critter sounds resound
in my riverside damp
knowing folk call wetland
we just knew it as a swamp
tree frog sawmill buzz
burp chirrup of bullfrog
companionable jamming
on an old bog log
don't let's forget the
full part insect band
and slurpyish munch of deer
dining in marsh land
this is cattail country
I've long been keen on those
the bushy exploding fronds
as fuzzy as horse's nose
And on swamp things furry
that pearly grey pussy willow
which Jake calls kitty toes
we could make of them a pillow
no idea what they grow into
softy beansies are fine for me
not sure it's essential to know
the full Systema Naturae litany
but I've again lost the plot
increasingly common for me
well divergence as Frost asserts
paths not yet taken are poetry
Which brings me to winter
nodding to Robert's snowy night
not my prime time to pen on
being much too cold to write!
what's the point or am I
just pointlessly rambling along
Perhaps I've taken the path less taken
and I'm still writing words to my song
And that is the point, we're all
just making it up as we go
making the most out of fragments
not knowing what we know till we know
And yanno, as I write I think
I like it so much better this way
letting the verse go where it will
allowing the poem to have its say
Characters in my story do that
start writing on their own accord
inserting themselves where I don't see
them and demanding to be heard
Suddenly I'm not the author
he's taken over the lot
I'm playing ghost writer to
a character in the plot
like lunatics seizing the asylum
who's not and who is in charge
If I'm the one who invented them
they've become remarkably large
And then if it's real or made up
Am I the one with the choice
or am just a seance medium
an instrument giving them voice?
I titled this specter at the feast
a boring damn nod Banquo
so much froing and to-ing about a ghost
us stateside really don't know
I'll break the fifth wall a moment to say that yes, disturbing, right? I'm wondering if that's why so many writers went mad (can you go mad? Is it a place on the map? not sure if that's the worst place to go?) Anyway. Such is our lot. And yes, I absolutely have had specter characters emerge out of nowhere and demand a bigger part. One of which was just starting to rear his head in my book "Heir Supply." before my computer went ass over tits. My computer guru pronounced the machine "toast." Sad because both books saved on it were viable for publication. And these books only exist in my head
And I'm not even sure "He" had a name yet. He was an itinerant odd job man. Who wrote himself a bigger role. And unfortunately American names from back then are all SOOO banal. Fred (yawn) George (yawn wider) Ben (cracks head open yawning too hard). I mean why can't we name like the Brits?? Roman names like Septimus! Or Saxon, Ethelred! So I will give our character a Bible name my husband recently referred to and which surprisingly, Bible scholar me had forgotten (never heard of, gasp, no forgotten) Elkanah.
How about that, Elkanah? What do you think?. (The author and audience await his nibs' approval). We could go with Ahasuerus?? I can't believe I'm kowtowing to a MADE UP person!! Funny how I've NOT forgotten as much of the book as you'd have thought I would being written mostly in 2010. 16 years ago!! Damn!!! I wish I had that file. Maybe it wasn't that good. But it was over 100 pages long with the gist of it in my head. Yes, even you Ekanah/Ahasuerus whoever you are. I'd have love sparring with you over the passages.
I probably won't go back to the poem because it's so difficult trying to rhyme. Seriously, you're very constrained. I would like to return to the marsh poem. I can see the place in my head-- Harbor Island in Grand Haven. Not so much a marsh now. Thank you Progress. Still, weeping willows ...
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