{"id":1771,"date":"2002-05-01T10:58:29","date_gmt":"2002-05-01T15:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=1771"},"modified":"2002-05-01T10:58:29","modified_gmt":"2002-05-01T15:58:29","slug":"rhyme_and_reaso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/05\/01\/rhyme_and_reaso.html","title":{"rendered":"Rhyme and Reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

I sit before the keyboard, fingers straining, wondering why.
\nWhy the sweat? Why the guts that clutch
\nAnd twist?
\nWhat’s so hard?<\/p>\n

Free verse. The sound of liberation that I shrink from,
\nHiding my head beneath a quip or pun.<\/p>\n

“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
\nWould you be free?<\/p>\n

Give me rhyme, that the tunes and tones of words will be the mark
\nI need to hit.
\nGive me meter, marching to the margin as I write,
\nSo they can sing it.
\nGive me prose, an action scene or two,
\nTo carry through.<\/p>\n

I don’t want freedom, though I would choose
\nTo have the chains be long, and loose,
\nAnd light.<\/p>\n

I view the words I write, sans rhyme or structure,
\nEach line a fragile piece of art, viewed bemused by critics.
\n“The presumption! He must be mad,
\nOr ego-filled the size of Baltimore.”<\/p>\n

A teacher laughs and points and chatters of Narcissus.<\/p>\n

Free verse. But freedom means that I must be responsible,
\nAnd every word must be the right one, not for form or tone,
\nBut for the feeling, mood, experience.<\/p>\n

And when I’m done, then I must sit and smile,
\nAnd say, “Hey, look what I have done.”
\nAnd feign that every word is right,
\nEvery feeling strong and bold and vivid,
\nEvery picture painted, sculpted, touched with care and craft.
\nA pretence that it’s more than pretentious crap.<\/p>\n

I dare not eat that peach,
\nThose mermaids do not sing to me.<\/p>\n

I sit before the keyboard,
\nLook at words on the screen, soft phosphors in pleasant colors,
\nAnd writhe.<\/p>\n

They make it look simple, those others<\/a>.
\nWords strung along, offered just for joy
\nOf writing.
\nThe letters dance, the pictures glow,
\nThe feelings build and crash and tease.
\nSo simple.<\/p>\n

Good stuff. Good stuff. I wish I could.<\/p>\n

Which is why I sit here.
\nNodding to the soft and constant hum that echoes through my head,
\nMuffling thoughts,
\nMaking me safe and armored and removed.<\/p>\n

So I will talk about it, bare my soul, raise a smile,
\nBlog an inch or eight.
\nI can write a post. I will!
\nOr maybe —
\nMaybe —
\nWrite a poem.
\nLet the words of free verse flow from fingertips that sweat.
\nTherapeutic, perhaps, or bold,
\nOr just a silly thought,
\nOr ego.<\/p>\n

And so I sit.
\nAnd click on Save.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I sit before the keyboard, fingers straining, wondering why. Why the sweat? Why the guts that clutch And twist? What’s so hard? Free verse. The sound of liberation that I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2731,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/09\/29\/songs.html","url_meta":{"origin":1771,"position":0},"title":"Songs","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 29-Sep-02 4:19pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Speaking of foreign accents, huzzah for the Brits. We have a couple of British nursery rhyme books that we've picked up for Katherine (either in Britain before she was born...","rel":"","context":"In "Parenting"","block_context":{"text":"Parenting","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/parenting"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27749,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/04\/tongue-twisting-through-exhaustion.html","url_meta":{"origin":1771,"position":1},"title":"Tongue-twisting through exhaustion","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 4-May-12 10:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"I didn't get every word (\"ague\" through me off the most -- but, then, how often does that come up in conversation?), but it was exhausting just reading through this. Crikey.Though it did remind me of Ricky's English lesson (http:\/\/youtu.be\/zjadbW2ZARg).Reshared post from +Ted EwenIf you can pronounce correctly every word\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28994,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/09\/the-doctor-nursery-rhyme.html","url_meta":{"origin":1771,"position":2},"title":"The Doctor Nursery Rhyme","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 9-Aug-12 1:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Fantastic. (h\/t +Mark Means\u00a0)Reshared post from +Ryan Mills #DoctorWho \u00a0 Google+: View post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130884,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/06\/16\/o-canada-now-includes-canadian-ladies-as-well.html","url_meta":{"origin":1771,"position":3},"title":""O, Canada" now includes Canadian ladies as well","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 16-Jun-16 2:37pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's probably easier for me since I'm not Canadian and don't have a lot emotionally vested in the classic lyrics, but the tweak here of changing \"in all thy sons\" to \"in all of us\" seems pretty tidy and appropriate for noting that women can have their patriotism commanded, too.Changing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17259,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/05\/02\/my-daughter-the-potter.html","url_meta":{"origin":1771,"position":4},"title":"My Daughter the Potter","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 2-May-10 1:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Multimedia Message Or, rather, the painter of ceramics. Though that doesn't rhyme.","rel":"","context":"In "Parenting"","block_context":{"text":"Parenting","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/parenting"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9757,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/06\/nonsenseability.html","url_meta":{"origin":1771,"position":5},"title":"Nonsenseability","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 6-Nov-06 7:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"For reasons I have no idea, the following is a mangled mash-up nursery rhyme that Katherine and I know by heart, usually sung as we approach the house on our...","rel":"","context":"In "Animation \/ Cartoons"","block_context":{"text":"Animation \/ Cartoons","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-cartoons"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}