Ghosts are not always frightening, and sometimes we hold them hostage rather than the other way around.
The Poetry Bus runs on Monday, and Liz Gallagher asks that we write a triolet or some other poem about Halloween business. This poem began as a triolet and evolved into a villanelle. It's funny how words will have their way.
Or will they?
UNSPOKEN
all my ghosts are friends
things I should but did not say
I’m haunted by my sins
things I should but did not say
I’m haunted by my sins
damnation never ends
redemption lies one breath away
all my ghosts are friends
redemption lies one breath away
all my ghosts are friends
familiars whom I did not send
but held until the tongue decay
I’m haunted by my sins
but held until the tongue decay
I’m haunted by my sins
unspoken and unpenned
persistent shades with whom I lay
all my ghosts are friends
persistent shades with whom I lay
all my ghosts are friends
whose present tense attends
to bind and hold my soul in sway
to things I should but do not say
to bind and hold my soul in sway
to things I should but do not say
till time shall split and world transcend
till reticence shall fall away
all my ghosts are friends
things I should but do not say
till reticence shall fall away
all my ghosts are friends
things I should but do not say
Really like this one Karen, some great lines there, well suited to the repetition.
ReplyDeleteThe morphing triolet idea worked, Karen, the repetition gives it a suitably haunting tone...I like the short stanzas too. Good one!
ReplyDeleteNice villanelle! The repeating lines work very well, & I particularly like "all my ghosts are friends."
ReplyDeletelooks like your ghosts have got rhythm :)
ReplyDeleteA form as specific in its requirements as a villanelle can cause content to be sacrificed to style, but this works really well. It would take a tune, in fact!
ReplyDeleteI'm hearing this as a Vincent Price talkover. Great fun and well executed!
ReplyDeleteThe Walking Man said: If ghosts be the unspoken words to friends and enemies then I have none to embrace. I mistakenly deleted your comment, Mark. So sorry.
ReplyDeleteMy ghosts are failures.
ReplyDeleteSome of them mine. Some of then not.
Dear Karen, my magnificent poet friend, your poem is mesmerizing. I salute you. I got my English lit degree without a single villanel, wouldn't know one if it stopped me in the street. But I know rhythm, and this one is eerie. The notion that your ghosts are the things you did not say gives this ghost story a wallop.
ReplyDeleteHi, Karen. Wow. You really know how to hit the nail of truth squarely on the head. I get this poem...completely. We tend to hold onto those ghosts, don't we? I feed my ghosts huge meals. I encourage them to mate and have little ghost babies. Then I wonder why I am so agonized. But then again, I am Southern. We love that garden of good and evil. It's what we do:)
ReplyDeleteThe title is fantastic, and it leads me to that amazing first line, which reels me right in. You've also done a wonderful job with the form. I'm glad the words took you where they did. As Liz mentions above, the shorter lines work so well with the rhythm. "Held until the tongue decay" is an awesome line!
Another line that really jumps out at me is "redemption lies one breath away." It has so many layers of meaning. Maybe redemption in that if only the narrator would say the words, he/she would be forgiven. Or redemption in the heavenly sense of the word (the breath leaving the body). I could ponder that line all day, and I love it.
Excellent work, Karen. Happy Halloween!
Lovely work, Karen, but I'm equally entranced by your notion of "words having their way". It is all too true.
ReplyDeleteKat
The reiteration makes this strong and reverberating - like ghost spirits. Ghosts come in many forms - it is so true! We all have our share of them.
ReplyDeleteFavorite lines -
till time shall split and world transcend
till reticence shall fall away
Lovely and masterful
I thought exactly as Kay did--the repetition makes for a ghostly and haunting effect while reading this. For some reason, I was reminded of the image of the snake eating its tail. The supra-awareness becomes obsessive...a constant, self-fulfilling prophecy. A crutch, or yes--even a "friend." Brilliant inversion, Karen. I love your perspective on this one.
ReplyDeleteSo many beautiful, unsettled lines here, but that last stanza is so all-encompassing, so full of friction, that it takes my breath away.
Karen
ReplyDeleteAll your writes are like songs that music would just burden out of its perfection. This is no exception. lovely
~rick
Niamh - Thanks. I really struggled on whether or not to punctuate this one, and I'm still tempted to go back and do so. I can't decide which is or would be more effective.
