ohthatwright - Daily Quordle Poem

Reverse Ezekiel 47

AMONG residents realization sickly takes hold: the land is dying: dry
GULCHes, reservoirs down three quarters, allotments cut. To
HALVE prior expectation now looks good. A reality so stark, you blink and blink, yet it’s still there:
OUTGO far above inflow. Praying for rain is all that’s left. And what of spiritual water? How high the levels?

Lake Powell decline. Taken from https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150249/lake-powell-still-shrinking

Note: In 1986, our family, my parents, my two sisters, and I, took a 3 day houseboat vacation on Lake Powell, a lovely and memorable experience for me. What we experienced then is now gone.

Things in the US West are starting to get dire. For the first time, residential neighborhoods are having their water shut off: https://ktar.com/story/5421137/rio-verde-foothills-residents-react-to-shutoff-from-scottsdale-water.

02-14

WOOER strikes out. Went for broke on big gesture.
STATEd objection: I like you as a friend.
FERAL mood walking home,
STRIPs torn off the bushes. The world is out of joint.

Two Brothers at the River

PLUMP young Gregory, eight years old, not yet the hollow cheeked Nyssa, as on icons–
DRYLY his older brother asks: “Surely you will not jump in again?”
BASIL, older brother, not yet the Great, as in history,
TEASEs lovingly. Today: two young brothers, an idle afternoon, playing on a river’s bank.
Later, two fathers, Cappadocian, cold waters of the Halys long since dried off.

Note: I’m imagining Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa as young brothers, in their hometown of Caesarea of Cappadocia–now Kayseri in Turkey–spending an afternoon on what was then called the river Halys in Greek.

Icon of Basil the Great. Click image for Wikipedia entry.

Icon of Gregory of Nyssa. Click Image for Wikipedia entry.

Swami Ponders

SWAMI grows uneasy: to transcend Samsara seems assumed,
DOGMA of a kind, but he wonders if desire itself forms the
SIEVE in which knowledge ebbs away, leaving only Avidya, or whether we are
BOUND, chained, not by desire itself, but by desire’s end.

Whither Turbo

TURBO, this if your third appearance; first time, I did
STRAY, redirect you to TURBOt, mispelled fish. Second time, forgoing
FRILL, I invoked your sense of speed. Perhaps, next occasion, I won’t
CLOWN, and wield you for an engine, if poesy can there be found. Perhaps.

Note: I tagged this with a tag, “meta”, which can be used to point at Quordle poems that go meta (i.e. they speak to mechanisms or the history of DQP itself–reflecting on the act of using words in a Quordle poem, say, or on the process of participating in DQP). The tag can be browsed at https://dailyquordlepoem.com/tag/meta/. Also, there is a “tag cloud” at the bottom of DQP’s web pages. The size of a tag shows you how often a tag has been used. This is what it currently looks like:

What the tag cloud at the bottom of DQP looked like on February 11, 2023.

Running Out of Time

BADLY managed temper, faulty sense of pride–now a duel to fight.
LUNGE of epee mistimed, opponent ready with counter, and then: so little time left.
GAUDY seems the world with its colors as sight is ebbing,
GAZER laid out, looks up at trees and clouds, the last impression. Takes one more breath, his last.

Note: I guess this balances out the hilarity of Steven’s poem. Not that that was my intention.

Shout out to the Sonnet

OCTET before sestet, in Petrarch’s wake,
CAMEO, in first four lines, of the concern:
STRUTs heavily through four more, at stake.
MONEY, the resolution, drops after the turn.

Concise definition of the Italian sonnet at the blog of our fellow Quordle poet, Steven Robertson.

Even better, some Italian sonnets by Steven! https://notesbysteven.wordpress.com/tag/italian-sonnet/

Category: ohthatwright