Song of the Powers

Mine, said the stone,
mine is the hour
I crush the scissors,
such is my power.
stronger than wishes,
my power, alone.

Mine, said the paper,
mine are the words]
that smother the stone
with imagined birds,
reams of them, flown
from the mind of the shaper.

Mine, said the scissors,
mine all the knives
gashing through paper's
etheral lives;
nothing's so proper
as tattering wishes.

As stone crushes scissors,
as paper snuffs stone
and scissors cut paper,
all end alone.
So heap up your paper
and scissors your wishes
and uproot the stone
from the top of the hill.
They all end alone.
As you will, you will.
-Davie Mason

As I read this poem I think about the game rock, paper, scissors. How rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper and paper beats rock. Its a clever game to settle who does what when or a game to play when one is bored. I remember many times when I have played this game. This poem is set up like a story. Each stanza telling a different part of the story, a different view. The first stanza is told by the stone, the 2nd by the paper, the 3rd by the scissors and the 4th stanza is told by someone else who comes to the realization that even though rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper and paper beats rock- that in the end they will be alone, no matter the outcome.

Sort of a Song

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait
sleepless.

-through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.
-William Carlos Williams

This poem is very interesting. As i'm reading it I can imagine the snake. I feel like the poem is describing the snake through its words. Words such as slow and quick, sharp to strike, quiet to wait sleepless. Through those words I see the snake as a preditor staking out its prey. (haha wow I just incorporated environmental science in with my Lit blog :) )
This poem is set up with two stanzas. I feel that the first one is all about the snake and the 2nd one is a bunch of ideas all running together. Almost like a bunch of broken thoughts. It is very interesting and makes the poem stand out.

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide.

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

they begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
-Billy Collins

I really enjoyed this poem, it was very amusing. I liked the personification that was used to make the poem more life like. I also found the ending very amusing becasue in AP Lit we were told not to beat the poem with a hose and here that is what they were doing. If it hadnt been for this class I would have taken a total new meaning from this poem. I also noticed that there were 3 cuplings in the 3rd 4th and last stanza. The way that this poem is broken up is very unsual, but effective. It slowly tells a story with only 5 sentences. All in all a very amusing sort of poem.

Of Mere Being

The Palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the Bronze decor,

A gold-feathered bird
Strings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

This poem is very interesting. We talked about it a lot in class a few weeks ago. The pheonix was mentioned and how it is being described in this poem. two things came to mind when the pheonix was mentioned. 1) Fawkes the pheonix from Harry Potter whos tears heal a baskilisc venom. 2) My friends dad's tattoo. He has a tattoo of a pheonix on this arm. I asked him about it and he said its because of his beliefs. He says that everyone has different ideas of what will happen once we die. His belief is that he will be reencarnated and he hopes of being reencarnated into a pheonix. The kind of animal that he is often described as. This poem took on a deeper meaning for me because of that conversation. It shows that the different experiences in life make us think and act differently but they also shape us into the kind of people that we are.