Loren is a writer, wife, and mom of three who resides in East Texas, USA. She is the author of the Daughter of Arden Trilogy, a retelling of the Grimm fairy tale “Maid Maleen,” and writes regularly on her Substack, Sun Shafts. She has also written short stories and posts that have appeared on storiesofyearning.com, The Habit Portfolio, and in the 2021 Transept In/Break Exhibition (http://www.transpositions.co.uk/in-break-exhibition-24-march-2021/). You can find older posts that explore life and faith on her old site lorenwarn.blogspot.com.
Car Jammed Between Lanes of traffic, Guadalajara, I wonder if bus is better…
(Last Monday was pretty busy, too, so I tried another simple poetry form, the Fibonacci Sequence. You can see how the syllables of each line follow the Fibonacci sequence: 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 8.)
“Just trust in me,” sang Kaa the snake, And Mowgli’s eyes grew round as cake; The boa’s hypnotizing theme Pled eye-to-eye full contact take.
To look into the eye, I deem, Requires a strength that’s most extreme If one expects to keep one’s soul From getting lost in other’s dream.
For while one keeps the body whole The soul is bound by one who stole, With gleam of eye and mind’s heartache, A bit of life one can’t control.
(Sunday the 13th’s poem borrowed a form used in the “Rubaiyat of Omar Kayyham,” better known as the “interlocking rubaiyat,” and found in a better poem, Robert Frost’s “Stopping by woods on a snowy evening.” I’ll have to try that one again when I have more brain space. Enjoy!)
The great dog Copper battles for his prey— His growl is fierce, he’ll win this fight— All must surrender to his sway.
He corrals his foe, holds it at bay; I try to retrieve it with will and might. The great dog Copper battles for his prey.
I grip the prey, but Copper’s away With foe grasped firmly in his bite; All must surrender to his sway.
At last I have hold and make headway, And Copper tugs with ferocious delight— The great dog Copper battles for his prey.
It’s impossible to avoid this fray For Copper’s tail wags, his eyes are bright; All must surrender to his sway.
The truth of his size never causes dismay; He’s not concerned with his meager height— The great dog Copper battles for his prey, All must surrender to his sway.
The Great Dog Copper
I wrote this for Form Friday, November 11, and the choice was between a Sestina and a Villanelle. I chose the less daunting–the Villanelle . If you’d like to know what a Sestina looks like, check out this description: https://www.writersdigest.com/…/sestina-6×6339-thats-math. You can also find out about the Villanelle through that site. A classic example of a Villanelle is Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.”
My father-in-law had to land a Small plane in a rutted field in Africa—engine failure. He learned later friends prayed, Woken in the night By unseen Hand. Alliance, Spirit- Bound.
(I tried a nonet today–a nine line poem with nine syllables in the first line, reduced by one in each line. This story of Kraig’s dad has a lot more to it, but this distilled form hits the heart of it, I think.)
In third grade, in a missionary kid school on the other side of the globe, My friend Sara and I discovered We had distant relatives Who had been enemies— Or at least opponents.
She had the advantage—Abraham Lincoln touched her line. My great-grandmother had been something like Second-cousin-once-removed To the opposition.
I remember my awe at Sara’s brush with greatness, Yet I wondered: How could she be related to Lincoln, Since her family was from Washington State?
I was little concerned over my notorious ancestor. My teachers read more interesting stories: Great inventors like George Washington Carver Who made a whole feast out of peanuts, And dreamers like Martin Luther King, Jr., Whose name I knew before Martin Luther’s.
It was much more interesting that Sara and I were friends While our distant relatives had fought, And that somehow the Davis nose Passed to my great-grandmother And to my mother.
Relations are sometimes relative.
Jefferson DavisLorena Ellis McShane
(No form today–I decided to throw caution to the wind and go with free verse. It was very freeing ☺. I hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane, along with some photos for reference. It’s so interesting to me how memories work. Will I be vilified for mine, or does friendship outweigh distant relations?)
For every trip we take We always check the map; We browse all routes to navigate And choose the fastest lap.
If we hit the road in time And circumvent delay, We’ll keep our plan, our paradigm, And hold the narrow way.
But best-laid plans go wrong When roads or weather fail, Or accident or flat prolong Our nicely mapped out trail.
Yet when we don’t complain And take another road, Adventure waits on new terrain (Alluring episode)
For maps can show the streets But they only go so far. Sometimes it’s in off-beat retreats That’s where the stories are.
(Today we got a flat tire, so I ended up writing this poem while I waited for it to get fixed. It’s amazing how fast the time flew by! I copied the rhyme scheme and meter from a poem that the kids and I read yesterday: “The Man He Killed,” by Thomas Hardy.)
Nobody really lives Out the truth of nihilism, Though many believe there’s no Reason for why life is like it is, And they focus on the chaos, Not recognizing the Designer who Dares to make the intricate puzzle pieces of creation Out of a much bigger picture, of which My mind can only grasp a piece at a time.
(This is yesterday’s prompt and poem: Puzzle Pieces. I decided to do an acrostic poem, and I had nihilism on my mind because we just discussed it today in the worldview class I teach at our local homeschool co-op. You could say this poem is my push against the deep dark hole of this worldview.)
How about when souls link lyrics? Kindred spirits?
Are there other connections, too? Jesus, me, you…
I do hope that upon review You’ll see a relation between This family both seen and unseen: Kin, nat’rally, kindred spirits, Jesus, me, you.
(All of these poems for November Poem a Day are rough, but I’d place bets that this one is just plain awful. I did have fun playing with another form, though–this one is the Ovillejo, a form created by Miguel de Cervantes in the late 1500’s. I have a feeling he handled it much more successfully than I have!)
. If you’d like to know what a Sestina looks like, check out this description: 
