Once upon a time, in Poland, there lived a humorist of great wit. He wrote a lot and was quite popular so once a silly female fan asked him: "Master, where do your ideas come from? Like, from your head, or something?" The joker answered, "No, my dear lady, straight from my leg..." I may have misremembered the joke, but the point is to think about the source of poetic inspiration. Where does it all come from? Why do I find it so hard to write on a prompt, assigned topic or a quote? Yes, I can write these things, but then they feel dense, boring and lame.
Sometimes, poems come to me (only in English) when I dream: I wake up with an almost ready poem. It is all good, if I write it down right away, but not so good, if I forget - as was the case with "I am in love with Luo Jim" - that was complete upon waking up and then forgotten. It caused me a lot of trouble to reproduce it afterwards. Poems also come when I'm relaxed and otherwise occupied with straightforward tasks like driving on a freeway, or on a near empty street. Swimming, gardening, going for walks, or meditating are also good places to find poems. Meditation is strange: So often, instead of clearing my mind of random thoughts, I get a poem while I train my breath to deepen, slow down and become more regular. The breath of life... prana. So, let's read some quotidian poems that came into being in such silly ways.
Let's start from the melting moon, that I saw disappearing behind the ridge of hills while driving south on the 210 around six p.m., close to sunset. The hills were orange and purple, the moon, not quite full yet, unfinished. When I looked back in the mirror I saw the sun at the same level, getting redder as it was setting. What does the melting moon remind one of, while driving when anything can happen any time? The passing of life, of course. So, here it is:
A Wish Upon a Moon
The snowball of a moon
Melts into brow summer hills
at sunset.
It looks unfinished
as if a painter abandoned
the imperfect draft
before completion.
And so our lives
melt into timelessness,
leaving behind disheveled words
a stack of dreams
and scattered wishes.
“All shall be well” –
the poet confirmed.
His words bring us comfort
while we exhaust ourselves
with doubt, worry and regret.
All shall be well”
And all is well –
You know,
the melting moon
will come back.
(c) 2022 by Maja Trochimczyk
Another "driving" poem came from a red-light stop on a Friday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles. Our dear friend, ballet master and choreographer Stefan Wenta died, and I was looking for a suitable red-and-white wreath in the colors of Polish national flag to present at his funeral. The best place to find these is, of course, the flower district. I stopped and looked ahead. The cross-street was named "Arcadia" for garden paradise of peace, yet right down I could see the ominous towers of the county jail. The contrast was just too stark. I used to work at the Midnight Mission on Skid Row and drove down there daily in the past, but it's been years since I saw the human misery concentrated in this strange corner of the City of Angels, full of warehouses, garbage, vacant lot and new loft developments for yuppies. The poem is a straightforward description of what I did and saw that day.
DTLA
Downtown Los Angeles.
At the corner of Alameda and Arcadia Street
Two dying palms with shredded leaves
struggle to ornament a bleak landscape
of cement and asphalt.
Narrow vertical slits of windows
in thick walls of gray towers look like gaps
for archers in a medieval fortress
of granite and slate.
Here they keep inmates of Men’s Central Jail
from suicide or murder. Nobody can break
this glass. Nobody can jump. Thousands
pass through each year.
Bedraggled men on the next corner
dig through a heap of cardboard
looking for the best pieces to make
shelter on the sidewalk for the night.
All stores close at six pm. Gaudy rolls
of sparkling fabrics in a dance store
brighten the scene with artificial cheer.
Few tents are up. Night residents
are not back yet from the day of panhandling
and food kitchen lines. In a vacant lot,
a white balloon, smudged with dirt,
rolls along the skeletal remains of weeds.
I find the last florist open by an emptyspot.
I buy the first red and white wreath I see.
Perfect! I order a ribbon with inscription
and delivery to the funeral mass.
I leave with a bouquet of my own.
Driving home, immersed in the dense
Sweetness of stargazer lilies, I sigh
heading back to my world of gardens,
birdsong, mountains, feisty hummingbirds
and two mourning doves caressing each other
long after making love in the driveway.
