To Bee or Not, buzzer Options

[Merlin]

To Bee or not to Bee

Another close of day, and rain
pulsed on the building in tintinnabulation.
This was not my choice of evening, but
ducks should be dancing with pleasure.

Another day in the jungle – feeling wiped
and horrified at the thought of fighting traffic
through squares of manmade symmetry.
As I waited at a light, I wondered
why our world was square.

And I wondered why the bee,
that architect of perfection,
had chosen the hexagon as its design,
but man is smarter than a bee
and not as fragile.

And I wondered why I wore my dress pants
on a day destined to be bucketing
till I remembered – man is smarter than a bee.

[Sekhmet]

Luverly stuff Merlin - such a great use of the word tintinnabulation, not a word that pops up often in everyday conversation.
Possibly when God/evolution/or whatever developed the bee, the use of the ergonomically practical hexagon was offered as a suggestion to stupid mankind.

A linguistic aside. Although I completely understood your phrase, 'dress pants'; to a Brit such as me, a 'dress' is a garment worn by ladies on slightly formal occasions; and, 'pants' are undergarments, worn by gentlemen beneath their trousers. The visual image conjured up by the thought of you, driving about clad only in your, 'dress pants' gave me a big smile before breakfast.
Love, Leo

[jgdittier]

Dear Merlin,
Never knowing just what to look for when reading free verse,
I seem to recede to message...
My fist comment is that I learned a new word and am itching to use it somewhere. I onder if i can apply it to my verse where those sounds become repetitive and uniform, as all my stuff does.
THe thought of man's world being square as is the layout of our towns impacted my thoughts as you earlier mentioned our jungle. Ingenious irony there! THe comparing our mentality to that of a bee...
Why squares, why hexagons? Maybe because they are the best choice for both.
Then you tell us that man is smarter than the bee, yet not smart enough to protect the crease in his pressed trousers
from the rain.
Your insinuous observations of man and bee's brilliance brought that smile I treasure most when reading poetry.
Cheers, Ron jgdittier

[Merlin]

Good Sunday Morning, Leo & Ron.
Thank you for the comments, each was a delight.
Leo, I've only just put the coffee on, so am glad you've had your breakfast (being some 8 hours ahead of the NA west coast!) Equally glad you've envisioned me "dressed".

Did I ring any bells with "tintinnabulation"? True, luverly word seldom used.
Ah, regionalisms. Here it's very common to hear the noun-phrase of "dress pants", and perhaps that is because one seldom dresses in them, using the ever-present blue jeans. "Trousers" is perhaps even rarer, and Knickers are now "undies", not Knickerbockers. "Pants" include any outerwear a man would have on his lower body. But your point is a good one, I'll at least hyphenate the words since there isn't a good substitute that will work.
My aside >> the word that won the day for me was "children". Apparently in some US dialects, it's a 3-syllable word - chill-der-un. Hoo noo?



Ron, I believe you've caught at least a couple of the necessary items that make a difference in free verse and open form. I particularly don't like free verse, into which category I would place about 95% of unstructured poetry. What I try to offer is "open form", and that isn't simple chopping a line and calling it verse. Other devices are employed, and those took me some 3 years to get a good handle on. In that time period, I found several exceptional pieces that became my backbone of this realm.
As to geometric layouts - when I was in Hong Kong visiting the monastery up in the mountains (Lin Po, if I remember it, where the world's largest outdoor Buddha sits), I was struck by their use of "round" over the common rectangular/square of our western construction. Round is so easy on the eyes, compared to angular. There was a round opening to enter a garden, and numerous other round items. All very peaceful, all entwined in their philosophy of a calm life. Beautiful.

The fact that I brought a smile to you both is reason enuff to call this a success!
My thanks.

Merlin

[Sekhmet]

Hi Merlin - I wish I could get a handle on open form/free verse. I can see the repetition of similar sounds scattered throughout, 'Bees' - although possibly the rhythmic use of the 'z' sounds could have been aurally productive in this particular instance.
But that is too obvious! - I bet it's been done thousands of times - I've done it myself in a short story involving bees.

But what other elements do you feel can be included in an open form verse?
I have so often looked at a free/open verse posting and, without having any knowledge of the form, (if free/open verse can be said to have a form) I just can't analyse what I am reading. We're in juggling with Jello territory here.

Should I judge it as I would judge a piece of fancy prose? Or what ought I to be looking for?
You have said that, to the uninitiated, free verse looks just like chopped up prose. That is where I find myself. Can you help? What should I read?

Re - Tintinnabulation. Oh Yes! I know all about that - I am daily tormented by it! For the past few weeks, I have had tintinnabulation in my ears - the constant ringing of, 'tiny fairy bells', that go on and on, continuously, day and night, and I do wish they wouldn't!
It is called Tinnitus - I just wish someone would find a cure.
Love, Leo

[Merlin]

Hi Leo,

A short thanks, and a comment about "vers libre," and I believe that's where it started. There were writers of English poetry who used Blank verse, but the 2 are not to be confused. Blank is unrhymed IP, and a fixed form, should any not be aware.

Those poets who began FV, as we'll call it, were seeking a different mode from the structured verse they were writing. The important thing to note is that they knew all the rules & regs of fixed verse, and changed that style. Nowadays, the first part of that equation is lost - most FVers don't have the knowledge of fixed verse, and thus is lost that important portion of "Free Verse", the verse part.

PMs are traveling 'cross the pond so as not to waste bandwidth here.

Merlin