Thirty-Seven Cents

THIRTY-SEVEN CENTS
Vol. 3, No.1 An Online Chapter of Missouri State Poetry Society 1 January 2004

IT'S TIME TO RESOLVE THOSE RESOLUTIONS ABOUT WRITING MORE POEMS

Well, we have done it! We have lived long enough to berate ourselves for not doing what we should have done in 2003. Whatever your list of Things Not Done contains, surely you can find a reference to writing more poems. Nearly every honest poet (and even a few others) will admit that composition is easily put off--too easily put off. Therefore, we find ourselves at the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one grabbing ourselves by the scruff of our neck and demanding an explanation for the small number of new poems written recently. Thirty-Seven Cents serves each month as a reminder to write new poems and also to revise old ones. Our workshop challenges us monthly (although it seems like weekly because time goes so fast) to try this or to try that. We begin this new year with couplets. You have time to write a couplet--and because your assignment is short, you can pick out another lesson. Doing two lessons each month, you can catch up. My goal is to have a poem by each of you in response to each lesson. I recall some of you saying you wanted to be in this chapter because you needed prompting to write more. So, feel prompted. Write more. Enough said?

We are nearing the end of our list of the most popular variations poets have used for centuries in metrical verse. This fourth variation is hypermetrical syllables, that is, syllables that do not count in analyzing a poem's meter. If a poem is written in iambic meter, the last syllable in the line is usually stressed (and called a masculine ending). If the ending is, however, unstressed, the last syllable is usually hypermetrical (and called a feminine ending). We have duh DUM duh at the end of what to that point was a duh DUM duh DUM duh DUM line. Some theorists call such a measure (duh DUM duh) an amphibrach foot; others call it an iambic foot with a hypermetrical syllable. Either way it works the same. Here are some examples of this variation, including some where the foot after the hypermetrical syllable is truncated to give an iambic effect carrying over from one line to the next. Name the poet and the poem for a seat on the next space shuttle (might as well shoot for the moon this new year, eh?).

1. "And I will make thee beds of roses / And a thousand fragrant posies"
2. "The shadow of the dome of pleasure / Floated midway on the waves"
3. "And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers"
4. "And there will I keep you for ever / Yes, forever and a day"
5. "The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting"
6. "If you can keep your head when all about you"
7. "Grew lean while he assailed the seasons"

LAST MONTH'S ANSWERS ON PYRRHIC AND SPONDEES (duh duh DUM DUM))

1. "As the death-bed whereon it must expire" = William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 73"
2. "Our king has written a broad letter" = Anonymous, "Sir Patrick Spens"
3. "And this same flower that smiles today" = Robert Herrick, "To the Virgins to Make Much of Time"
4. "Ere half my days in this dark world and wide" = John Milton, "On His Blindness"
5. "And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made" = William Butler Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
6. "As the swift seasons roll" = Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The Chambered Nautilus"
7. "And you, my father, there on the sad height" = Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"

--Tom Padgett, Editor

CONTENTS:

<Past Issue Next>

Poems by Members

Workshop

Missouri State Poetry Society

MSPS Winter Contest

Spare Mule Online

National Federation of State Poetry Societies

Strophes Online

HAVE YOU READ THE LATEST ISSUES OF YOUR ONLINE NEWSLETTERS?

Remember to read Spare Mule Online and Strophes Online by clicking on the CONTENTS menu. You can keep up with members who get newsletters by mail by remembering to read them on the Net. The January 1 issue of Spare Mule Online and the January 1 issue of Strophes Online are both available to you..

HAVE YOU CHECKED OUT THE BULLETIN BOARD OF THE MISSOURI WEB SITE RECENTLY?

Click on Missouri State Poetry Society on the CONTENTS menu above. Then on the MSPS menu click on Bulletin Board for information about various poet societies, including contests they are sponsoring.

JEAN EVEN'S BOOK IS PUBLISHED BY A WYOMING PRESS

Congratulations are appropriate for Jean Even, a member of Thirty-Seven Cents from its beginning, because Whiskey Creek Press has just published Jean's book, Prayer in Praise. This hefty 235-page book of poetry is available by e-mail at www.thecreek.com. In the poems by members below on this page is a typical poem by Jean, "We Will Laugh." Most of her poems are such praise poems, celebrating her religious faith and drawing from her daily life reasons to be happy. And now she has another reason to be happy: the vast amount of work required to put out such a book is done. Again, congratulations, Jean!

