Diving into Poetry

This year I'm taking another poetry class at UTSA. I've taken a few through the years but recently most of my courses have been focused on prose literature. I've never been good at poetry, but I love it. To me, poetry is a celebration of words. It's a chance to manipulate language to tell a story in a way prose cannot. The value of reading isn't just in the story, what lesson or point that's obviously being made, but how we can interpret and analyze what we read. There are so many hidden gems in prose writing for a reader to unearth, but the soil of poetry provides us a deep mine of things to reveal, interpret, and analyze. So while I'm not very good at it my class and the poetry of real poets has inspired me to dive into that place. For me to be a stronger writer I should be able to execute this craft.

This poem I've written “Apotheosis” is my third poem. Ever. My first was featured in Hello Defiant and the second I shared on Facebook and Instagram (Face First, Void and Gone). This one is a little more personal and I've created myself a style called Toppled Rook. Toppled Rook consist of two coupled lines, the first is ten syllables and the second is five (referred to as the rook), and the eventual “topple” a creative prose that dives into the themes of the 'rook' part of the poem. The rook represents the poet's thoughts in a rigid structure. The topple is the point where the poet has a “break down” or “rant”. The topple explores, in depth, the ideas of the poem. After a topple the poet continues the rook structure. There is no limit on the length of the rook structure before or after the topple. The topple can also range in length.

Here's my latest poem, Apotheosis, written in the toppled rook structure. I hope to see others write their own creative poems in this style. I know I will.

Apotheosis

Today took a precious little piece of me

But I keep moving

Yesterday was a story wrapped in fog

That land of echoes

If you stand on the jetty long enough

Those banshee waves cry

At the seagulls plucking my flesh from bone

The liars and card cheats

Who told me everything would be fine

That's how it works

There's a ruin next to a palm with a ring

A cast off promise

The devil on my back with grin and gun

Pull bitch and let go

Prayed to atheist gods under strange stars

Peel my skin peacefully

As I become a new kind of serpent

Quick, emotionless

A man with a heart that runs marathons

Darting from moments

I give myself to the desert of brass and fire

Take it and leave me

I've left behind blood, past, and silver

And a smile I miss

Discarded in that foreign land across the sea where she left me a collapsed mass of man. Abandoned to be left out in the sun when spring brought the world new life and my soul new death. I donned and doffed new personas like outfits to match the fleeting face they'd go well with in a picture frame you'd find at Walmart. And it all became a lie that made me wonder who those people were who started the first lie that got the ball rolling, crushing everyone else downhill. But I'm mutated now. My skin grew steel plate and my bones became galvanized. This smile isn't mine but it isn't sad.

Today took a precious little piece of me

But I keep moving