The heady scent o five-petalled stars
reminds me of the broken promises
of yesteryear and the brightness
of tomorrow.
Here's what I learned from buying a sofa online. My first such experiment, justified by two points. One - to spare myself from hours wading through stores full of sofas. Two - because it looked just like my old one, so it could be put in the same place. It turned out to be faux leather, not leather - even better, for I do not want to decorate my home with trophies from killing sentient beings. Though I still wear leather shoes and carry purses. Vanity is hard to discard... But it is a humorous poem. The word "Sofa" is funny in itself, try saying it several times in order: sofa, sofa, sofa...
The Sofa Dilemma
I bought a sofa
To replace an old sofa
Placing toe online order
From the old sofa full of holes
To bring a new sofa
And take the old away in a few days.
I bought a sofa
To replace another sofa
For they look the same.
It will be as if time reversed and went back
To 2005 when this shredded sofa
Was still my sparkling new sofa
In camel or cognac leather –
These names are so strange.
So did I buy this new sofa
To reverse the time flow
And find myself when I was still
Deluded with illusory hope
For life that was not meant to be?
Was it a hiccup of memory,
a sudden echo from the past?
No I just bought a new sofa
To precisely replace a zombie sofa.
That's all. I'm pleased.
Finally, my dream poem of a dream hero of manufactured dreams from a Chinese costume drama TV series. Watching Chinese and Korean fantasy dramas became my favorite past-time. They are not as vicious, cruel, mindlessly unfunny, or sentimental as American productions. They are mostly "upright" and teach obvious lessons of the love of the country, compassion for the poor, value of service and integrity, respect for parents, faithfulness to loved ones and friends, loyalty and love till death us part...
The costumes are fantastic, the hair and robes long and flowing... Wide sleeves and black tresses float on the breeze when the heroes and heroines fly around. Who wouldn't want to fly? What's not to love? Plus, in a streaming mode, it is fairly easy to fast-forward through the scenes of war or torture, or scheming conversations of wicked villains. Alas, the English translation of subtitles is often abysmal, though it may add to fun, by becoming a puzzle to be solved. Dubbing is completely out of question.
Luo Jin is one of the stars of the "Princess of Wei Young," a well-written series where he falls in life with the title character, played by his real wife, and their warmth is obvious on the screen. There is only one flaw - the blooms in the fields are all silk flowers, perhaps there was nothing blooming in the winter when the episodes were filmed. So....
I Fell in Love with Luo Jin
On the screen,
his eyes are always smiling,
even when just a corner of his mouth
lifts up in a rakish smirk.
I love his bravado when saving maidens
from ancient demons.
He flies through air while shooting arrows,
suspended from steel cables
in a deceptive, engineering feat.
I am in love with Luo Jin,
tenderly plucking guzheng strings,
wistfully gazing at the stars,
or into the eyes of his on-screen lover,
his real wife. Betrayal? Never!
He gives me of what I can only dream.
Like me, billions of others love Luo Jin,
seduced by the grand illusion of the film.
His sword ballet is an aerial dance –
killing without the stench of rotting corpses.
Pure flight, joy, even – Oh, Luo Jin!
That's just one difference between oral and written poetry. It is good if there is rhythm and rhyme. I think all students should memorize the Greek patterns of rhythm, called feet: iamb (ta DA), trochee (DA ta), anapest (ta ta DA), dactyl (DA ta ta), and spondee (DA DA). Poems, even free verse, sound more "poetic" when patterns of these rhythm are repeated and woven into a flow.
English language and Polish langue "love" different rhythmic patterns: most words are accented on penultimate syllable in Polish, so lines tend to be longer and more flowing. I do not even dream poems in Polish, and I really do not know why. Maybe the rhythm of English fits me better. Also, as a second language, it is somewhat "artificial" - it has some characteristics of an imperfect mask - I keep my Polish accent, so the mask is flawed, so is the quotidian poetry, good for this blog.
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