Sunday, November 15, 2015

Sonnets n' Such


Greetings, Faithful Friends!

Today's contribution is more whimsy than wit, but I hope it will meet with your approval nonetheless.   It is a lighthearted and, frankly, somewhat absurd example of that noble form known as the sonnet.  For those of you who don't know, may I direct you to: Sonnets! That webpage, though by no means a perfect textbook, ought to give you the basics.  I have also included, after some hesitation, an analysis of this poem that was (graciously?) penned for the purpose of accompanying it; I leave you to guess at the identity of the writer, who wishes to be nameless.  All I can say is that the author of that assessment is someone whom I sometimes fall into the vile delusion of admiring, but toward whom, in my soberer and saner moments, I like to think I bear a healthily critical attitude.   They smile as I write this.

Without further ado...

+JMJ
Tempus Fugit
By Caitlin LoTruglio
Copyright 2015

If time were worthier, did not decay,
If hours, earthen vessels, stood empty men
This verse were labor of a summer’s day
That might be fuller filled and filled again
So like unto the red-capped drinking bird
Sipping till ambriosious liquors’ spent
It bobs and nods as though it would be heard
And, nodding lastly, then would be content
But, prodigal, these hours are not to be
They, wispy, steal as smoke-foam from my tent
Gone off to tempt with yet more transient glee
And in some other soul provoke desire –
Wherefore this burdened writer pens in ire!



Analysis: 

The speaker appears to be the “author” of the poem who, it seems, has run short on time.  This person desires that time might be, as it were, recyclable -  they wish to get more out of each hour (they want each to be able to be “fuller filled and filled again”).  The writer/speaker, perhaps because they are so short on time when they are writing this poem, then makes a hilarious comparison to an ordinary object, dressing it in language that suggests something much grander.  Namely, they liken the hours to a drinking bird toy (probably very like this one, which you might find in a dollar store or similar establishment) dunking its head in a cup of tapwater until the water evaporates so much that the bird stops and stands finished; here, in the poem, the bird is treated like a noble animal sipping daintily at its godlike sustenance (some “ambrosious liquor”) and listening for a break in conversation (it bobs “as though it would be heard”) so that it may speak its piece and then stand “content.”  The sestet expresses clearly the writer’s frustration that the hours slip away from him/her like smoke from a camp fire – apparently deliberately, for they “steal” away and go to “tempt” another into desiring them to linger as this author has been tempted and, in consequence, the author writes about the situation angrily (hence also his/her characterization of time as unworthy, or at least less worthy than it could be, in the first line).  What seems unfathomable, though, (and perhaps also inexcusable) is the author's choice of the term "smoke-foam" which, while syllabically acceptable, nonetheless seems odd and very much a pathetic image.  I cannot say I commend her for it. 

Sunday, October 18, 2015

At Long Last...

Dear Readers,

Here I am again!  As promised, if a tad tardy.  I wish to most joyfully inform you of my recent good fortune: on August 22nd of this year, the patronal feast of the parish in which we were wed, I married a man I can only regard as the best in the whole world, and my name is changed to reflect this happy union - henceforth I am Caitlin LoTruglio. (Hence, also, further posts will be made under this name - but fear not!  'Tis I and no other who will continue, sporadically, to bring you wit, whimsy, and hopefully a touch or two of wisdom.)

Since its seems most appropriate given recent events, I wished to post what I regard as a pleasant if imperfect poem that I actually wrote back in 2014 - long before I was even engaged.  It contains some reflections and musings of my own on the matter of mothers, daughters, and - most of all - marriage; I hope it may prompt you also to thoughts of two-become-one.

God's blessings upon you!
Caitlin

August 22, 2015

+JMJ

Betrothed 
By Caitlin LoTruglio (née Clancy)
Copyright 2014

White silk
Smooth with lace
Fingered lovingly

Memory
In your face
Tells me how it used to be

Baby-child
At your breast
Nourished by white milk

Long ago
Baby-child
Now hers is white silk

White silk
In a trance
Holding it I abide

Wondering
If from the font
I was meant to be a bride

White silk
On baby-frame
And Communicant

One day
Solemnly
As the mourners chant

White silk
Birth to death
Purity in life

White silk
Till last breath
Clothes me as a wife




Sunday, August 9, 2015

Amidst Mayhem and Matrimony I Present: "The Death of the Winter Rose" !


