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Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen

Friday, September 9, 2011

Windows

image from Poets United
You were once as open as the sky
As boundless as the fireflies in June
Watching life through window panes of glass
Your light has dimmed too early and too fast

As boundless as the fireflies in June
Saved inside a Mason jar for keeps
Your light has dimmed too early and too fast
Without air, a fire will not last

Saved inside a Mason jar for keeps
A precious treasure transforms into dross
Without air, a fire will not last
Your windows make you blind as well as masked

A precious treasures transforms into dross
The panes you trust to keep you safe inside
Your windows make you blind as well as masked
An illusion to shut out your past

The panes you trust to keep you safe inside
Watching life through window panes of glass
An illusion to shut out your past
You were once as open as the sky.

14 comments:

Fireblossom said...

"Your windows make you blind as well as masked"

I really like that, as well as the last line. Also, the entire thing flows really nicely.

Brian Miller said...

woo hoo...this is awesome...graet job on the form...and great that you were able to not only make sense but have a nice emotional pull...very well penned...fireflies and mason jars are some fav things...

hedgewitch said...

Excellent pantoum, lm--loved this line: "Your windows make you blind as well as masked.." quite a feeling of being shut in, stifled, of waste and missed opportunity in this. Well done.

Beachanny said...

Ah...I'm the first. Well to begin with the poem is really great as it stands on its own. Important, and philosophically delving those aspects of openness and generosity we close as we get older and more circumspect

As to form...hmm. Well you have clearly deviated (as we all have, a bit, and as the form allows a bit). Your variation is one I haven't seen and I'm not sure I understand. Your line repetition is perfect and I believe total (and that makes it quite satisfying to me and enhances the poem, in my opinion). It's the rhyme scheme, that puzzles me. Of course, to be "perfect" according to the scheme, one would take a rhyme scheme say ball, blue, fall,& true and repeat through all stanzas those "all" and "oo" rhymes. Most of us only stayed true to the ABAB within each stanza, succeeding by using CDCD, then EFEF etc. and ending again with BABA. Interestingly you chose a rhyme to stay constant on the last two lines as a couplet and stayed there throughout making your last stanza rhyme only on the two interior lines. I wouldn't say it didn't work; but I think it might stray a little far to still be strictly called a pantoum. Just my opinion.

Lovely poem, nonetheless.

Chronicles of Illusions said...

Your opening line is a treat - it leads you in for the rest. Well done. :)

ayala said...

This is awesome..."your windows make you blind as well as masked" love that.

Bryan White said...

Well, I prefer when someone takes at least some liberties with a form. I like it.

Arron Shilling said...

this is an intresting personalisation - of both form and content

Scarlet said...

Great to see you tackle the form.. the refraining
line that I like is:

"You were once as open as the sky."

On the windows theme, I like this line:
"Your windows make you blind as well as masked"

Happy day ~

Anonymous said...

Wow! I'm not exaggerating when I say this actually left me breathless. So sad, though wonderfully written. Great job! :-)

Laura Maria said...

Thanks for the lovely comments you left on my blog!
I love the first line and the repetition had a great effect.
I nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award. Details on my blog =)

JustRex said...

Oooo... Very nice. It works in many different directions. By itself it gives an impression of a life wasted and wasting away and coupled with the picture of the girl sitting there mostly naked gives the impression of someone who is being kept. A bird in a gilded cage, as it were. Very nice.

Christine said...

wonderful piece of work

Rosemary Nissen-Wade said...

I like the gentle way you have conveyed the sadness .