and fall the wind calls back; the weather mentions everyone.

Up the ladder: Today is another day
Down the ladder: Solstice, 2007

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Arithmetic Mean: 7.0
Weighted score: 5.2384057
Overall Rank: 4132
Posted: October 6, 2006 11:31 PM PDT; Last modified: October 6, 2006 11:31 PM PDT
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Comments:
[10] Ranger @ 62.252.32.15 | 7-Oct-06/3:17 AM | Reply
Wow. This is really, really good. I don't know the idea behind the form, but I assume the repetitions are part of the structure? Even if not, they work well. Some awesome language (hurricaned street, mouth jacked open) although I've got to admit that a few words here and there didn't appeal to me (munching, mangled, and a few others) purely because I'm a bit of a snob poetically and like lots and lots of eloquent language ;-) In all honesty though, I'm going to have to come back and read this several times to take it all in (as should be the case with all good poetry). There are thirty-something haikus in here, and if done well that should make this poem (while not actually *that* long in comparison with much poetry) mind-blowingly full of images, ideas and hidden nuances that require slow reading to find. And on first sight, this IS mind-blowing.
[8] Dovina @ 12.72.46.7 | 7-Oct-06/12:37 PM | Reply
If you are using commas at line ends, then use them wherever needed, at the end of line 2, for example. The grammar in verse 2 has some problem. After that I stopped counting and just read.

I like the way ending thoughts lead to starting thoughts and back to the weather.
[10] INTRANSIT @ 152.163.100.6 | 10-Oct-06/7:42 AM | Reply
Was this a group effort or a solo project?
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 65.10.104.91 > INTRANSIT | 10-Oct-06/4:04 PM | Reply
this was solo, but i would absolutely love if some folks at poemranker would like to join me in constructing a traditional 36 stanza renga. volunteers?
[10] Ranger @ 62.252.32.15 > nypoet22 | 11-Oct-06/1:54 AM | Reply
What are the conditions for a renga, other than having 36 stanzas?
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 72.144.83.200 > Ranger | 11-Oct-06/2:55 AM | Reply
an actual renga, of which the above is really just a rough copy, is described by padgett's handbook of poetic forms as a long, image-filled poem, from which came the later forms of haiku and senryu. each stanza contains some sort of link to the one before it, but not to the one before that. unlike my poem, the old fashioned renga alternates stanzas of three lines and two. as far as i can tell it is not as strict about keeping syllabic meter, though from the ones i've seen the lines seem to stay pretty short. 36 stanzas is the most popular length, though in the past they frequently ranged in the hundreds. the opening stanza (hokku) should suggest a season and place (this is where haiku comes from, and often a renga opens with a haiku); subsequent verses may be either about the beauty of nature (like haiku) or the humor of humanity (like senryu). each stanza should be somehow linked to the stanza before it, but not to the stanza before that. the renga is supposed to kind-of jump around from theme to theme, and the image of each subsequent stanza may connect by parallel image, contrasting image, shift of focus to a different aspect of the same image, pun, play on words, same mood, contrasting mood, etc.

the first 8 stanzas are described as a party's beginning, a somewhat formal introduction; the middle 20-ish are like the heart of the party where you loosen up a little; the last 6-8 are like the party's end, clearing things up and getting ready to go home. when done as a group, each poet adds a verse and passes it on to the next.
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 72.144.83.200 > Ranger | 11-Oct-06/3:06 AM | Reply
here's an example:

http://www.ahapoetry.com/ahalynx/213sym.html
[10] Ranger @ 62.252.32.15 > nypoet22 | 11-Oct-06/3:21 AM | Reply
Well I suck at haikus, but here goes:

September's slow, soft
Caterpillar rain-crawl down
the last gold oak leaves
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 72.144.83.200 > Ranger | 11-Oct-06/4:04 AM | Reply
i'll write the second stanza. maybe we should enlist a third poet?

