Word Garden Word List--Hapax

 

Hello my poetic posse, it is time again for a new Word List! Way back in July, when the sun was high and the sidewalk hot, our source was a volume by poet A. E. Stallings called Like. This week we return to Ms. Stallings but switch to another volume called Hapax (Hapax: once, once only, once and for all.) 

I love how she expresses both prosaic and weighty ideas in a most appealing and usually rhyming style. Rhyme seems to have somehow become the red-headed stepchild of modern poetry. Free verse, blank verse, prose poetry, and the dreaded imposter that calls itself poetry but is actually just journaling have taken over, it seems to me. Do I write free verse, blank verse, and prose poetry? You bet I do, but I also love rhyme and form, all the more as I grow older. And so, A.E. Stallings delights me, much as A. E. Housman always has. All these A.E.'s! 

Last time, I didn't give you any examples of Stallings' work, but this time i am going to provide two. The first is one called "Apotropaic." The title means "power to ward off evil." 

Pity Evil his quaintness and old-fangled

Manners, his age, his nerves so raw that bells

And firecrackers leave him spooked and jangled.

Shy of onion, garlic, pungent smells,

His stomach thrown off by a pinch of salt,

He hankers for blandness like an invalid.

He stands on ceremony. He will halt

When not invited in. You can be rid

Of his presence by vulgarity--eschew

His curious eye by spitting, and offend

His queer aesthetics with the color blue. 

Beauty attracts him. He's quick to befriend

The lucky, the talented, the heaven-sent--

At your service if not your command--

Courtly, brought close by compliment,

Bowing, with his black hat in his hand. 

___

And, "Another Lullaby For Insomniacs"

Sleep, she will not linger:

She turns her moon-cold shoulder.

With no ring on her finger,

You cannot hope to hold her.

She turns her moon-cold shoulder

And tosses off the cover.

You cannot hope to hold her:

She has another lover.

She tosses off the cover

And lays the darkness bare.

She has another lover,

Her heart is otherwhere.

She lays the darkness bare.

You slowly realize

Her heart is otherwhere.

There's distance in her eyes.

You slowly realize

That she will never linger,

With distance in her eyes

And no ring on her finger.

I have tried to suss out what form the latter example is, but failed. It is similar to, but not a Kyrielle or a villanelle. In any event, I love both its depth and its workmanship. You too? 

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of our own. It need not rhyme or use form, that is merely what I personally like about the work of A.E.Stallings. Then just link up, visit others, and then try to get some sleep, despite the Black Hat Man! This prompt remains active through Sunday. 

And now, your List:

ambulance

butterfly

cradle

chrysanthemums

ferric

flags

fogging

funeral

groggy

guess

idiocy

kinder

kites

mint

phantom

scatter

torch

tunes

wise

zero