ContrapuntalTapestryPoems from the Rebel Outpostclick here
Progress, They Call It (a Contrapuntal Poem)
progress, they call it: slashing, burning, progress— can’t stop the forward motion of a nation! encroaching, elbowing, uprooting the living who would want to thwart the people’s will, or kill the canopy of verdant sunlit trees that once breathed sweet aroma of crisply minted bills enrobed in leather with our exhalations. we breathed theirs until they gasped the faintest whiff of manliness, invoking will, their last, until they fell to saw and ax, bulldozed determination. ancestors’ words forgotten as new money’s burned to make a way for strip malls and wealth, unfettered by past sense, decorum, grows, power lines—such progress don’t go well with pines— it goes to feed the engines of industry that only thrive incinerating cedar selves in swirling smoke coal-fired on the backs of miners, steelworkers, “little people”— their ashes drifting heavenwards and carried those dispensable, extra mouths to feed until on the santa ana winds to add a colored layer the robots shove them off the ledge on the cliffs of palo duro choking out the summer sun.
Mervyn SeivwrightManhood’s GambitDiminishing VerseThe Stafford Challengenot
Buried Treasure, an Asefru
“Don’t be a scientist. Doglificate your love life.”
~InspiroBot
Analytics, bland routines,
rigid self-restraint–
love bones stripped and buried deep.
Dig them up and toss them high,
messy, dirty fun—
playfulness that fortifies.
Loyal, unconditional,
treasure ripe with joy—
slobbered feelings visceral.
I love this! Excellent and unusual form choice, too – http://poeticsonline.com/glossary/asefru/ (plural, isefra) Am I to read between the lines? Are you challenging me to a poetry duel?
No, no…I’m just late in joining your form challenge…
Well, okay. But from that link, above: “The Isefra tradition is tightly linked, at least in western culture, to Si Mohand ou-Mhand n At Hmadouch, referred by colonials -er-sorry, by French scholars as the “Kabyle Verlaine”, and who, according to history, frequently took his Isefra and engaged in epic poetry duels, such as with the pious Cheikh Mohand ou-Lhocine.”
Well, I totally missed the link AND just realized I totally STP on the form. The rhyme is AAB AAB AAB not ABA ABA ABA. 😩
Try, try again? 🙂
Well, you know what that means…
KEEP TRYING.
Doglificate
. RJ Clarken’s AI advice:
. “Don’t be a scientist.
. Doglificate your love life.”
. A one-word-per-line acrostic
Dogs
offer
gleeful
lives,
intense,
free,
incidentally
contradicting
AI
triplicate
errors.
. —Vince Gotera
https://vincegotera.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-stafford-challenge-day-14.html
Marvelous! Thank you for joining in the fun, Vince. And welcome to my blog. Make yourself at home.
You’re welcome. Check out my blog too, please. https://vincegotera.blogspot.com
I did. I usually do, when someone comments here. I left a comment for you there, too.
I did notice something – first time I visited, on mobile (which I usually do with portrait mode locked, since I’d rather read tiny text than only a few lines at a time), it cut off the entire right side of your blog. So then I tried switching to desktop version (still on mobile – Android) and it STILL cut off the right side of the text. It displays fine on my PC or on Android in Landscape mode.
Hi again. 🙂
I skipped the origin story and made up my own possible meaning for doglificate. I was inspired by a friend who fosters Newfoundlands, and is currently dealing with a busy boy who is challenging for the entire household.
Sully’s Song
One hundred pounds of
unrestrained teenage pup energy.
Food in the garbage? Excavate.
A stuffed monkey toy? Devastate.
Pounce on older brothers? Indelicate.
His humans? Tempted to
defenestrate
this profligate
doglificate.
I think that the “origin story” leaves plenty of room for creative interpretation!