Temple

Ekka winds burn
my joss sticks swiftly; still I know
my prayers are heard.

Once again I resented fact that published poets were (are!) allowed to be completely flexy with the structure yet we were told strictly to write in the here-and-now with reference to nature and try to combine two images together, blah, blah, blah, bitch, bitch, bitch. Anyway I had many haiku that I liked, which I may post later, but here is stanza one of what I submitted. I had a second stanza but the more I read it, the less I like it.

I tend to use a lot of unnecessary words (I'm told). I'm mostly guilty of using too many conjunctions. I think I need them. Perhaps this is a sign I am not using the English language as well as I should be.

Note: I am not expecting a 7. Though I'd love one.

The Funky Pussy Club

I'll have to find what I first wrote and post that up because I liked it better. Obviously I trusted my tutor's feedback - even if poetry is subjective - but here is the reworked version of my attempt at a prose poem.

It was a cold evening in Hamburg, a hot night on the Reeperbahn. I saw her as soon as I walked in the club. She spoke fluently with an accent I couldn’t pick, and danced like no one I knew—cute. I won her phone number over a bet about my age. We danced for a bit. Then she said she felt like chocolate—quirky. The nearest place open was charging double but I got some anyway. When I came back, €1.29 poorer, she had her hand up some other guy’s shirt. Then the Kooks’ “You Don’t Love Me” came on. He laughed, she said sorry and I left and gave her Milka to a stranger at the train station. I never tried again with a tourist.

Requirements for this task: reference to a book or movie (I hope she accepts the song - I didn't even ask about it) and not more than 150 words. I was well under and had to flesh it out a bit. Also I attempted to write it in German as the main submission with an English translation to accompany it (because it's supposed to be his point of view and he's a German) but my tutor said it was probably better the other way around.

Untitled♥

The dreaded ghazal. My first attempt, completely unlike the product below, was very high-school and makes me cringe to think that I actually sent it to my tutor for feedback. Still, it's not a real ghazal, although what is a real ghazal? Apparently you can only change poetic structure if you're already famous, which I'm obviously not. I quite like this one - even if stanzas two and five refer to the same kind of heart. Again, admittedly, the minimum requirement made me force out a fifth stanza when I only had four that I was ready to submit. At least they're not so bad that I'm not going to publish them on this blog.

Nature, nurture, wicked hearts?
From everything comes wicked hearts.

No repentance; toss and turn
with red-stained hands and wicked hearts.

Beating sun on green gold rows
leaves grainy flesh ‘round wicked hearts.

Rush to head and coin to slot;
diamond hope on wicked hearts.

Deceitful you! And my faux-heroes;
Even saints have wicked hearts.

Is faux not a real word? The spell check said no. (Computer says no.)

Clever Girl: A work in progress

As I severely dislike my second and third stanzas, forced out by the minimum requirement and the impending due date, I am only showing my first stanza. As I do not particularly like blues poems, I doubt I will actually work on this any further.

Clever Girl, she’s seen the world but her eyes were never open.
Clever Girl, she’s learned four tongues but sense was never spoken.
Clever Girl,
Clever little girl,
How did you get this far?

Are the italics annoying?