tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44873857442596766392024-03-20T10:08:50.265-05:00140 SyllablesA Sonnet Blog With Very Ominous EndingsPhilip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.comBlogger2387125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-31744083000632259452024-02-22T19:02:00.001-06:002024-02-22T19:02:44.935-06:00bubbleI hear you in the other room<div>Your voice reminds me of your smile</div><div>It chases off my after-gloom</div><div>As I remember in a while</div><div>You will come out and sit with me</div><div>As we companionably read</div><div>Beside the dog, and drink our tea.</div><div>I think of this with utter greed.</div><div>There is no joy I wish for more</div><div>No comfort higher, greater grace</div><div>Than listening to our dog snore</div><div>While looking at your smiling face</div><div>Nose deep inside an open book</div><div>All unaware each time I look.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-82946231436919143652024-01-08T07:05:00.001-06:002024-01-08T07:05:09.410-06:00O Beautiful I never understood the waves before;<div>It always seemed a silly little song.</div><div>To speak of waves of grain? It must be wrong.</div><div>The water always seemed to me much more</div><div>Than any field could be. How could it store</div><div>The slightest sense of surge, to bear along</div><div>A boat, and break? A farm is strong,</div><div>But like a wall, not like a wave, I swore.</div><div>Yet here, as night casts shadows on the snow</div><div>The wheat (unwaving yet, as it must grow)</div><div>Reminds me of the ocean rippling free</div><div>No waves as yet, but still an energy</div><div>That my sea-sense already seems to know</div><div>And recognizes past solidity.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-53390232375429072942023-12-08T19:48:00.001-06:002023-12-08T19:48:30.029-06:00ChanukahFlicker little flame<div>Build a little light</div><div>In God's holy name</div><div>Last throughout the night.</div><div>Help us to remember</div><div>Long and far away</div><div>How once in December</div><div>Light for but one day</div><div>Stretched itself to eight</div><div>'Til more oil was found</div><div>To re-dedicate</div><div>Holy, sacred ground.</div><div>Let us not now be</div><div>Those from whom we're free </div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-12927798948657873442023-07-23T22:41:00.001-05:002023-07-23T22:41:43.647-05:00MireI do not have the brain to be myself.<div>I grope towards me, but cannot seem to reach.</div><div>My soul sometimes seems put up on a shelf</div><div>Where from the box my insides slowly leach.</div><div>I want to think, but when I try I grind</div><div>Like gears too long un-oiled or unused.</div><div>There is an awful jamming in my mind</div><div>Where what was understanding is confused.</div><div>I used to leap from thought to thought with ease</div><div>Where now to say I plod would be too much;</div><div>A keyboard doesn't work with sticky keys</div><div>Nor do I think. I can't release the clutch</div><div>Enough to even settle in a gear.</div><div>Even reverse would be relief from here.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-9257418160063541332023-07-11T20:26:00.001-05:002023-07-11T20:26:35.297-05:00DecorahDecorum has it's time and place, it's true.<div>When equals speak to equals, or when power</div><div>Speaks down to those who it tells what to do</div><div>That is decorum's right and proper hour.</div><div>But when the weak speak out against the strong,</div><div>Those trodden down against the treading heel;</div><div>When commons makes its case against the crown</div><div>And those beneath resist the rolling wheel</div><div>Their words are theirs, and, if indecorous,</div><div>The content, not the setting, matters more.</div><div>There is no right to triumph without fuss;</div><div>Decorum's no excuse to crush the poor.</div><div>If you object to what they say, say why;</div><div>Don't hide behind decorum. It's a lie.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-28382188065170746562023-06-27T19:29:00.001-05:002023-06-27T19:29:58.150-05:00AlbertaThe sun is unprepared to burn <div>In other's smoke. It turns too red</div><div>Too early; barely halfway through</div><div>The day, which seems at times the dusk</div><div>Already. But it takes its turn</div><div>Behind the forests, too soon dead,</div><div>Which we are breathing in, and grew</div><div>Only to make themselves a husk.</div><div>Our city is their living urn</div><div>And will continue, they have said,</div><div>To be so; this will be the new</div><div>Reality. We breath the musk</div><div>Of forests, but our lungs aren't clean</div><div>We breath in red, and never green.