I recently saw a challenge from a magazine I’d love to get published in (Rattle.com) to invent a new form of poetry and I thought I’d done it. I even decided to call it circular run-on poetry. The rules are that it captures one moment in time in a single sentence and it circles back to where it started.
Well, maybe there’s nothing new under the sun, but turns out this is just a combination of two forms of poetry that have already been invented, run on and circular.
Anyway, it was fun to try, and I have enough rejections as it is. (Also, just a note that the first line of this poem was written by a friend in a simple Facebook post. She’s such a poet, even her Facebook posts come out poetically! Check out her work here: Sheila Turnage.)
Engagement
In the tall grass on the way to the chestnut tree
halfway across the field beside the highway
that wends its way through hills to beach
I’m waiting, eyes on the clouds, waiting to see
you, walking through the grass to the chestnut tree
but you pause on your way to our fun,
while roots dig deep under the ground beneath
and break up the dirt for the seed to germinate
up through the earth to the warmth of the sun
and a floating bee lights on the bloom with delight
and I’m still waiting, eyes on the clouds, dreaming
of driving the highway that wends to the sea
with you and your flower (but not the bee)
away from the tall grass and the chestnut tree.
So, here’s my confession. The deepest secret I’ve been keeping for the last two months.
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 