The Wiener Poems

Response to Prompt #24 Double the Context

http://trailbrazin.blogspot.com/2017/06/prompt-24-double-context.html

While in Nashville, I had a wonderful morning visiting a couple of bookstores. The first was a Barnes and Noble that is also the bookstore for Vanderbilt University.  It was huge.  It was also super quiet the morning I was there because it was raining outside – I practically had the place to myself.  I found a recipe book called Hot Dog! The Wonderful World of the Wiener by Andy Lynes, and pulled about 20 lines from it.  Yesterday, I wrote each line on a slip and pulled them randomly. The first poem is pretty much the order the lines presented themselves. The second poem has further explanation when you get there.

Wiener Manifesto

Feel the need for some exotic spice in your life

Perfectly acceptable substitute

Grated nutmeg.

Voice of an angel and lyric-writing ability to match

You can buy it on EBay

Unusual and spicy twist

Produces a crispier result.

We’ll ketchup with you eventually

Roasting them for Sunday lunch

I’m giving them to all the good people.

In which German city did currywurst originate?

I know it sounds insane

I think we’re all going to have to move to Seoul

Nah, that doesn’t bother me.

Thyme, oregano, marjoram, sesame seed, sumac, and salt

Free to mix and match

Add spicy garlic lemon

Pour over the pickling liquid

Mostly unchanged, depending on the size

Cook over an open fire.

Drink while you wait.

#

Now here is the version where I added some lines. I was having a hard time coming up with stuff on my own, mostly because the nature of this is kind of silly, and I didn’t know exactly where to take it. So I resorted to looking at Pema Chodron’s book When Things Fall Apart, and decided that this poem would be a dharma talk (a talk on Buddhist philosophy) if given by a wiener.  I put the additional lines in italics. The very last line is original.

Roshi Wiener Gives a Dharma Talk

Feel the need for some exotic spice in your life

The minute we feel a slight edge of boredom coming on

Trying to shield ourselves from discomfort, we suffer

Perfectly acceptable substitute

Grated nutmeg.

Voice of an angel and lyric-writing ability to match

The out breath is a metaphor for opening our whole being

You can buy it on EBay

Unusual and spicy twist

Triggering our emotional reaction

To the degree that there is bravery in ourselves

Producing a crispier result.

We’ll ketchup with you eventually

On the sacred path of the warrior

Loving without condition

Roasting them for Sunday lunch

I’m giving them to all the good people.

In which German city did currywurst originate?

I know it sounds insane

Relate properly to where you go

The mountain points to the center of the earth instead of reaching into the sky

I think we’re all going to have to move to Seoul

Nah, that doesn’t bother me

It’s a human dilemma.

Thyme, oregano, marjoram, sesame seed, sumac, and salt

Free to mix and match

Add spicy garlic lemon

Pour over the pickling liquid

Mostly unchanged, depending on the size

Purify us

Cook over an open fire.

Practice lovingkindness on yourself and

Drink while you wait.

Even hot dogs are impermanent

 #

Read the Signs

In response to prompt #24--Double the Context , I gathered words and phrases from mail--both snail and e--websites, the road, and my navigation system, and my car alerts. After a frustrating morning of doing lots of legwork and not getting anywhere, I decided to re-visit my list to see if I could capture my current mood. The first is with extra words, and the second is only the words and phrases from the signs (or verbal announcements). 

Read the Signs (embellished version)

Make a U-turn if possible, she chimes. 

But, the sign reads NO U-TURNS, 

shouting it in all caps in case I get other ideas.

I obey that sign only to get assaulted with another command:

RIGHT LANE ENDS MERGE LEFT—

all the while the Maintenance Required Soon reminder beckons.

Alert! Your leaf battery is low!

Alert! Your fuel is low!

No shit, I think as I yield to the cars in the roundabout.

Read the Signs (barebones version)

Make a U-turn if possible

NO U-TURNS

RIGHT LANE ENDS MERGE LEFT

Maintenance Required Soon 

Alert! Your leaf battery is low!

Alert! Your fuel is low!

Yield

Prompt 23 Behind Closed Doors

I have been procrastinating this prompt, because I knew immediately what I was going to write about, and I knew it wouldn't be easy.  So, here I go, facing a door.


The garden is ours.  The beauty, the sweet secrets, the glorious memories in full bloom all around me.  Every flower in this garden has been watered with love and fertilized by an unbreakable bond of trust and affection.  She and I planted this garden together, starting the day she was born.

 Here forever grows the wildflowers she picked for me when she  was only three, and the yellow roses she bought me on Mother's Day with her own money.  Conversations bloom in bright blues and yellows and pinks.  The little secrets she used to whisper so sweetly in my ear, are baby's breath gently blossoming next to sunflowers of light, silly banter. Deep green leaves and tendrils of Ivy vines grow with more mature exchanges of late.  Butterflies dance around, as we still do from time to time. The sun is bright, it's rays reaching the far depths of the garden, where a path winds through and ends at an ornate wooden door.

This heavy, oaken door is carved with everything she has loved.  There are animals and musical instruments alongside a boy-band and paint brushes. Some of her paintings are etched in together with some still life pictures of her and I together: hugging, smiling, laughing.  We've stopped at the door, gazing at it's wonderful tribute.  It's my job to open the door for her, and let her walk through.  We have our garden and our path, but now it's time for her to embrace life and make it her own.  This is the door to her future.  The pathway beyond is for her to pave.  I know that I will meet her and walk with her along her path, but I am no longer laying the stones.

Standing at this door is the hardest thing I've ever done.  I'm not ready for her to leave our garden, but I am so proud of this young lady I call my daughter.

Prompt #24 -- Double the Context

This month's prompt comes from Poets and Writers magazine. I will write the prompt exactly, then add in my own "extra challenge."  I chose this one because it is a little lighter in scope, and will cause us all to look at text that we might not ordinarily pay much attention to in a new way.

Found Poetry
"By entering a found text as a poem, the poet doubles the context. The original meaning remains intact, but now it swings between two poles," Annie Dillard wrote in Mornings Like This: Found Poems (1996). "The poet adds, or at any rate increases, the element of delight."  

Many twentieth-century writers have experimented with found poetry, whether composing entire poems that consists solely of outside texts collaged together (David Antin, Blaise Cendrars, Charles Reznikoff) or incorporating pieces of found text into poems (T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams). 

Using these poets as inspiration, create a found poem using materials from street signs, newspapers, product packaging, legal documents, or e-mails. Play with different arrangements and line breaks to form a new meaning that may be an unexpected juxtaposition to the original text.

Even though we have done many found poems, I liked the extra twist on this.  Here are some extra challenges I thought could be added on to the assignment if you wish, as a way to push a bit deeper.

Challenge #1 -- using the same material, compose it two completely different ways. In one include extra words; in the other, leave any extra words out.

Challenge #2 -- add "found" text to poems you have already written. Where can a piece of text from an email or a document punch up something you've already produced?  What new meaning or symbolism can be derived?

Of course, you are not limited to the texts listed above.  We are surrounded with words all of the time.  Start looking for new ways to be inspired and, in turn, inspire us!

Even searches can turn into poems!