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-69800987790975171642023-05-01T22:26:00.001-05:002023-05-01T22:26:35.618-05:00FloodtimesRiver Drive is gone. I say this not<div>To cause you any undeserved alarm</div><div>But just to catch and simplify a thought:</div><div>The river has stretched out its mighty arm</div><div>And taken back its own. The lowland plain</div><div>On either side belongs, not to mankind</div><div>(Though we may occupy it in the main)</div><div>But to the river. Where we have designed</div><div>Our dams and levees, we merely delay</div><div>Not stem its great resumption of itself.</div><div>The time will come, though not perhaps today,</div><div>When it will rehydrate the bottom shelf</div><div>And leave the Rock alone to peek its head</div><div>Above the Mississippi's watershed.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-33648480728717642102023-04-03T23:19:00.001-05:002023-04-03T23:19:57.864-05:00Tropes Inside the room, of course, there was one bed.<div>Not even king, or queen, or full, but twin;</div><div>Each in her silence left concern unsaid</div><div>'Til one shrugged gently. "If you're in, I'm in."</div><div>The other nodded. "The sofa is too small</div><div>And won't fold out. The floor is not an option."</div><div>Though both agreed, they still began to stall</div><div>The moment of the premise's adoption.</div><div>One read her book, crammed in a little chair;</div><div>One puttered in the bathroom for a while</div><div>Pretending she just had to fix her hair</div><div>As if she'd ever cared about its style.</div><div>But nighttime still did come, and with it sleep;</div><div>The two awoke entangled in one heap.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-56189128585753650702023-03-30T22:09:00.001-05:002023-03-30T22:09:03.895-05:003/30/23<p>Donald Trump's indictment has arrived</p><p>A day much longed for, and as much delayed;</p><p>While some are grateful to have now survived</p><p>To see it happen, others are dismayed.</p><p>I have my side, and I believe it true;</p><p>I must acknowledge others too exist;</p><p>And while I needn't treat it as they do</p><p>I cannot fail to know that they are pissed</p><p>And that brings danger. Danger that they will</p><p>In homage to a man I know a liar</p><p>Take to the streets in search of any ill</p><p>That may add fuel to his now desperate fire.</p><p>The day, although at long, long last achieved</p><p>Does not bring the elation once believed.</p>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-49266462025852601592023-02-11T22:46:00.001-06:002023-02-11T22:46:23.662-06:00The death of a groundhogThe child may believe the warming air<div>Has promised spring two months before its date</div><div>Adulthood brings a plaintive worry there</div><div>That questions what it means about our fate.</div><div>A warm spring day in February finds</div><div>For those who can enjoy it, warmth and cheer;</div><div>The rest of us, with nasty little minds</div><div>Look on our thermometers with fear.</div><div>Perhaps I should embrace the child's wonder</div><div>Which lives but in the moment of the sun</div><div>And does not fear the danger of the thunder</div><div>That comes when this brief warming time is done</div><div>But I cannot; the most that I can do</div><div>Is let her hope, not raise my own anew.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-33909961025521069412022-12-15T15:48:00.001-06:002022-12-15T15:48:02.256-06:00First SnowThere's something sweet set in the early snow<div>Before the slush can burden every street</div><div>With ground unfrozen and unhurried feet</div><div>I watch the snowflakes flutter to and fro</div><div>While I with no important place to go</div><div>And yet no reason either to retreat</div><div>Wander myself more widely still to meet</div><div>More snowflakes in the street lights starting glow.</div><div>I know of course that I will soon regret</div><div>That I live where it snows all winter long</div><div>And that the feet that I have quickly set</div><div>Out wandering will soon wish they'd belong</div><div>To someone sensible and warm. And yet</div><div>I cannot think my first response was wrong.