{"id":56,"date":"2020-07-13T12:51:56","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T17:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/?p=56"},"modified":"2020-07-13T13:10:23","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T18:10:23","slug":"puzzle-poems-intro-and-1-kk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/?p=56","title":{"rendered":"“Puzzle Poems” Intro and #1: KK"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the many many things I enjoy about writing poetry is hiding stuff in them. Allusions to the Bible, stuff God’s shown me, word plays, etymologies, random references to events when I was a kid, stuff I’ve been thinking about, etc… weaving stuff in (or packing as the case may be, poems vary widely in how straightforward or obscure they are). It’s sorta like each poem has a key and I’m the only one that holds it (sometimes the key gets lost in my own pocket haha, when I look back at a poem I wrote and can’t at first remember what I myself was referring to or thinking of)<\/em>. Naming the poems is a part I also really enjoy, one of the chief reasons being that often is a way to give clues or pointers. And then it’s fun and honoring when people have an energy to try to figure it out themselves. I’m always kinda amazed at that, actually, because truth be told I don’t read much poetry myself (except song lyrics) and feel pretty darn inept at doing it. (There’s also the situation when people see stuff that I didn’t have in mind at all, or even had something in mind that is pretty different … that’s been an interesting\/fun\/weird area … but that’s a subject for a later time.)<\/em>

Anyway… I wrote a few poems (two in January, one in April) that ended up being sorta riddle or puzzle poems … more than just hiding stuff, these actually are more like an invitation to figure out what they’re about. They have some meaning on the poem level, but it’s only when you figure out what they’re about that they can then help inform that very level. Well, two of them. One of them (the one below) I got pretty goofy\/dramatic with and was mostly writing for fun–the juxtaposition between the tone and the actual subject matter made me laugh out loud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here’s the first one!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KK<\/strong>\nI was born into bondage\nShoved and pounded from earliest recall\nUntil I came of age\n\nThen came the day\nThat gruesome day\nWhen they took the blade to my core\nAnd everyone around me\n     Everyone who made it that is\n     Those who fell were cast away\nThen the ride\nThrough agonizing undulations of southern heat\nAnd down the ramp to hell\n\nI\u2019ll never forget the sizzle of cooking flesh\nMy flesh\nMy shred of relief at a side untouched\nItself shredded in a moment\u2019s flip\nAn unbearable loop of pain\nMy crisp body unfeeling\nUnrecognizable\nMarched to the deluge\nChoking my body\nDrowning my voice\nAs the bystanders leered\n     (the monsters even brought their children)\nThen falling motionless\nOn wicked steel grates\nWhere tormentors with sticks\n     and dispassionate eyes\nShoved us like cattle in boxes\n     The livers that is\n     Again\n     Those who crumpled were swept away\n\nWho am I?\nCan anyone deliver?\nWhat have I done to deserve this?\nWhen will it end\nAnd how?\nThe truth\u2019s as dark as my countenance\nSome dream of freedom\nBut all I hear are further terrors\nRumors of naked display\nAnd sale like commodities\nTo ravenous giants who paw and drool\nThe dawning horror\nBred and raised to be consumed\n\nWhy, God, why?\nKan you hear my kry?<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the many many things I enjoy about writing poetry is hiding stuff in them. Allusions to the Bible, stuff God’s shown me, word plays, etymologies, random references to events when I was a kid, stuff I’ve been thinking about, etc… weaving stuff in (or packing as the case may be, poems vary widely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}