A stiff gust of autumn tugs
at dried brittle summer moons(jle)
[10] Ranger @ 62.252.32.15 > nypoet22 | 11-Oct-06/4:42 AM | Reply
If you know someone who might want to, then invite them along for sure. I thought this would be a free-for-all, 'Beard My Homemade Negro Jesus' style effort, but with fewer Christly facial hair materials.

In the meantime:

Flower of the moon
lies, wilted, on a moss-sprung
mattress strewn with twigs
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 72.144.83.200 > Ranger | 11-Oct-06/5:01 AM | Reply
We gather kindling to light
the parched wood, to warm our hands.

(note, in an autumn kasen renga, stanzas 5-6 are about winter)
[10] Ranger @ 62.252.32.15 > nypoet22 | 11-Oct-06/5:12 AM | Reply
Heat has fled this land;
a hibernating squirrel
dreams of maple buds
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 72.144.83.200 > Ranger | 11-Oct-06/4:47 PM | Reply
Sweet sap nestled deep inside,
she will holds what snowfall comes
[10] Ranger @ 62.252.32.15 > nypoet22 | 12-Oct-06/1:30 AM | Reply
Nests are wickerwork
fences ringing fallow fields
The surface unturned
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 72.144.83.149 > Ranger | 12-Oct-06/3:58 AM | Reply
So now love flies to gather
what she can to build her home

Before the chill falls
we make autumn love
to whispered songs

http://www.ahapoetry.com/rengfmau.htm
[10] Ranger @ 62.252.32.15 > nypoet22 | 13-Oct-06/4:05 AM | Reply
Tingling frosts push us closer
Deep in this warm bed, like seeds
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 65.9.180.121 > Ranger | 14-Oct-06/1:39 PM | Reply
Startled embryo
Stepped-on, mucked-up, matted,
packed in sod


(that was verse 11; almost 1/3 done)
[10] Ranger @ 62.252.32.15 > nypoet22 | 14-Oct-06/4:45 PM | Reply
Sea-jade firstling's ribbon curl
Snaking slowly from the womb


Time to see a seasonal lunar shape, right? Any other poets wanting to join in this little project, feel free (check the link above to get the pattern).
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 65.9.15.40 > Ranger | 16-Oct-06/2:28 PM | Reply
her unborn face
hangs amniotic, Selene
over the summer sky
[8] Dovina @ 70.38.78.229 > nypoet22 | 16-Oct-06/6:22 PM | Reply
Smallish bees crawl up her nose
gather sweets for winter treats
[10] Ranger @ 62.252.32.15 > Dovina | 17-Oct-06/4:25 AM | Reply
Hung on heavy air
-they scatter. Haze is broken
by rusty stormclouds
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 65.9.15.40 > Ranger | 17-Oct-06/5:06 PM | Reply
Rain drops thick and fat, splatters
the ground like grease on a frypan

(remember, the next one's a spring and flower image)
[10] Ranger @ 62.252.32.15 > nypoet22 | 20-Oct-06/3:55 AM | Reply
Clay warriors rise;
from a flooded tomb they march
to the bluebells' chime
[8] Dovina @ 70.38.78.229 > Ranger | 20-Oct-06/2:04 PM | Reply
That was 17

See their shadows and go back down
Punxsutawney's never been wrong
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 65.10.116.105 > Dovina | 20-Oct-06/3:03 PM | Reply
great groundhog eyes
will waken hungering,
harvest gone to green
[10] Ranger @ 62.252.32.15 > nypoet22 | 24-Oct-06/3:53 AM | Reply
Green eyes wait to open in
cherry blossom's pale splendour
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 66.229.62.180 > Ranger | 25-Mar-07/9:28 AM | Reply
Organic pluots
burst, roll, touch, tickle palates
bred pink to hold them
[10] Ranger @ 81.103.124.179 > nypoet22 | 25-Mar-07/1:11 PM | Reply
Syrup sugar drips from wounds
Feasting ants and wasps arrive
[n/a] nypoet22 @ 65.8.70.150 > Ranger | 17-Apr-07/1:41 PM | Reply
A hive of children
Await snow for snow angels,
mourn the shrinking sun.
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