</div><div><br></div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-48577584917712432872022-10-09T09:49:00.001-05:002022-10-09T09:49:57.104-05:00cringeIt's hard to write a love song that's OK;<div>So many problematic lyrics lie</div><div>Lurking to slip in along the way</div><div>And turn it creepy. Ask the reason why</div><div>Your love is not returned, and you risk seeming</div><div>As if you felt entitled to their feeling;</div><div>Express your depth and density of dreaming</div><div>And see yourself project on them; appealing</div><div>To all you've done for them implies a debt</div><div>Which is not how love works, or ought to work;</div><div>And goodness help you if you've barely met</div><div>You're just obsessed, and that makes you a jerk.</div><div>Love is a risk, and part of that's the chance</div><div>You'll fall to cringe when you attempt romance.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-73795585522764669622022-09-04T15:08:00.001-05:002022-09-04T15:08:32.530-05:00ehI have no energy for anything<div>Not for my food, my body, or my feet.</div><div>I barely feel the motion of my seat</div><div>As I away back and forth. I cannot sing.</div><div>I lack even the anger I would bring</div><div>To feeling sick. I only feel defeat.</div><div>I have no strength to rouse myself or greet</div><div>The day. I'm strung up in a string</div><div>Of my own emptiness. It numbs the pain</div><div>So that I barely register it anymore,</div><div>But do not truly feel any relief.</div><div>I want to sleep. My eyelids will not wane</div><div>Which makes me almost wonder what they're for</div><div>But wondering is work beyond belief.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-17042823459038021462022-09-04T10:26:00.001-05:002022-09-04T10:26:26.448-05:00Rain, FairThere's some divine displeasure in the day<div>That drips down raindrops on the milling crowd,</div><div>Turns calm white clouds into a whirling gray</div><div>(As if the summer's sky were disallowed),</div><div>Spills sodden seeds down onto city streets</div><div>That were not well-designed to take the load,</div><div>And when all this is done, simply repeats</div><div>Washing along all those who dared the road.</div><div>God does not dice with us; we are not players</div><div>But pieces moved around the board at need.</div><div>There is no hope for answer to our prayers:</div><div>Our wills are ours, but divine will is freed</div><div>To soak the city down at divine pleasure</div><div>Regardless of our hopeful plans for leisure.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-84530290167894307492022-07-04T21:16:00.001-05:002022-07-04T21:16:26.791-05:00Further on TranslationI have been working and reworking on some translations from Lope de Vega's "Rimas", and it has made me think about the nature of translating something like a sonnet in slightly more structured terms than I have previously; or possibly just in slightly different terms than I have previously, given the previous posts on this blog about this topic.<div>In short, I want to suggest that while there is definitely value in translating formal poetry like a sonnet into a) the most euphonious translation regardless of meter and rhyme in the new language, b) a poetic translation that nevertheless takes liberties with both rhyme and meter in order to once again deliver a more aesthetically pleasing result, or c) an extremely literal translation, I will always plump for d) a sonnet translated as a sonnet.</div><div>Now of course some of this is my personal commitment to the sonnet form, with all its ridiculousnesses. But I want to suggest that the meter and rhyme are just as fundamental to the sonnet as the words themselves.</div><div>After all as I suggested repeatedly here, a sonnet is not a sonnet without that structure; it is still obviously a poem, if it wants to be, and it can even be a formal poem without the specific metrical and rhythmic and rhyming structures of the 14 line metered rhyming sonnet, but I believe that in responding to the form and participating in the form and being a sonnet there is still distinct value to retaining those formal elements.</div><div>As such of course one must accept some degree of alteration to other elements of the poem. The question is which? After all just as I have said that the sonnet has formal elements that should be respected, each poem obviously has all the other elements such as language and specific word choice and theme and metaphor and wordplay etc. Why respect the sonnet form over those?