ManicDDaily

Victorio Ceretto-Slotto is hosting the dVerse Poets Pub “Meet the Bar” event today, and has posted an article about infusing poetry with emotion through use of particular detail and metaphor (among other things.)   She has very kindly included my poem “Far” in her article.  (I am also, at a later date, linking this poem to the Poetry Picnic.)

Here’s another older poem, a villanelle, that doesn’t really have the kind of particular detail Victoria writes of.  Still, I’m posting it because it deals, quite literally, with the muted  expression of emotion.  (My apologies that some readers may have seen this poem, or its companion villanelle.)

Burned Soldier (A Mask For Face)

He tried to smile but found that skin would balk;
a mask for face was not what he had planned.
Right action should give rise to right result,

saving the day as it called on God to halt
all burn and bite of bomb as if by wand;
he tried to smile but found that skin would balk.

When they talked of graft, he always thought of molt,
as if his flesh held feathers that could span
right action, then give rise to right result:

cheeks that were smooth but rough, but loose but taut—
it all had been so easy as a man.
He tried to smile but found that skin would balk.

Hate helped at times; to think it was their fault.
But how could “they” be numbered? Like grains of sand,
like actions that give rise to like result,

like eyes that fit in lids not white as salt.
This lead white face was not what he had planned.
He tried to smile but found that skin would balk;
right action should give rise to right result.

On a very different (i.e. humerous) note, check out my new silly teen novel, Nose Dive, by Karin Gustafson, illustrated (terrifically) by Jonathan Segal.   (When you’re there–take a look at Going on Somewhere, or 1 Mississippi.)  Sorry–but it’s that time of year.