[x]

Soul of a WriterI see a blank page, and I feel a spark inside my heart. The spark ignites my mind, raising its ever-glowing embers to a slowly building flame. The cold white blankness of the page angers me.

Wasted potential, that's what it is. Any space of white could be used. I stare into its emptiness and my mind begins to turn its gears. My hand itches for a pen.

I am a writer and my soul is fire. This page shall feel my flame.

I need to bring heat to the paper and that is what the words are. Hot. The black ink smolders on the white of the paper. The words charge from my mind, down my arm and on to the page.

They are the army of my soul, warriors of f

mosaics.sometimes unique
is not loud;
or bright, alive and raging,
possessed of a hunger for the atypical,
up front and too close,
or thrice-pierced and drenched
in the rebellions
particular to the latest generation.

sometimes it is a girl with
mouse brown hair and eyes
the color of weak tea,
who stands with her schoolbooks clutched
to her chest, in uniform shades of grey-blue
like the midmorning autumn sky

who has a wide mouth prone to nervous smiles,

pale lips and pale cheeks
and words that don't always come out
the way she means

who holds the universe
in the intricacies of her fingerprints
and laughs in treble clef notes
and u

It starts with a flash-bang and a Majulahi.
June's hauled her here again and
she's tapping at my classroom window,
A gazillion tiny fingers rapping in succession
(When she said "invitation" I didn't realise she meant
soaking half the country, the spike in umbrella prices has
nothing to do with me)
What's worse than an impatient child
is one with the whole atmosphere as her battering ram
when she tries to say something the urgency brims over
and one million exclamation marks
is beginning to sound like static frazzling
out on the pavements

ii.
She is without choice: when Cloud mother tips her out
she must go, and go she will
caught in an obtuse cycle, fought over

Crayon ChildYounger Me,
still fending off nightmares
with plastic swords
and MONSTER-B-GONE lights.

I was rarely gentle with you.

I blistered our hands with blacktop;
I choked our sandals with mulch.

Yet you remained untouched
by life's failures and faults,
only marred on the skin
by two frolic-scars.

There are seven chin stitches
from a monkey bar mishap,
and three on your upper lip
from disgruntled floor tiles.

But that never halted
your gap-toothed grins.

I fought by your side
during alien invasions,
where broccoli trees swayed
beneath the 1% lowfat Milky Way.

We cradled dirt-stained snowmen
that lasted weeks in the f

Talking to YourselfWind drove snow over the trees with such force they seemed to step into the distance. The whiteness in the air covered everything until it was as faded as an old scent trail after a rainstorm. The snow was already deep enough to suck in a man's leg past the knee if he wasn't wearing snowshoes, but the figure trudging through it was no longer a man.

Wendigo had given up on snowshoes long ago in favor of simpler footwear. The straps challenged the clumsy fingers of his stolen human body, and he could never figure out how to move in them without tripping. He lurched onward with the tenacity of a wolverine gnawing through an inch of deer skull t

AirYou do not have to be empty.
Go, now, to the high places, the thin spires
of mountains and skyscrapers
the roof of your house, tipped with snow,
and fill yourself up with the air.
Drink it in, taste it, roll it around
on your tongue, feel it settle
in the caverns of your lungs. Feel the dust
and the ice crystals and the scraps of newspaper
brush your lips, and fill yourself with them, too.
Fill yourself up with the moonlight, the frost,
the dusky rose of the rising sun,
the night, the morning, the calls of birds,
the sillhouettes of telephone poles,
the shadows of people and clouds and alley cats
that dance across the pave

KnowledgeIn a fever dream, black dooms descending

He lies rapt in stupor.
The windows tilt from his halo, the dry
heat ticking, each death rattle measures light into
reflections- form a periscope. One eye is all
that is needed to see. People

stutter along streets, gloom draped. Voices
soften and stretch, heard through memory and dreaming-
one hundred shadowy watchers meld to tarmac. Only one enters.

