PAD Challenge Day 12

Still having computer issues, so I'm about a day behind in my posts, but still doing a lot better with this blog than before I started this poem-a-day project. I hope to make this a weekly blog after April blows over, instead of a once-a-month-if-I-don't-forget blog.

The Day 12 prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1)Write a poem that with a title that begins with the word "Something", and (2) take a poem in a foreign language that you don't know, transcribe it phonetically into English based on the appearance and/or sound of the words, and try to rewrite it as a poem that makes sense, even if it bears little or no relation to the intent of the original poem. The word for this is a "translitic" poem, and I had some success doing one from the French a few years ago, but I struggled mightily with it yesterday. So here is the one I thought was the more successful of the two I wrote, even though it's full of abstractions. It's based on a French poem by Michéle Métail:


Something Coming Down

You arrive on a convoy of importance,
crossing streets, as luminaries line
the entire course through the town
that repeats your name, the proper term
for a voyager who advances our imagination.
At the premiere, you plan an entry dance for two.
You pass strangers, produce indecision
in your advance with your retinue of franchise,
yet you are hesitant in the long run,
where the definite looms disheveled,
and that precise inventor, the soul,
announces your income as a ruse,
and a litany of memories is caught astray.


And as a bonus, here's one I wrote based just on the Poetic Asides prompt:


Something to Talk About

It was one of your biggest hits, Bonnie,
but long before that you’d paid your dues.
When most of your peers formed garage bands,
you hung out with old blues men and women,
and learned your chops on bottleneck guitar.
You played dinky clubs and coffee houses
and formed a following, but mainstream fame
eluded you, and you endured rough patches.

Then one night you brought home
an armful of Grammys, and really gave them
something to talk about. Who is this chick?
most of the world wondered, but those of us
who already knew were proud of you.

Life is more comfortable now, but you’re still
out there recording and touring with your band,
leading them with your whiskey-honey voice,
your sharp, slim features,
your red mane with the shock of white,
and the sexy glissando of your slide guitar.