Adverbity / So What Does a Poet Do? / Alchemy of Ink

By Linda Watson Owen

Adverbity

Apparently, adverbity is very much assuredly

a matter of vulgarity in writing quite acceptably.

 

I prune them out, and truthfully, I do so quite efficiently,

but with a regularity they creep right back so stealthily!

 

I’ve used ink that was guaranteed to rid the pests quite naturally,

but, in a wink, consistently, the page grows in adverbity!

 

Gladly and aggressively, I shun the critters openly

despite their perpetuity and penchant for returnity.

 

An adverb, very ruthlessly, roots in and always cleverly

finds nooks where surreptitiously it sets up immortality.

 

No writer’s tools can easily confront the creature’s stubborncy,

and, without fail, consistently uproot its elasticity.

 

Except! When Editor, with glee, steps in and, oh! so zealously

drowns pests in pools of pen-red seas, then I can be quite adverb free.

 

So, even if adverbity becomes a liability (a stylish blight) eventually,

still, one can write, undoubtedly, in absence of adverbity.

 

…Thankfully.

 

So What Does a Poet Do?

I catch words in my basket.

They come falling from the sky,

or I glimpse one peeking from

behind a rock,

and I snatch it up while it

giggle-wiggles and

winks at me.

 

I catch words like raindrops

and listen to them pitter-patter in my basket

while other words come running

to catch up to me,

to run along-side before hopping in.

 

Sometimes a word falls out,

and I go back looking for it in doorways

or under bushes.

 

I catch words in my basket.

I can feel them bumping around,

making one side or the other tilt with

their shifting, maybe with their shape-shifting.

 

I carry them home, line them up (if they let me) on

white paper and invite them to romp and

to sing from the page beside my waiting basket.

 

If any are not happy,

I set them free.

I catch words in my basket.

 

Alchemy of Ink

Blank Verse Sonnet

“Putting pen to paper lights more fire

than matches ever will.”

Malcolm S. Forbes

 

Life is flint and fodder for the pen,

striking, lighting paper into flame,

flame enough to burn despair to ash

or wake a dream to dance in curls of smoke.

Life is flint and fodder for the pen,

lingering for the alchemy of ink

in dark and lustrous flow upon the page,

rising into every mortal shape.

Human song bursts forth as flesh and sweat,

laughter’s heartbeats, groanings deep, or sighs.

Ink art weaves the rising of a verse,

swirling, twirling rhyme or prosody.

A wand-like pen on paper spins, enchants

life’s flint and straw-filled fodder into gold.