Yard lights convulse, scald twilit moments, birds
settling on flares. He blinks,
old as time- skin a coral of waxes, leather from his own glow. Eyes,
molten yolks still glimmer beneath lids, fat sunken. She watches,

notes of orange blossom

MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL"Excuse me," I ducked under the bus stop. "You do know the bus doesn't run this late, right?"

The girl standing there turned to look at me. She was wearing a bright yellow raincoat with equally bright purple galoshes, and kept her umbrella open despite having the bus stop's roof to keep her dry.

"Really?" She tried to check her watch, but didn't seem to have that much luck in pulling her sleeve back with the giant plastic bag in her hand and the giant purple umbrella in her other. I checked mine for her.

"Not down here, at least. The closest line still running is over on Fifth and Market." I took a second to warm my hands. "That's like a g

Crows"Crows," I whisper and she flies,
brown arrow shot
from the bowstring of a word.

Newspaper SuitI am a charlatan
peddling fraudulent wares
but nobody else can see
the pushpins
where adhesive didn't stick.
And you'd think the paper trail
from the newspaper suit
would give it away
but the pictures keep smiling
while underneath gangrene begins
and happy happy faces
mask the smell
of death.

comfort, crawfish boils, and port vincentand you and me, we got the whole of
Saturday, you and me, we got car grease
streaked straight up to our grins and

let's high five when you triumph over
mom's sneaky nose, her teasing and coy and
i wanna be that kind of wife to a man

like you. i wanna be the kind of woman worth
changing with, sacrificing for, going crazy
over as the years collect in bank rolls of nickels.

i've been called a menagerie of names by
the older, the wiser, the wrinkled; they
call me pretty girl, sweetheart, dollface,

sugarplum as i stir splenda into their
brewed coffees, but they ain't got nothin'

on your horse master hands, the ones that could

Imitating NatureThe morning sun streamed through a series of large plate glass windows lining the library's east wall, its rays warming the room's wooden paneling and illuminating the cavernous space. Tall bookshelves stuffed with literature from across the world towered over polished oak reading tables, each furnished with a plain, green-shaded banker's lamp. On the far side, a massive painting gracing the west wall depicted the solemn face of Saint Patrick, whose protective presence could be felt watching over the library's sole visitor.

All was perfectly quiet, save for a tap, tap, tapping that echoed in the otherwise silent room. Seated at a desk near t

l'hiver.(you can't tell the birds and the snow apart in the sky:
the grand church of dizzying space - )

and the trees are yellowed in cowardice, raking the sky
to the ground and around and around.

listen to your organs: the almost grand piano of the
churches i'd never attend.

and never mistake the courage of the sky for the cowardice
of the ground. never frown, never frown.

listen to your palms: the salty swing of the old snow
burning up on silk and splendor.

and visit the dying snow birds in their graves of the
ground, and they drown and drown.

(you can't tell the birds and the snow apart in the sky:
a grand church of dizzying space w

On my way homeBy Romy Lara

I exit the studio, sighing at the sight of the sun quietly hiding behind the trees and buildings. Turn to the right and keep walking. Cars are passing by, people in black suits get out from the nearest buildings; none of them care about their surroundings. I lift up my head and notice in big steel-letters the name of the company that owns that peculiar orange building in the corner of the street. It's the first time I see it. The sky is painted blue with some dabs of gray, just as if somehow the color of the concrete street had been absorbed by the clouds.

Behind me there's a couple discussing something about a house. She doesn

When your hands can mimic birdsWhen your hands can mimic birds,
you lose the need for sound.
A flight of words that bear no chirp
are none the less profound.

They don't perch on a pitch.
They don't possess the need .
They fly until you've seen their song,
then silently recede.

No one could find more freedom than
the freedom granted flight.
No one can see more beauty than in
words passed left to right.

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More from ~jswebb

Poem Written On the Eve of a Major Winter StormWe are a window into the past.