     POET OF THE MONTH: A. R. AMMONS (1926-2001)

     Begin with a visit to the Academy of American Poets for a brief bio and four poems:
         http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=49
     For some online poems, visit
       http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/ammons/onlinepoems.htm
     For more poems, visit
       http://www.plagiarist.com/poetry/?aid=30
     A special page of information about Ammons is here:
      http://www.zuzu.com/ammons.htm
     For criticism of Ammons's work and still more poems, go here:
       http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/ammons/ammons.htm

POEMS BY MEMBERS:

TO MY FUTURE HUSBAND . . .
WHOEVER YOU MAY BE
Andrea Cloud

In every light your facets shine
Your character so deep
And you will hold all mine
My heart you'll always keep

You'll hold me in a place so high
For me your heart will ache
You'll always stay to me so nigh
True friendship we will make

Our souls of intricate design
With careful hands God spun
And by His will so shall we twine
In marriage two are one

Although we anger, we won't fret
For God will hold us sure
And though the troubles strike us yet
Our love will still endure

FOLLY
Pat Laster

Most new year's resolutions fade,
for we will trade
most anything
to keep a-wing
of long-held habits--dark, entrenched--
although to quench
them we apply
the old standby.
Our annual resolutions ploy
a mere decoy.
We'll never change,
just rearrange!

BIC
Darwyne Tessier

The car had been my wife's for many years,
out-lasting three or four newer ones of mine.
Time had dulled, then rusted off once shiny paint,
its blue pin-stripes no longer sporty,
but worn and cracked, and its Buick Skyhawk emblem
reduced to B_IC_.

Still BIC, as belatedly christened,
served us well--well, until one fateful night.
Cold winter wind whipped snow in formidable drifts,
and we were driving home in a new reliable car,
or so we thought, not knowing its intent to stall
in a parking lot when we had still three blocks to go.

The reliable car in the parking lot provided refuge
for my family as I fought home through banks of snow,
where I quickly started BIC and raced to rescue
my young family in distress, noticeably slowed
by one dragging wheel with a frozen brake.

As I approached the scene, it crossed my mind
this wheel so tight could be jarred free
by a helpful jolt if I slammed old BIC
against a drift of solid ice. The bump did work,
but a gaping tear in the gas tank made me wonder,
was it worth the wheel to lose the tank?

Later, as the cab took all of us home--
two cars now stranded in the parking lot--
someone suggested The Titanbic as another name for BIC.

LOVE LANGUAGE
Mark Tappmeyer
|
When I write Missing You,
cliches slip out:
My life's wre
                     ck
                          ed
                             off balance.

Nothing fresh here but gimmicks
of the trite line
I am becoming without
you.

KNOW ME
Tania Gray

I'm thinking while steaming a plump figgy pudding
And hanging the mistletoe, trimming the spruce tree,
And looking for relatives who'll be arriving,
You call me a Scrooge and I'll say fiddle-de-dee.

For no one goes overboard more than yours truly,
in draping the festoons of ribbons and roping
In baking the fruit pies and roasting the turkey
And mashing potatoes and I'm sure you're all hoping

That this year I'll serve up Aunt Sadie's old recipe--
The one in a box full of clippings worth plundering,
The one for her Indian prune plum best chutney
The tastiest side dish for turkey, most promising.

So don¹t call me Scrooge, I'm not one to go chiseling
And serving up minimal vittles. No blarneying
Do I, no faltering from garnishing the entrée,
For I'm Martha Stewart, the queen of hyperbole.

AH, WINTER!
Judy Young

Winter has a smell
That permeates the skin,
A frozen freshness,
An ephemeral scent,
That when you come in from the cold
I love to breathe in.
Ah. Winter!

THE STONE THAT CUTS
Todd Sukany

The stone that cuts so slaked his bride
Their union nearly drowned and died.
Against the heart a lethal blow
Was dealt to this naive fellow
So hard the gale might never have dried.

The cornerstone his strength belied,
His gait became a hobbled stride,
A gift partition to bestow
The stone that cuts.

With sleep mislaid, he tried
Works and words and love to hide
Abyss growing inside. Below
The roar came thoughts to and fro
With strong insights to raze the pride,
The stone that cuts.

