Would it Kill You?

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Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, Medieval form poetry, ringelreim, rondeau

~~a ringelreim~~

Would it kill you to say something nice?
Lean closer to sweetness than spice?
Since I know your full spectrum from meh through to hate,
I doubt, though I’d love, a good reason to wait
for a positive roll from your dice.

I have seen you relax once or twice,
though it seems to exact quite a price
to let up on fate. Would it kill you?

From me, you should not take advice.
I do not hold the knife that determines the slice
of the pie that you fear has already been ate,
but I do, as you see, have the power to grate,
to be cheesy, for once, would it kill you?

~~~

Author’s note: Ringelreims, a form of rondeau, have a tight rhyme scheme with the addition of a refrain, repeated three times. In this instance, the refrain, of course, is “would it kill you?”. That’s the serious poet’s explanation. My explanation for writing a ringelreim is that skipping down a sidewalk, as an adult, is frowned upon by the very grumps one is trying to escape. Ringelreims are the second best option.

© Elaine Stirling, 2017

This Play Called Today

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Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, ringelreim, rondeau, wraparound rhyme

~~a ringelreim~~

Long live life, and live it long! Everyone stars
in this play called today. While the bars
I perceive in my role may confine, drop or raise,
I am free to define, independent of praise
or its lack. I can pickle or smash any memory that jars.

To muddy and stir up the past by reflecting on scars
reverses the fields that have healed to perpetual wars
in meadows where fresh thoughts might graze. Long live life!

On my stage, I use mirrors and mist and gold samovars
to embody delights that arrive from above and afar.
Thinking too much about right and wrong ways
of the grim-faced around me confuses and weighs.
What a drag—and what a production we are. Long live life!

~~~

Ringelreim means wrap-around rhyme in German. The form is one of many variations of a rondeau.

© Elaine Stirling, 2016
Image from http://www.favin.com

What do You Wish?

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Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, ringelrime, rondeau

~~a ringelrime~~

What do you wish to persuade me of
with your shaking fist and your tattered glove?
If, in the choice we all have to be happy or right,
I choose ease, turn away from the fright
of the critical masses who disbelieve love,

seeing things as they are, never looking above
or through, like a snivel-nosed bully will shove
me into the nearest fight. What do you wish

in your hope to be wrong? Will you prove
by your twitching that a scavenger outwits the dove
who’s indifferent to death? Are you scared of night
or the coming dawn? Confusion is blind to the bright
and ecstatic arrival of love. What do you wish?

~~~

Ringelrime is the German term for a wrap-around rondeau, in which the introductory half-line “rounds off” the poem in subsequent stanzas.

© Elaine Stirling, 2016

Where I See Good

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#CharlieHebdo, #jesuischarlie, #MarcheRepublicaine, Elaine Stirling, French medieval fixed verse, Paris Rally, poetry, rondeau

A Rondeau for Paris

Where I see good, but for a day
with millions strong finding a way
to transcend ignorance and fear,
marching united, we are here—
with these fine hearts, my own shall stay.

A kind of comic grief at play
sweeps through us with relief today.
New friends appear, where I see good.

So let me no more seek the fray
of pessimists and cynics’ gray
myopic views of yesteryear.
Intelligence and vision clear
are child’s play, where I see good.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2015

Behind the Red Door

Tags

Elaine Stirling, medieval fixed verse, origins of the Christmas carol, poetry, rondeau, rondets de carol

Behind the red door and down a great hall
if you’ve had quite enough of life in a stall
you will find around a pied revolving table
with uncountable chairs, this is no fable,
guests merry & bright who wink and enthrall

with fresh love surprising, composers of ball,
not of chain, you’ll find repast, sweet future for all
and the past you once blamed, aptly disabled
behind the red door

doubts you once harboured will slow to a crawl
while fear fades to woodgrain upon the fine walls;
this season of change reunites Cain to Abel
the holly-hung thorn tree spins like a dreidel
the light that upholds us restored, fully able
behind the red door.

~~~

As an antidote to retail Christmas music, I find myself cheered by the medieval rondeau and its infinite variations. They’re just so fun to write, imagining dancers and singers weaving in and out, circling round the rentrement, a curtailed, repeating phrase that doesn’t rhyme—in this instance, “behind the red door”.

The ever-illuminating Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry & Poetics tells us that the rondeau was preceded in the 13th century by rondets de carole, which come down to us today as the carol. Layer upon layer upon layer, celebration. Thank you, dear friends, for your inspiration and presence.

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
Photograph by author

Spin Class: A Rondeau Redoublé

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banishing the unwanted, Elaine Stirling, fixed verse, form poetry, French medieval verse, inviting what you want, one woman's meaning of life, rondeau, the power of grace

A muse, a maze, there is a mystery
of complicated steps dancing us around
a pole we called the jubilation tree
until we bored our senses to the ground.

Garlands of happiness cannot be found
when blame and fear o’ertake me
at the roots, entangled by what sounds
a muse, a maze, there is a mystery.

If I could be amazed and let the fury
fall to stillness, be amused, unbound
by webs of politics, I’d re-examine history
of complicated steps dancing us around.

Niccoló knew it’s easy to astound
a stunnéd prince who shuns simplicity,
while Henry drew from Walden’s ground
a pole we called the jubilation tree.

The wondrous mind embraces symmetry;
resentment blinds and clubs us down
to sizes never meant to be. This we could see
until we bored our senses to the ground.

I am now freedom bound,
unique, an axis mundi, mystery
of stillpoint rising, a revolving mound
of song and laughter, poetry,
a muse, a maze.

~~~

Author’s Note: Long before there were dust busters, leaf blowers, and other noisy banishers of the unwanted, we had fixed form poetry. Energy-efficient and quiet, fixed verse like the rondeau had—still has—the effect of rousing desiccated thought systems and blowing them the heck out, if we choose. We are what we think. We are also what we allow ourselves to believe. As kids, we didn’t have much choice over what we took in, and much of what we defend as adults, especially when it’s noisy, knee-jerk, and name-calling in nature, sources from those creepy old dust bunnies. Niccoló refers to Machiavelli, a highly misunderstood soul, while Henry’s identity, I’m sure, is self-evident.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of Yggdrasil, the World Ash, from Wikipedia

imho

Tags

19th century English form poetry, A.C. Swinburne, creativity, discipline, ego, Elaine Stirling, false humility, poetry, rondeau, roundel, variation of medieval French verse

A Roundel

The poet made not born, at any stage
may ripen, burst a shell of competence
and gold dust pour across the barren page,
the poet made.

The poet born with gilded confidence
thinks highly of the praise, is quick to rage
at plodding steps that sow through diligence.

Grow or die, to both! The truest mage
of poesy to art not artful circumstance
must kindly, with humility, engage,
the poet made.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of John Keats (1795-1821)

Palimpsest

Tags

atonement, creativity, dance songs, dreaming awake, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, forme fixe, harmony, letting be, Medieval French verse, mindfulness, musical chansons, nagual, palimpsest, rondeau, the creative impulse

A Rondeau

There’s a poem like a koan
that refuses to be known
at the edges of my dreaming
like a palimpsest revealing
shades of doubt erased and shown

between the traces finely combed
a certainty poetic that is home
& hearth to all I’m feeling, there’s a poem

in moments when I think that I’m alone
it overturns illusions I’ve outgrown
and pulls from them a reckoning
deliberately sublime, and chiming
harmony atoned, there’s a poem.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013