</div><div>Well of course the first answer is that as much as possible we should retain all of it. I think translations are at their best when they can participate in multiple layers of what the original was doing, and so keeping the rhyme and meter while also keeping the meaning and the subtext and so on is the ideal. But I am sympathetic to the idea that the poem should and does have some wiggle room. The repositioning of a term; the insertion or deletion of a small phrase that seems to have unity with the rest of the poem, but is either not going to fit into the new language or is required to make up the rhyme or meter; the use of synonyms that do not specifically meet cognates for instance; these and other related techniques that attempt to maintain what the translator feels are the essential core elements of the sonnet while assisting in producing the formal elements of the sonnet are, I think, justified.</div><div>Practically, this usually means a very rough translation, followed by an attempt at a smoother more metrical and rhythmic and rhyming translation, followed by an awful lot of tinkering.</div><div>But I believe that doing so is helpful to maintain the sonnet-ness of the poem, and to help a new reader in a new language understand that this poem too was participating in that deep tradition.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-34691511683690324582022-06-16T11:03:00.001-05:002022-06-16T11:03:54.796-05:00MutualsForgive me, for I must admit my lack:<div>I do not have the patience. Not for this.</div><div>I'd love if you would only cut me slack</div><div>And cover what impatience makes me miss.</div><div>Oh, do not blame the phone! It did not force</div><div>My fingers to caress it, or my eyes</div><div>To dance over its surface. Yes, of course,</div><div>I was distracted, but the fault here lies</div><div>With me, not my distraction. I cannot</div><div>As I should, let my mind be settled here</div><div>But must explore my every waking thought</div><div>Online. And so I beg of you my dear</div><div>Forgive my fault, and try, love, to recall</div><div>You do the same too often after all.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-58661420461278261602022-06-16T10:57:00.001-05:002022-06-16T10:57:24.495-05:00John Leslie Breck (Exhibition at Figge)There are some themes I can identify:<div>The grainstacks of Giverny, first of all,</div><div>Set in the open, backed by bluish sky;</div><div>The seasons, though not ever fully fall;</div><div>The open river, lined by leaning trees</div><div>That yearn to touch the water, but cannot,</div><div>Their limbs untouched by even mild breeze,</div><div>Their trunks too stable to imagine rot;</div><div>Beck in himself, a not-too-humble scene;</div><div>A dozen or so snowfalls, white with grey;</div><div>Most everything in blues and deeper green</div><div>Touched by the tendrils of the dawning day;</div><div>Most livelily, another painter's daughters</div><div>And drops of sunlight on the endless waters.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-63709309551804686742022-06-09T23:43:00.002-05:002022-06-09T23:43:27.160-05:00#January6thCommitteeHearingIt was a motherfucking coup<div>I really don't know what to say</div><div>If it seemed otherwise to you</div><div>Except that you are not okay.</div><div>We cannot let this bullshit pass</div><div>And still be a democracy;</div><div>The GOP showed its whole ass</div><div>Again on national TV.</div><div>That who was rioting, you know--</div><div>The right wing is their party base,</div><div>Their primaries this year will show</div><div>This stain is there--they can't erase</div><div>That they tried hard to break our state</div><div>A Grand Old Party, full of hate.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-58290182680434417762022-06-01T11:37:00.001-05:002022-06-01T11:37:22.106-05:00Actual QuarantineHonestly the strangest part of all<div>Is how the quarantine feels like the past;</div><div>Like March two years ago, when what were small</div><div>Case rates seemed large, and we had not amassed</div><div>A range of options other than to sit</div><div>At home and hope the plague would pass us by.</div><div>Now we have more to do to ward off it</div><div>But once it hits, there's nothing left to try</div><div>Except the same old staying home. And now</div><div>We wait. There's nothing but the waiting.</div><div>And if there's something else, I don't know how</div><div>To find it. I just hate anticipating</div><div>The test that tells my future. So I wait</div><div>And as I wait, I feel my back teeth grate.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-85796761037355861292022-04-30T08:57:00.001-05:002022-04-30T08:57:15.012-05:00EnchantmentThe day has dawned delightfully indeed<div>The sun is shining in the silver sky</div><div>The grass is growing green in seeming greed</div><div>To top the turf in splendor, or to try.