I Didn't Do It Over.

Here's a quick follow up on my previous post.

I ended up turning in what I had written, and hoped for the best. I ran out of time to do another one. Before I go on though, I'll post to original poem I had to base mine off of.

Pushing the Clouds Away, by Rod McKuen

Clouds or not the cheeks of angels you know
they're only clouds
Friendly sometimes,
but you can never be sure.
If I had longer arms
I'd push the clouds away
or make them hang above the water somewhere else,
but I'm just a man
who needs and wants,
mostly the things he'll never have.
Looking for that thing that's hardest to find.

I've been going a long time now
along the way I've learned some things.
You have to make the good times yourself
take the little times and make them into big times
and save the times that are all right
for the ones that aren't so good.

I've never been able
to push the clouds away by myself
Help me.

Please.

Now, as my teacher was passing out the graded poems, she was stopped a few times by people asking why they got bad scores. She told them that they strayed too far off topic, and that, apart from a few exceptions, you were generally supposed to stick with the clouds theme.

A theme I obviously threw out the window. I took some hefty liberties with this poem while I paraphrased it. I was sure that my paper wouldn't be returned with a poor score and a "You missed the point" note.

Turns out I was one of the exceptions. 5/5, perfect score. I was quite surprised. This was just one of two poems I had to do for that day, my other got 5/5 as well. On this one I had to follow the form of another poem exactly, but change the main subject. This turned out to be quite fun, as a picked an idea, and tweaked it around until it fit. Here it is:

The Ship, by Me

It is a rugged ship,
an old ship,
a rough and dirty ship;

It is a vessel
a boat,
a craft,
a sleeper at the docks,
a warrior of the waves;

It is a ship that rules the ocean
and the waters of all.

It comes with the waves and the wind,
It hacks at the water,
pounds the sea like an army,
and snatches the wind,
and instills the fear,
and defies the enemy;

It steals men's breath,
into statues they turn;
It is an ancient, brutal ship
and it never relents.

Milk + Midnight + Creativity = Doing It Over Tomorrow

It's full on poetry week in Writing class. Luckily, I like poetry, and have been known to write a spell or two.

My latest assignment is to Paraphrase a poem called Pushing the Clouds Away, by Rod McKuen. I was in my bed, nearly asleep, when I felt that spark I get that tells me to write. I got up, had a glass of milk, and started writing.

Now, I think what I write has trailed off topic slightly, but I happen to like it. So I figured I'd post what I wrote tonight and go to bed, then go at it again tomorrow while fresh. It's nothing fancy (nor complete, really), just something I'd rather not delete. So here you go.

Occasional Fool

There is a weight on my shoulders,
it strains my legs, and brings me down, yet makes me feel alive.
although I'd love to rid myself of this burden,
I know it's none but my own.
It is my lesson, reminding me that I am but a man,
forever in his search for happiness and endless in his mistakes.

This bundle of lessons learned and unlearned, mercilessly crushing down,
they remind me of the little things gone unnoticed,
the big things unappreciated.
Only a fool would let these go, slipping through fingers grasping.
Yet a fool we all are, from time to time, when we forget.

A fool, I am.

Mending Wall, by Robert Frost.

So, in writing class today, we went over a few poems. What's this? Writing class?...Be patient, I will explain at a future date. Point is, one poem stood out to me. It reached into me and triggered something. I nearly broke down as I explained the feelings it evoked.

Mending Wall

SOMETHING there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”