The bird in the photo is the American Goldfinch, which is, by the way, the state bird in New Jersey where I live. I remember learning that fact in grade school. Years later, I saw a lot of these colorful birds at my dad’s bird feeders which he filled with nigel seed, a favorite with finches. Dad no longer keeps up with the bird feeding, but I still spotted a goldfinch this season in the shrubbery.
Just for fun, here is the soundtrack of a goldfinch’s song.
Here is an explanation from their page on the epulaeryu form:
“The Epulaeryu poem is all about delicious food. It consists of seven lines with thirty-three (33) syllables. The first line has seven (7) syllables, the second line five (5), the third line seven (7), the fourth line five (5), the fifth line five (5), the sixth line three (3), and the seventh line has only one (1) syllable which ends with an exclamation mark. The form is 7/5/7/5/5/3/1. Each line has one thought which is about the main course.”
I was following the syllabic form but noticed afterwards that the words seem to make a fitting ice cream cone shape.
Dare I post two ice cream poems in the same day? I think I just did. It just seems so summery. Here is the other one. It’s a bit different in nature and tells a romantic story. By the way, rocky road is my favorite ice cream flavor. What is yours?
This was written for Linda Kruschke’s paint chip poetry challenge. The challenge this week was to write a stanza or more of a sixain, using four or five of the paint chip words below and one as a rhyming word.
The poem was partially inspired by a story my mother told me that she had read about the actress Helen Hayes and her romance. At one point in her courtship, the man who became her husband gave her a bag of peanuts (maybe at the movies or some event) and told her he wished they were emeralds. Years later, he did give her emeralds and told her he wished they were peanuts. In my poem, peanuts and emeralds became ice cream cone and polished or precious stone. All other details were also fictionalized and, of course, created, to fit in the paint chip words.
1. Trimeric has 4 stanzas 2. The first stanza has 4 lines 3. The other three stanzas have 3 lines each 4. The first line of each stanza is a refrain of the corresponding line in the first stanza (so 2nd stanza starts with the second line, third stanza starts with the third line, etc.). 5. The sequence of lines, then, is abcd, b – -, c – -, d – -.
Here is a little background behind my creative process for this one. I wasn’t sure of a subject at first, so I thought I’d do my own “photo prompt” and perused unsplash.com for a photo I liked. I selected the ocean pic above. As I thought about it, I realized the form really suited the subject of waves, as the repetitions seemed to suit that in and out feeling.
A trickling waterfall creates a soothing soundtrack as I walk along the edge of the koi pond. The pale koi and deep bronzed goldfish weave in and out of one another’s paths, darting undercover of the lily pads and then emerging again into the center where I can observe them. They are graceful, arcing and twisting their lithe bodies, like water ballerinas … synchronized swimmers. And once in a while, in the midst of their performance, they seem to be arranged in perfect symmetry.