We, a window of hazy glass,
hazy nights in autumn
under fog and burnt-breasted
sycamore. We are a walk
through campus, one camera,
friend, the breadth
of each other's breath
and filtered warmth
coming off the creekbed. We
are the womb. We are the birth
of something greater than
a moment. We are a cool
kiss, a sip of simmering
vegetable stew. A Saturday
matinee. Infused chai tea.

We are everything memory
has left in its history. We are two
clipped blades of wheat, making
love in a grove of trees.

Tanka Set 61.
howl
    moon
wind
rain
     fall
2.
someone's mother
swimming in the storm . . .
the waves
of better days
break over her arms
3.
     fall
rain
      wind

howl
                  moon

Sonnet 5There is a wind coming now, and I know
this poem won't hold you steady as she takes

you from me, and sadly, I know mistakes
cannot be undone. Still I beg: please throw

your fleece housecoat over your shoulders. Stow
away your pack in the tide. Let the strait

connecting memories try to remake,
in your eyes, the cracked statue. Try to sow

crops that grow best near the edge of morning.
Most importantly, old friend, forget me

as I stand in these moments of weakness.
Forget this world we've built out of nothing.

Forget how it feels to kneel, to survey
my grave. Please forget what you have witnessed.

Sonnet 4 for my grandmother

Her flowers, softly pressed against her palm,
have lost their quiet gift of sunlit breath
in lieu of gentle summer's song, this psalm
hushed now by looming mute of living death.
The owl's lonely mating cry rings out
against the fjord today, and still I find
her shorn cloth adorning my clouded route
home. Roughly textured skin of night confined
my skin; however, the small trestles built
from earth to hidden light behind the moon
guide me to her in sleep. Her petals l

Sonnet 3There is a streambed
beside our old school
where air thins itself,

slows against the knurls
of stone in water.
Your memory rests

with mine, bee to flower,
lips, skin. From the west,
our blurred red sun sets

in valleys beneath
our bodies, carves its
nest. It longs to glean

some ache of hope from
notes we've not yet sung.

How the Poet's Mother Confesses To Him in a DreamLast time I sat in this swing, I was a girl
with charm. I didn't mind the calm,
sitting alone, watching the world burn

sienna and sapphire, mighty seabirds
in flight against its rim. It was early dawn
last time I sat in this swing. I was a girl

waiting to wed a man, trying to discern
whether he cared. I felt embalmed,
sitting alone, watching the world burn

out. Cool air raced in, as if to purl
shoots of Ammophila. I had no qualms
last time. I sat in this swing. I was a girl

who relished the waves' collision. Their uncurl
kept me still in morning's salty balm,
sitting alone. Then, watching the world burn

into daybreak, I quickly

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Submitted: March 16, 2012
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Into the Light

by ~jswebb, Mar 16, 2012, 8:56:09 AM
Literature / Poetry / Nature / Traditional Fixed Forms

The moon tonight is, simply, a white note
adrift, spinning. It patiently tracks the breeze
on the edge of genesis, floating in motes

               of static. On the surface, it seems at ease.
               Light filters through oak leaves and coats
               its thrall, the summer heat's slow weave

through the river's margins to the throat
of the sea. Small fish leap up to tease
the moon tonight. Simply, this white note

               rotates its body like thread released
               from reel, alters its position over nodes
               of static on the surface. It seems at ease.

In this version of heaven, the harbor's boats
compose as they do, hulls tucked under lees
near the bluffs' edges, geneses afloat in motes

               of stone. Waves disperse like seedlings
               against the mainstays. Masts stand devoted
               in their thralldom. Heat slowly weaves

the sheaves together, allows them to exude
their grasp of rhythm before Earth's marquise,
The Moon. Tonight is simply a white note,

               sparsely pearled and reticent. It receives
               the key's shift naturally. Sinks into mute
               veils of static on the surface. At ease,

each celestial drifts along its sloped road,
guided by the low sky's gamut of color, chaste
ribbons atop ocean's edge. This genesis, moat

               of stars en route to another night, bequeaths
               nothing. Its body's erosion hastens, is cloaked
               and resigned to thralldom. Sun's heat weaves

the moon and tonight into a single white note
afloat on the edge of dawn's genesis, faded moit
of static. On the surface, it hardly seems at ease
with thralldom, lost forever in heat's slow weave.

