“So Help Me Listening” – Sprung Rhythm? Sonnet?
So Help Me Listening
No no (dear god dear god dear god) I’m not mad at you.
Seriously, I AM (so help me) listening.
It’s just that I’ve got (Christ almighty) a tad to do,
and family genealogy (all who was and had) isn’t somehow glistening
at the top (or even slop) of my list of priorities.
But I know (no no no no) that you’re different;
wounded by small-town cruelties,
teacher slaps, kid snubs, a scrubbiness that rent
a childish heart in two (one two); scars’ scurvies
repustulating ache, like the cut in your hip (that too)
as even the straight mind topsy-turvies
here and there and there and there and you
have, I admit it, told me before
once or (but it’s sore, and yes I will try) more.
***********************************
I am posting the above for dVerse Poets Pub “Form For All” prompt hosted by Gay Reiser Cannon on “sprung rhythm,” a form of meter used primarily by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I also tried to make it a sonnet – at least 14 lines – since that’s another Hopkins trick.
Tags: Gerard Manley Hopkins, manicddaily, Poem of trying to listen to older person, Sprung Rhythm, Tried patience poem
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ManicDDaily 
May 17, 2012 at 8:52 pm
I haven’t looked at the form yet, but it looks like a poem within a poem concept. I like it. 🙂
May 17, 2012 at 9:18 pm
haha this is really interesting…first i am a sucker for parenthesis and it works almost like an embedded cleave…nice rhymes…some alliteration…nice play…and creative…of course the so help me line takes me right to Monsters Inc…haha
May 17, 2012 at 9:18 pm
Thanks. k.
May 17, 2012 at 10:16 pm
You manage to interject an almost feverish sense of displacement, attenuated energy, attention phasing in and out, but still a warmth and sympathy flowing smoothly without a moment’s pause. Quite an excellent poem, k, leaving nice spaces between the said and unsaid–I especially like how you made the rhythm breaking and sputtering around your own, made a conscious-subconscious conversation of it.
May 17, 2012 at 10:57 pm
Thanks, Joy.
May 17, 2012 at 10:41 pm
Not only conquering the rhythms here, which do spring thought out, thought in. The surprise here is the layered levels – approaching the subject both as a child, and an adult; the address to a parent, the overlay not very religious but enough reference to give the nod to the conflict that seemed to plague Hopkins both in his real life, and his spiritual poetry. It’s all here – seemingly playful – actually quite philosophical. Really well done.
May 17, 2012 at 10:58 pm
Thank you, Gay.
May 18, 2012 at 6:06 am
Thanks again, Gay – coming back to your comment – what’s been a bit interesting to me is that no one has noticed it’s a sonnet which was the part in my mind that was homage to Hopkins – that thing of squeezing all the stuff in the lines and then using 14 of them. I don’t know if anyone else would call it a sonnet though – and obviously people haven’t! (Ha.) So I revised the post title. I really do like sonnets because they give you a bit of a road map. k.
May 17, 2012 at 10:54 pm
so nicely sprung.
May 17, 2012 at 10:58 pm
Thanks! k.
May 17, 2012 at 11:24 pm
the flow of this poem story is remarkable, k. i had to come back to it and re-read as I was trying to remember (my favorite) your line..
“as even the straight mind topsy-turvies”
May 18, 2012 at 6:00 am
Thanks, Jane.
May 18, 2012 at 2:53 am
the parenthesis works really well to underline that inner fight, the trying to listening..really well done k…and is this an egg you painted the elephant on…? so cool..
May 18, 2012 at 5:33 am
Thanks, Claudia. Actually, this is an old drawing–I don’t really want to reveal of what as it is just incredibly different – and I cropped it with a vignette to re-use it because I liked the elephant’s face. The egg look comes from the way the software makes the vignette. Nice to think of it as being on an egg though. K.
May 18, 2012 at 3:44 am
Superb, so accomplished. G.M.H. would have loved it, I’m sure – even though he didn’t have your sense of humour. Or any.
May 18, 2012 at 5:34 am
Ha! I’m not so sure about that – I’m not sure that certain names wouldn’t be deemed taken in vain! But thanks much. K.
May 18, 2012 at 5:37 am
Love all that you have embedded here K! A superb take on the form. 😀 “I AM (so help me) listening” – love that!
May 18, 2012 at 6:00 am
Thanks. k.
May 18, 2012 at 8:21 am
Love it! Those small town cruelities I can identify with!
May 18, 2012 at 9:59 am
Thanks, Laurie.
May 18, 2012 at 9:46 am
Oh this is so clever. I loved the story as told by both child and adult who is a little short tempered from pressure of all they have to do. It’s all so involved and yet it is lyrical, and I think you rose to the challenge of the prompt as an expert. I’m not so good at writing to form and had a problem with mine but this is one of the best I’ve read. Lovely!
May 18, 2012 at 9:59 am
No, Dawn, I really enjoyed yours very much. And sometimes just using the form as a prompt to think about language in a different way is super useful, I think. (At least, Ifind so.) K.
May 18, 2012 at 12:25 pm
Really like all the embedded bits in the poem. Great play with words here. Very nice!
May 18, 2012 at 3:03 pm
way to go with internal rhyming
when time races like a bullet
May 18, 2012 at 5:35 pm
,,,” a grubbiness that rent a childish heart in two (one two)…moving and as a poem..just so good! love it
May 18, 2012 at 11:30 pm
Another sucker for parentheticals here. I do like what you’ve done–sound AND sense.
May 20, 2012 at 3:33 am
I think this works on all accounts, rhythmically and form. I like the playfulness of the parentheticals too.
May 20, 2012 at 7:26 am
Thanks, Chaz.