Thursday, April 15, 2010

Offering 17: POETREE

*
any
poet
can write
 a poem and 
 shape it nicely 
into an acceptable, 
viable form, but it's hard
to imagine a poem cramming 
 itself into a warped idea, a flaming
exaggeration of a concept so bizarre,
so completely out of the ordinary occurrence
of anyone’s most fantasmagorical phenomenology
that nature herself drops her guard and lets us in on the
frivolous, absolutely temporary eternal clandestine flutter of
things tightening and loosening, things intentionally at cross-purpose,
so that when the realization of it hits our psyches, peonies line our sinuses  
and our  most cherished  notions are shoplifted  by gypsies  who tell us that rebellion
is obedience and we no longer wonder,  we no longer have any doubt, that whales fart.

I’m  hoping your
Holiday Season
 is slightly robust 
  & charmingly apt.

 © 2010 by Kathryn Feigal. All rights reserved. 

28 comments:

  1. It takes SERIOUS dedication to purpose to not only find the right words, but to find words the correct length.

    That's waaaaay beyond my skill level. I struggle with words of every length.

    ReplyDelete
  2. WILDFLOWER - You're way too nice and very classy. Love your blog!

    JONAS - Actually I wrote this really fast, I've had it in and out of draft because it started making less and less nonsensical sense. I'm surprised you were able to see it because I just had it in draft. Now I wonder which version you read. Oh well. You're supposed to laugh at this, not analyze how hard it was to make words fit in the tree.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hesitate to comment, last time I commented on a shaped poem, It had completely changed shapes by the time I returned. ; j

    So is this what they call poetree? It almost has me treembling laughter.
    Nicely done, that was boughtiful.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You could send that any time.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That cracks me up! I'd use it for a Christmas card.

    ReplyDelete
  6. 'peonies line our sinuses
    and our most cherished notions are shoplifted by gypsies' Love this!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh Kass, you are wonderful. How long did it take you to work this one out? Bravo.

    ReplyDelete
  8. i should know better than to drink anything while reading your stuff. the coffee did clear my sinuses of all those peonies!
    damn brilliant.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh ALESA - Can I steal that? Please, please. Poetree, that's priceless. Why didn't I think of that? And bough-tiful. We could take this show on the road. Oh wait, we kinda did.

    DAVE - I'm getting out my green construction paper as we speak...

    JULIE - Now I'm really curious to see what kind of cards you send during the holidays. I sort of hope they're dark and sardonic.

    PAUL - I'd line my sinuses with your profile picture if I thought it would relieve the congestion and headaches. No joke.

    ELISABETH - I didn't do it on paper first, as I usually do with poetry, I just started wailing away at the keyboard in draft. It took about 5 minutes, then I started tweaking it with spaces and word changes to make it more tree-shaped. Sometimes I have fits with blogger's formatting. It will randomly change font sizes within a text when I go to publish. I keep vowing that someday I will learn more html. Leslie says it's pretty easy, but then Leslie is a freakin' genius.

    STANDING - Hmmmm, coffee. I'm going to go put some in my neti pot right away.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Fell tree to do so... Erm, I mean feel free to do so.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks, ALESA. I gave you credit in the label box.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Only if you'd like, that isn't necessary. My puny puns are free of charge, especially when they are on your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh, Kassie, I'm not a genius in any way, but that was nice to read. Mostly I just know how to do a small number of things in life, mainly learned because I had to know them for work. And I promise you, if we meet in the middle somewhere, in one hour I will reveal to you the lofty secrets of html and you will live an enchanted life forever after.

    This resonated deeply within me. I thought it very Bob Dylanesque and you know that means I love it: ". . our most cherished notions are shoplifted by gypsies who tell us that rebellion is obedience . ."

    ReplyDelete
  14. That is your best one yet, and I agree, I'd love to get that at Christmas...or anytime.
    Will you be away for your birthday, or can we go to breakfast?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Birthday? Did someone say birthday? Spill, Kass! Please.

    WV - knich. How appropriate! I imagine that K is not silent, either.

    ReplyDelete
  16. your head is an awesome place ...

    ReplyDelete
  17. ALESA - your puns are not puny,
    your buns are not balloony,
    my mind is too moony
    like nuns at noon, eee!
    Stop me, Obie wan kanobi.

    LES - Let's make a play date, an html meeting..and I beg to differ. You are a genius. See, I know the html for italics already.

    MARIE - I'll be back from St. George in time for my BD. If you're reading along, Leslie, it's the 25th. Yes, Marie, let's party!

    S. ETOLE - Thanks, but sometimes it drives me crazy.

    ReplyDelete
  18. OMG! I simply cannot believe how wonderfully creative this is! YOU! You are so much fun to follow!

    ReplyDelete
  19. HELEN - Thanks. I figure if you can stand my fart jokes, you are a friend I want to keep.

    ReplyDelete
  20. It has been stated (correctly) that Leslie and every 7-year-old boy in the world thinks farts are the funniest thing ever.

    BTW, re: whale farts - I don't know whether they do or not, but I know something else about them. I have stood on a deck when an orca rose to the surface and blasted his blowhole - the equivalent of us blowing our nose really hard. The smell was like death warmed over. Indescribably terrible.

    Got it re: the birthday. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  21. "when the realization of it hits our psyches, peonies line our sinuses
    and our most cherished notions are shoplifted by gypsies who tell us that rebellion
    is obedience and we no longer wonder, we no longer have any doubt, that whales fart."

    Pure brilliance. I take my deconstructed hat off to you and present it filled with whatever flower holds the meaning of you!

    ReplyDelete
  22. creative and fun.
    you got skills. ;)

    one love.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Delightful, Kass. A wonderful demonstration of how shape on the page dictates voice: this starts as a slow drip and pours down into a cascade. So effective.

    ReplyDelete
  24. LESLIE - Thanks for that appetizing tidbit about whales. I can only imagine.

    RACHEL - Now you've really got me musing about the flower that holds the most meaning for me.

    SE'LAH - Thanks. The older I get, the more I rate things according to the fun factor.

    DICK - I hadn't even thought of the cascading effect. Thanks for pointing that out.

    ReplyDelete
  25. if i had a camera around here, i would send you a pic of the 'poetree' my husband painted on our living room wall for me~ the leaves change with the seasons and contain the poems... I LOVE this poem. I want you to get a poster made of it!

    ReplyDelete
  26. VERY well done and similar to an etheree with syllables. You are amazing!

    ReplyDelete

It's nice to know you've stopped by. Thanks.