</div><div>The morning mists like magic melt away</div><div>To leave the lingering lawn to look its best;</div><div>The frosts have fled to foreign lands. The fae</div><div>Have winged their way to wander in the west</div><div>Nearer to night than morning. Now we near</div><div>The start of summer, and the sunshine shows</div><div>Queer, quiet things that quaked our quilts with fear</div><div>Can comfort us, in kinder, daylight clothes.</div><div>And yet, you know, your warm days make me yearn</div><div>For frost, and frozen fairies in a fern.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-59718938932093534822022-04-01T22:53:00.001-05:002022-04-01T22:53:56.720-05:00GalacticThe stars are bright during the day.<div>They do not change depending on our sky.</div><div>And if they would, they are so far away</div><div>They could not even see our Earth to try.</div><div>The Sun, though closer, also does not alter</div><div>With our Earth's weak rotations as we turn;</div><div>Its massive fusion cannot, will not falter</div><div>So even in our night the Sun will burn.</div><div>The Moon, I must admit, will never shine;</div><div>Its beams can but reflect the Sun's bright light</div><div>But sunlight will reflect from it just fine</div><div>Even when, to us, it is not night.</div><div>The heavens do not wait on our affairs</div><div>No more should we on strangers' thoughts or stares.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-91635260258019262732022-03-22T09:19:00.001-05:002022-03-22T09:19:08.213-05:00TravelI'm sure that life would have a different tone<div>If I lived here, or close to here, each day</div><div>No seeds of sudden Wonder would be sown</div><div>I'd curse the sky above for being Gray.</div><div>I'd be annoyed, and not excited, to</div><div>Slip by a sudden crowd upon the street</div><div>And when I had a thousand things to do</div><div>The slow bus speed would no longer be neat.</div><div>If I had needs that were not being met</div><div>I'd be as frustrated as I am now</div><div>At home; the bustle would not be, I bet,</div><div>Sufficient to not let me have a cow.</div><div>But since I am a visitor, I'll squeeze</div><div>The joy from what for living is dis-ease.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-57025098831719504032022-03-12T20:32:00.001-06:002022-03-12T20:32:07.885-06:00DuskThe hours of the day have lingered on<div>Like Midwest guests unwilling to depart</div><div>Until the reason for their going's gone</div><div>And all the salutations must restart.</div><div>The sky has blazed and faded to a glow</div><div>Just barely visible against the dark;</div><div>The sun, like us, does not desire to go</div><div>And hides itself in the horizon's park.</div><div>The moon has risen, but would not be rude</div><div>And so will wait until the sun has flown;</div><div>Though it is early, it will not intrude--</div><div>But once it comes, its glory is its own.</div><div>The night that we await will be divine</div><div>But day has readied us for something fine.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-4713305538068153842021-08-29T11:14:00.001-05:002021-08-29T11:14:46.305-05:00Climate ChangeThe sky is orange out in Seattle;<div>In California it is red.</div><div>Louisiana's buildings rattle</div><div>With hurricane-force winds instead.</div><div>In Iowa the corn lies down</div><div>From the derecho that passed by</div><div>While Texan -outs, both black- and brown-,</div><div>Mean thousands freeze and hundreds die.</div><div>The Colorado River's gone</div><div>And with it water for the west;</div><div>The polar vortex seems to spawn</div><div>Much further south each year. The rest</div><div>Of US history will be</div><div>The coming rising of the sea.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487385744259676639.post-59831842098944282252021-08-15T21:25:00.001-05:002021-08-15T21:25:37.289-05:00LegaleseHow terrible it is to make the rules<div>When no one cares about the legislation;</div><div>It makes the legislators feel like fools</div><div>And often bubbles into indignation.</div><div>The net result can be stultification</div><div>As rules unchanged will harden and grow brittle;</div><div>They sometimes need a massive perturbation</div><div>To help improve them even just a little.</div><div>And yet instead the legislators whittle</div><div>Shaving only small parts from the side</div><div>They argue over every jot and tittle</div><div>While letting larger problems sleep and slide.</div><div>If we and they cared more perhaps they might</div><div>Care more about if law is always right.</div>Philip Styrthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228396161824383610noreply@blogger.com0