Vic's week:
Stole this from the Writer's Digest prompts:
For today's prompt, write a snap poem. The poem could be about a snap decision or a snap shot (as in photography). Or maybe your poem mentions snaps on a jacket, snap bracelets, or sugar snap peas. Of course, don't be afraid to go small and make your poem a snap to read as well.
Thumbs
ReplyDeleteSnapping.
Fingers tapping.
Lips whistle to the music.
ba bum ba bum ba bum bum
You're back! And I like it. I did a music poem too.
DeleteAh yes, that is a snap for sure. nice one.
DeleteLove this. I know it's about music but it makes me think of beatniks snapping fingers after poetry.
ReplyDeleteNot at all where I meant this to go.
ReplyDeleteSnap! The bean breaks in half.
The sound not quite like bone,
She grabs more beans. Snap. Snap.
Thumbs centered between lumps.
The sound not quite like bone,
Imaginary neck,
thumbs centered between lumps,
It could happen. Maybe.
Imaginary neck
separates easily.
It could happen. Maybe
accidents do happen.
separates easily,
Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.
Accidents do happen.
Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.
Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.
She grabs more beans. Snap. Snap.
Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.
Snap! The bean breaks in half.
Nice revenge fantasy poem. The pantoum form really makes it build.
ReplyDeleteThis started out as a poem about the snap! of something good coming together and feeling right, although I eventually took that specific reference out. But I think it's still a snap poem.
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK, 1950s
A clutch of teenagers in a
school playground in the
Bronx, they had a
groove going, catchy
and hypnotic, and more
pulled in by the rhythm, and
some singing harmony, and then
there were maybe a hundred,
keeping that groove going.
It was the time.
All over Harlem,
up in the Bronx,
four or five teens on
street corners, in the stairwells
of tenements, for the echo,
paying lunch money for 78
RPM records, then 45s,
to hear the voices of Sonny
Til and the Orioles, Rudy
West and the Five Keys,
Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters.
And voices that could have been theirs
On WOV from Jocko,
Your Ace from Outer Space,
back on the scene in my
flying machine, saying Ooh
poppa doo, and how do you
do? And WWRL from Dr. Jive,
and that white guy, Alan Freed, who played
their music and white kids listened.
Under the streetlights,
girls would listen, and guys from other blocks
with their own sound, and they’d
have all the parts worked out, harmonies
and counterpoint, the language of school
come alive on the street. Years
later, they called it doo wop, but then
each group, each block, had its own syllables,
Hey, ktum-a, ktum-a, ktum-a, ktum-a,
Pa-pa, diddlit, Sh-boom, Ha-ba
boom-a-bada-bada-dada,
All you guys get to say the good parts, all I
get is He go a rang tang ding dong,
rankety shang, and if your lead was
good enough, and your bass was good enough,
and your harmonies clicked, maybe someone
like Richard Barrett of the Valentines
would hear you, and bring you
downtown, and you’d be over
Jocko, or at the Apollo, or Alan Freed’s
show at the Brooklyn
Paramount, but if you were good enough
you could sing your way across Harlem,
through any gang’s turf,
and one teenager in the Bronx
took that groove downtown, and
made a record,
“Runaround Sue,” and took it back up
to Belmont Avenue, and played it for
his friends, who said
“It was better in the schoolyard.”
The margins of each tercet are supposed to be staggered, but this app won't do that, and I didn't have the energy to put in all the html commands.
DeleteSnappy!
DeleteSaw this on your FB page, and didn't realize it was your response here. I love the storyline, and the last line is perfect.
DeleteI started thinking about the poem thinking about the way that the streetcorner harmony groups brought their music together with a snap, then started thinking about that story Dion once told about the schoolyard, and decided I would begin the poem with it. As soon as I actually started writing, I realized I had to withhold that line until the end, making this quite possibly the first poem I ever wrote where I knew how it would end.
DeleteIt's a Snap
ReplyDelete"It's a snap,"
said the man on the corner.
"Just pick the shell
with the pea under it
and this twenty is yours."
"It's a snap,"
said the mechanic
as he raised the hood
and fiddled around,
"Fix it in a jiffy."
"It's a snap,"
said the magician
in the top hat and cloak.
He turned in a circle
and vanished.
Love this. The three sort takes could each stand on their own. The three together is sort of magic all by itself.
Delete(Hope you'll comment on my poem too.)
I love this one too. Economical and says it all.
Delete