ManicDDaily

Furred Glasses (Underwater)

As followers of this blog may know, I made a commitment in honor of this April 2010 National Poetry Month to post a freshly-minted draft poem every day.  I am cheating tonight and putting up an older draft poem, Villanelle to Glasses.   This poem came to mind (and seemed to justify the cheating) due to the many kind and helpful comments I got about yesterday’s poem re sore eyes.

For instructions about how to write a villanelle, check out these prior posts on (i) how the assembly of a villanelle compares to banana pudding, and (ii) a specific breakdown of the form.

Villanelle to Glasses

Without glasses, the edges of my world are furred
like the ending of an echo, crush of shale.
Ideas are seen as if through water, blurred,

trooping muzzily through head, not shaped by word,
as if mind’s eye can’t make out thought’s detail
without glasses.  As edges of my world are furred,

so too, I find, my verbal memory’s slurred:
I’ll say peach for onion, kite for sail;
ideas are seen as if through water, blurred,

and though I tell myself I’m quite absurd–
my mind’s still good; it’s only eyes that fail–
without glasses, the edges of my world are furred.

Even corrected vision’s not assured,
each type of lens its own peculiar jail,
where ideas are seen as if through water, blurred,

and I must make a choice between page or bird,
eternal grain of sand/horizon’s trail.
Without glasses, the edges of my world are furred:
ideas are seen as if through water, blurred.

This entry was posted on April 8, 2010 at 10:31 pm and is filed under poetry, Uncategorized, writing exercises. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: can't think straight without my glasses poem, choosing between far-sightedness and near-sightedness poem, furred glasses (underwater), manicddaily, ManicDDaily poetry, ManicDdaily watercolor of glasses, National Poetry Month, villanelle, villanelle draft, villanelle form, Villanelle to Glasses