Chronicide Online

Today is one of those days where you just want to punch things; where nothing exactly goes wrong, but where things are going just Not Right enough that you reconsider having gotten out of bed in the morning. (I mean, it took me a half-friggin’-hour to find Cool Whip at the local Jewel. It’s that kind of day.)

I think it’s just that chaos makes its presence extra known on days like this: people stop walking right in front of you at the mall, or the car in front of you is going just slow enough to make you miss each and every traffic light. So to battle the chaos, I need a little order. I could impose physical order and clean the house, but that’s just craziness talking. So let’s try a little mental order. I haven’t written a poem in probably…oh lord, since ‘94 maybe? But I’ve been reflecting on poetry a bit — how the defined structures of classical poetry styles compel you to tell a story in a specific way — and I’ve been meaning to dabble. Depending on how this goes, I might even make a habit of this.

To start, let’s hop on over to Wikipedia’s list of poetry forms and choose one that I can actually, um, do. I think I’ll try my hand at a roundel:

It’s Hard to Think

It’s hard to think about future or past
When the mind’s a mess with all kinds of fears.
You have to let go to make moments last.
It’s hard to think.

Sometimes through laughter, and sometimes through tears,
We dwell on what was, what is. But we cast
Our secrets and hopes throughout life and years.

When a mem’ry or dream feels good, hold fast,
In case it otherwise should disappear,
To counter the bad times when, by contrast,
It’s hard to think.

Okay, so maybe not the best poem ever written, but for my first try in over a dozen years, in a form I’m not familiar with, I think it’s passing fair. And more importantly, it did the trick: I no longer feel like punching anyone!