Greetings, Friends!  

Once again I must crave your pardon for a long hiatus with no explanation.  Just when I thought finishing school was one of the last obstacles to a more regular posting schedule something else swept me up - joyfully! - into a whirlwind of activity: marriage!  Two weeks from now I shall have to log back on, if for no other reason than to change my name.  Splendid, no?  At any rate, God bless you all for being so patient.  Here is a little tidbit from a few years ago I thought you might enjoy...

The Death of the Winter Rose 


By Caitlin Clancy
Copyright 2011

Whistle the wind
And fly the wave
Break the crest
And snap the stave

Billow out
And draw the line
Swerve the shoals
Rend the chine

Hard the crash
Into the sand
Behold the bulk
Uncrew’d, unman’d

There she lies
Upon the shore
She will sail

Never more.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Mind Murals - Acceptance!

Dear Readers,

I have joyful news!  Some of my poems and two photographs have been accepted to Sigma Tau Delta's 2015 edition of the regional online journal Mind Murals.  In anticipation of its upcoming publication, I thought I would put out this notice to alert you to the fact that - once they are published - you can read the accepted poems HERE.

In the meantime, a little something to whet your literary appetites (published in this year's Agora):

Exhalation
By Caitlin Clancy
Copyright 2014

“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!” (Luke 12:27-28)

Driven and driven and driven
And done
Riven and riven and riven –
The sun
The cart-horse, the apple
The leaf
And the spoon
Baldrics and blades
And the white
Of the moon
Time and cold space
And bold life
Burnt asunder
Leveling, leveling, leveling
Under
All in the death
In the breath
Of the thunder
Driven and driven and driven
And done.




Sunday, May 10, 2015

A Response to Emily Dickenson’s “Faith is a Fine Invention”

Just a Sunday tidbit.  Perhaps it is not very profound, but...!

A Response to Emily Dickenson’s “Faith is a Fine Invention”
By Caitlin Clancy
Copyright 2015

Faith is a fine dimension
When gentleman can’t see
But only faith and reason
Can truly make them free

Thursday, April 23, 2015

This Just In...

Greetings, Faithful Readers!

My hiatus from posting is now (mostly) at an end.  At long last, this year's issue of Agora has been published, and I am happy to say that two of my submissions were accepted, one of which I will share with you now.

So - enjoy!

 +JMJ
On the Wayside
By Caitlin Clancy
Copyright 2014

To my mother

On the crest of a bare vermillion hill
Bathed in bold breeze, wind’s breath like thunder
Gold in the glow and red thereunder
He fastened his purple cloak asunder
And took the wind like wine

Full fair of face and flushed in cheek
Standing like the brazen gods of old
He wore his purpose, a priestly cope
Eyes blazing and blue, burgeoning hope
With an ice that refused the cold

From that earth-proud brow he strode below
And knelt at the wood-hewn shrine
And he thought upon the waves that laugh
And the mysteries of the world, and Bath
And the heathen praise that was a calf
Gold that is all too fine

The figures’ wood had stilled their gaze
But yet their eyes with tears seemed raw
Her night-blue cloak long rain had faded
And the God-child’s whiteness no traveler aided
But both as one seemed too poor to be raided
The last sign Njal’s race saw

Power-carved hands clutch at fiercer face
His memory is pain
For they who strew maiden’s death and run
Took the fine filly-mares black and dun
Baptized and blessed and given by none
Save the sacrament of a grave sun

He wept then and was not ashamed
But for his countrymen’s curse and their vibrant sin
But still he thought the Child looked on him
And the Lady softly smiled

He remained as still and wood as they
While the wind buffeted, dried his face
And he knew the lot of the Northern blood
The last of those who fled the Flood
The bane of Adam’s race

Rising then there rose with him
A dignity restored
No more the fearsome living death
With dragon’s fire and demon’s breath
Could cloud one from the line of Seth
The third of Adam born

Down the sea road he strode again
Back to the ships that sway
But first he rev’renced his Mother dear,
And her God-child at play

Soon came the wind-night and swallowed them all
Into soft, velvety maw
The shrine in the white of Diana’s ray
Saw the ships go with the passing of day
But still he looked back through the dawn-mist grey
For the faded blue that he could almost say
Was deeper sapphire than the woodless way
On this, his Mother’s day.