Into the Lightby ~jswebb

Literature / Poetry / Nature / Traditional Fixed Forms

Hear me reading this poem: [link]

—

In my ongoing experimentation with villanelle, I believe I have created a new variation on the form. I call it the nested villanelle.

There have been several double villanelles written throughout history, where a person simply takes the form and writes two explicit iterations back to back; however, the nested villanelle is different because it takes two villanelles and weaves them together to create a single composition, with the second villanelle being indented to signify the difference between the two.

I have come up with three different variations on my form, but the one I employed here is the fundamental form:

A1
b
A2

     B1
     a
     B2

a
b
A1

     b
     a
     B1

a
b
A2

     b
     a
     B2

a
b
A1

     b
     a
     B1

a
b
A2

     b
     a
     B2

A1
A2
B1
B2.

The effect of the variation, I think, is unique. The expansion on the initial form allows the poet to greatly extrapolate on rhyme and theme, while keeping the rhythmic, serene quality that is inherent to the villanelle.

I don't believe I've ever seen a variation on the form that bears resemblance to this nested form, and I think it's actually really exciting to say I created a new type! (Though, if I am mistaken and you find a nested villanelle that was created before this one, please let me know!)

The form is pretty difficult to tackle—I've been writing this one on and off over the course of the last three months—but it is highly rewarding and pretty fun, should you attempt it.

I hope you all enjoy and am really eager to hear what everyone thinks! If you have any questions about the variation, please don't hesitate to ask.

-J

Daily Deviation

Given 2012-08-25

Into the Light by ~jswebb Experimenting with fixed forms can be tricky, but ~jswebb has managed to conduct this wonderful experiment worth taking a look at. ( Featured by ^Beccalicious )

love 3 3

joy 2 2

wow 1 1

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

=realARTIZT Jan 15, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

Kudos

I've noticed, well, you must like the 'sound' of words more so than just to read through like most do. You create almost a symphony, each line melodic and meaningful. This was like reading music. It had me going line to line then I realized "hey, this has a pace to keep to". I decided not to push play on the audio file you provided, but I believe I heard it all the same.

Magnificent. -#SayItHere

~wilbiepig Dec 11, 2012

You have inspired me to write an anthology consisting only of "nested villanelles."
I have already written two, except my version allows for the reader to read the poem as two separate villanelles or as one nested villanelle.

The non-indented stanzas serve as one villanelle.
The indented stanzas serve as the other.
The poem is written just as yours is written, so that it can be read as one "nested villanelle."

Thank you for creating such a unique form of poetry!

~jswebb Dec 11, 2012 Writer

Thank you for reading! It's very exciting to hear you've attempted the form yourself - I'd love to read your pieces.

~Perahn Dec 11, 2012

Oh, wow. I can't imagine how much work you must have put into this, and yet it all sounds so natural.

~jswebb Dec 11, 2012 Writer

Thank you for taking the time to read and comment. It did take a long while to come up with the form and to implement it, but it was a worthwhile experience.

~crashmypartyhard Sep 21, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

very interesting layout. I love the descriptions and the use of intense words in this. very nice

~jswebb Sep 21, 2012 Writer

Thank you very much for reading and commenting. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

~crashmypartyhard Sep 21, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

welcome (:

~Karinta Aug 28, 2012 Student General Artist

I love it! It's a beautiful form you've invented, and it sounds quite cool.

~jswebb Aug 28, 2012 Writer

Very glad you like it! Thanks for reading and commenting.

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