ReplyDeleteLiz - Thanks for the great prompt and for pushing me to use a particular form. I love working with the words in that way!
John - Thanks. Of course, these "ghosts" are a little different, but I think that the things that haunt me are mostly of my own making.
Kay - :-)
Dick - Thank you!
Peter - Love the Vincent Price idea!
TWM - So sorry I deleted your comment! I hit the wrong button!
I wish I could say the same thing about my words. I have held them too often, I'm afraid. Something I should have said five years ago just got said. I was released from the chains in which it held me. Of course, liberation has its price, and I lost something I valued very much. But truly -- living honestly feels better than the loss hurts!
Jason - Failures or opportunities? Double sided coin, at least it can be. Look at my comment to TWM. That action has had far-reaching effects on me, yet I truly feel liberated. I'll take liberty.
Chris - You have me smiling ear to ear! Thank you!
Julie - You do get this. Totally, even to the ambiguity of the breath line. These Caspers we know well, don't we? Being GRITS, we've probably talked them to death! HA!
Kat - Thank you. What do you think about punctuation (or lack thereof)?
Kay - I'd love to be able to sit down and talk poetry with you -- and life; well, same thing, but I think we'd not run out of words, even in the silences. I can see us like Simon and Garfunkel's "old friends".
Sarah - Boy, do I love that image of the snake for this one, because it is sort of an eternal struggle to consume. Thank you.
Rick - You always say the nicest things. They make me just shake my head. Thank you.
To me the villanelle is a kind of somber, spooky form, so it was perfect for this poem. And what a great poem it is! I tend to say what I think without thinking (even though I'm an introvert - very odd) so I sometimes wish I were MORE reticent. But despite that this poem resonates - because what I say isn't necessarily what needs to be said.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the words had their way, but I think you have away with words. This is really kinda spooky and foreboding and the dark repetetive lines are quite menacing. Works really well!
ReplyDeleteI put you down to drive on Nov 15th , hope that is still ok and thanks for offering!!
The lines are strong enough to bear the repetition. I do like the Vincent Price suggestion. Also the phrase until times splits...
ReplyDeleteThis was very nicely done. I loved the repetition and indeed the concept of the ghosts being things you should have said but didn't - very original.
ReplyDeleteDana - I really do bottle up the things I should say sometimes, and then they eat away at me. I finally spoke up about something I should have done long ago, and I can't tell you how liberating it is just to have it out in the open. It certainly hasn't been without consequences, but it needed doing.
ReplyDeleteTFE - I'm in! Thanks.
Emerging Writer - Thank you.
Argent - ...and true. Thanks.
Give me a villanelle any time rather than a triolet - especially this villanelle! The words were definitely the winners here, I felt quite seduced by it.
ReplyDeleteKaren, this is a lovely reminder of the importance for us to speak honestly and freely to our friends. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteAh those ghosts of things unsaid. Well done!
ReplyDeletehow did i not comment on this yet? sorry. can't keep track of anything these days.
ReplyDeletei've been back to read this a few times and still feel like i'm discovering it. the idea of ghosts being missed opportunity - and friends - close, known, but empty - keeps my head spinning. and i love how this has such a sense of urgency, even though those moments are gone. i think the repetition gives it a haunted feeling - a feeling you may not walk around with all day, but comes to you when you're alone, laying awake at night. things you can't shake.
i especially love "whose present tense attends / to bind and hold my soul in sway" - the way the past haunts the present - and the way the sounds mirror that kind of looping around.
those kinds of ghosts are scarier, i think, because they're real.
some of my ghosts are unfinished projects.
ReplyDeleteone of them is a giant bear.
:)
i may not be able to come as often as i'd like to.
it's just this november.
or until i've done the first draft :)
Dave - Thank you. I like stretching to fit the form.'
ReplyDeleteJeanne Iris - It would certainly make for a more comfortable relationship.
Muse Swings - Thanks.
joaquin - Thank you for your thoughtul reading and comments. I don't know what it's better to be haunted by if one must be haunted, but I'm not liking these familiars. Thanks for your acknowledgment of the language metaphors. I wondered if anyone noticed the present tense and the double meaning of that.