CAT CONTROL
Bev Conklin

Slow, silky, sensuous stretch
from top of ears to tip of tail,
each ripple of fluffy fur
pure perfection to perceive.

Joyful, gigantic jump
to refrigerator top refuge
where he insists his basket-bed belongs.
A marvelous maneuver--worthy of meditation.

Body language exquisitely expresses
deep disdain toward foreign foods
or littered litter box.
Words would never work as well.

Without words, he also cures and comforts.
When memories merge into melancholia,
my cat knows I am needing purring,
and a kneading massage by his paws..

Colorful, caring companion;
independent, immune to my every effort,
by cajoling or curse, to control.
Who cares if he comes to my every call?

BRIEF TIMEPIECE, TICKING
Valerie Esker

I have springs inside,
for I have been bewitched
and time is fastened to my soul
with gears and pins and pendulums.

I, brief timepiece who hates waiting,
spin my whirring wheels
ticking faster, faster,
want only one mad moment's blessing.

It is New Year's Eve.
I am a clock, a metronome afire,
a clanging alarm,
a resonating chime.

December 31st . . . like you,
the planets swing in place,
dance their sidereal patterns,
spew cosmic magnetisms.

Now you, my moon-man,
you, the force that makes the ocean's breast to heave,
you beckon, pull me close in tidal rush,
and crush with midnight kiss.

MYSTERIOUS AS MUSIC
Gwen Eisenmann
As long ago as Pythagoras, the correlation between
heart beat rhythm and cosmic rhythms was known.

Mysterious as music is the heart's response to sound

or sight, or thought of what we love, wonder at or fear.
The wonder is, harmonic tones surround

us, tuning us, and play us from celestial spheres

that rock the planets. What a harp--my heart

plucked by a moonbeam, or a shard of pain

off beat, rhythm restored by a falling star

melting away discord in cosmic rain.
The rhythm of continuous creation must be

what harmonizes us with Earthly destiny.

With all this rhythm going on, come dance with me

to Music of the Spheres by our heart's synchrony.

LIKE A DRAINPIPE SUCKING SEWAGE
Harding Stedler

If I had known
that you would take
your teeth out
at the Governor's banquet,
I never would have gone.

You embarrassed me
beyond the slobber
of tobacco juice
in the Sumpter County
spitting contest.

My face turned
every shade of red,
from pink to crimson,
as I tried to be oblivious,
but there was no concealing
how mortified I was.

You slurped those oysters
like a drainpipe
sucking sewage.
And when you stuck
your tongue
down in the water glass,
fishing for a cube of ice,
I thought I'd have a stroke.

Never again
will I put myself at risk
for such humiliation.
The annual hog farmers' roast
is next week Friday.
Plan to go alone.

THE END OF THE ROPE
Velvet Fackeldey

dangling there, inviting
beckoning with a finger-like curl
I'll soothe the tension in your neck
relieve the worries in your mind
relax, relax
I'll lift your cares away
ease your pain in a snap
no more haunting nightmares
no shameful memories
relax, relax
no tears, no cries
perhaps a gasp
and then that's all
relax

LIFE'S FLOW
Phyllis Moutray

The day my guru died, I cried.
She was my rock of Gibraltar,
My anchor against high tides.

I cried--
Not believing myself
Strong.

Years later, I'm the guru
Whose death will test
Mettle

Of loved
And hopefully empowered
Students.

OLD FRIENDS
Tom Padgett

We heard when we were young and slim,
"Your old friends are the best.
They stay with you when memories dim
And you forget the rest."

But when we got this Christmas card
that gushed about our past
with glee we could not disregard,
we mulled for hours and asked:

"Was he the one we knew? Or she?
Who are these friendly folks?
Could this just be a trick, and we
the butt of someone's jokes?"

We mused and searched to no avail,
then sent a card, in turn
effusively, but from this tale
a sober lesson learned:

Old friends are more than friends extant;
they stay with feelings fraught,
for old friends are the ones we can't
remember as we ought.

WE WILL LAUGH
Jean Even

The Lord is good
And He is great
I can laugh
With His grace

When His peace
Is here with me
I am in the arms
Of Love's embrace

The Lord is gentle
And He is kind
We will laugh
Face to face.