INFORM POETS – PUENTE

/ Poetic Bloomings

The Puente, a poem for created by James Rasmusson, and is somewhat similar to the Diamante. Like the Diamante, you start with one aspect of a topic or issue and then, line by line, work toward another aspect. In the center is a line that bridges the two aspects together. The Spanish word for bridge is “puente”.

The form has three stanzas with the first and third having an equal number of lines and the middle stanza having only one line which acts as a bridge (puente) between the first and third stanza. The first and third stanzas convey a related but different element or feeling, as though they were two adjacent territories.
The number of lines in the first and third stanza is the writer’s choice as is the choice of whether to write it in free verse or rhyme.

The center line is delineated by a tilde (~) and has ‘double duty’. It functions as the ending for the last line of the first stanza AND as the beginning for the first line of the third stanza. It shares ownership with these two lines and consequently bridges the first and third stanzas.

WALT’S PUENTE:

LOOKING FOR MR. WRITE

A muse is a terrible thing,
to waste it would bring a pang
as if someone sang a dirge
so sad and consuming. You’d be presuming
you would find the words to express

~you never used to stress about such trivial things!

To find your core meaning
is to find the thing that does amuse
you. Sounding lyrical and lilting
it’s a miracle that words return.
You’ve always yearned to find your voice.

(C) Copyright Walter J Wojtanik

***

DAMON’S PUENTE:

SUMMER BREAK

“Read these,” she asks.
Three story books of wintertime and snow.
“Why these?” I want to know. “It’s summer, dear!”
She rolls her eyes, then plants her hands on tilted hips.
“Poppi,” she says and throws her arms up shocked at my dull wit, “we need a break!”
I sigh, then see a tear, and quivering lip

~and though dull-witted I relent~

and with her in my lap I read aloud
of snow and ice,
freed, for a time, from time,
freed from relentless summer’s vice of sultry heat.
The boundaries of seasons are dissolved.
I read to hold her tight.

© 2014, Damon Dean

109 thoughts on “INFORM POETS – PUENTE”

  1. My F-I-L is a doctor (90 years old now) and this story is told in our family as really happening:

    All Shook Up

    Big Foot Wanda got sick
    went to the doctor pretty quick
    he’d seen it all from boils to lacerations
    and would have a doctorial application
    to make her spritely again.

    ~nothing could rattle him!

    A terrible cough from her chest issued
    he said, “A penicillin shot will help you.”
    She took off her blouse. He said um,
    and promptly shot his thumb
    when Big Foot Wanda walked in.

  2. Heavenly Glows

    Brightly beating down so bright and grand
    Reflected by the snow white, Emerald Coast sand
    Its presence so beloved after a winter so long
    So desired and required to start our summer song
    The warm spring sun lights the day

    Then rests on the horizon and slowly sinks away

    From the East another glowing orb takes flight
    Best observed by us all on a clear cloudless night
    As it floats in grandeur across the dark sky
    Always showing one face as it drifts slowly by
    The summer moon lights the way

    © 2014 Earl Parsons

  3. WHEN THE SHOT RINGS OUT

    It’s safe to say I’m on my last legs.
    Where once I ran up and down steep hills,
    now, just moving from here to there kills
    my throbbing knees, leaves me out of breath.
    My life’s been a kind of race till now

    ~but the finish line is not so far away.

    When the flag falls and the shot rings out,
    I will dash like a young boy again
    without concern for which bones to mend.
    My sins forgiven, ribbon at my chest,
    a spirit basking in fields of light.

    #

  4. Ant Hill
    (a Puente)

    Like little ants scurrying
    here and there
    trying to carry
    more that we can bear,
    we follow sugar trails
    of our own desires
    until our industriousness
    becomes its own burden.

    ~ then we burrow in the ground

    in holes dark and deep,
    following labyrinths,
    feeling part
    of a bustling community,
    until we lose sight
    of the sunny world
    and go to sleep, believing
    there’s something more.

  5. THE SONORAN YEAR

    In spring,
    the desert blooms;
    it looses a riot
    of blended colors and odors,
    and smiles

    ~ but thereafter it exacts its price:

    colors
    wither and perceptibly fade;
    ocotillos, naked,
    look to winter
    and wait.

    © copyright 2014, William Preston

    • Ocotillos are some of my favorite desert varieties, William. When we lived in the Prescott area we had to go down to the Casa Grande area to find them in bloom in the spring. We could always count on lovely specimens there full of bright red blossoms. This took me back to favored memories. Thank you. I so enjoyed this.

    • William, you have painted the split personality of this desert exactly. And timely for me, as during my noon break I snapped a picture of our first cactus bloom of the season. It will be gone soon.

  7. Back later with something for this. Such lovely poems so far. Great prompt form, Walt. I hadn’t seen this one before. It works like a giant traditional haiku, doesn’t it?

  9. What Works, and Doesn’t Work – and Where – Matters…

    Don’t tell my parents that I work in the pharmaceutical industry. They think I am working in a brothel. ~Gerhard Kocher

    It’s kind of funny, isn’t it –
    what works and what doesn’t work?
    And just about anyone will believe
    whatever you tell them, if you can do it
    with a straight face

    ~’though what I really mean is this:

    the truth isn’t necessarily funny, is it?
    What works and what doesn’t work.
    But you can fool just about anyone
    if you make your point
    with a smile on your face.

    ###

  10. Hmm, I love this internal debate, but not sure if it works

    Minds and Matter

    Sherlock Holmes strides history
    Father of forensic mystery
    Without him, no reign of CSI
    Evidence unseen by naked eye
    Cold cases solved by new tests
    Renewing justice on its quest

    ~But I love people, not science

    Poirot swung the pendulum back
    Gray cells and people all crimes could crack
    Without Miss Marple, no BAU
    Would decode Criminal Minds for clues
    Cozy mysteries trade labs for shops
    Customers and vendors before cops

    Darlene Franklin ©2014

  12. I have thought about changing my group “handle” but have no idea what else I would call myself. 🙂 I love the names.

  13. Pingback: Industrious Hop-Vine | Metaphors and Smiles

  14. Industrious Hop-Vine

    They pulse forth on the progress of the past.
    I commend the way of winding vine,
    applaud the surge – patterning their ancestor’s path.
    How they work to curve and climb, to finally arrive;
    peaking the trellis’s top, hearty hop arms reach –
    great leafy faces push up and out into the unknown…

    ~ they take the leap of faith and travel further than their archetypes.

    All the while their tendrils below are constantly supported,
    by the twisted systems of elder root and pithy preceding growth –
    these’re the stronghold of truth that the future relies upon.
    Soon this generation will come to fullness and fruit;
    they will become the next best set –
    forerunner-vines to cling to and aspire toward.

    Copyright © Hannah Gosselin 2014

  15. Thank you for the form challenge and examples hosts…I haven’t the time required for commenting but I hope to be in tomorrow. Cheers to all the writers out here!! 🙂

  17. For Another Day
    I thought i’d lay low for a while
    just drift aimlessly in an open space
    but the day wafts in so many fillings
    as i yearn to empty the sky
    Hanging on, somehow

    -folding this feeling away, for another day

    to hear the silence of ancient sounds
    and maroon myself in dreamy waves
    but I hear the bells of living
    and muzzle these songs of the heart
    Hanging on for,- someday

  18. Weighing the Pros and Cons

    Her parents said she was being punished.
    She pouted, shouted, to no avail,
    then sat curled up on a chair, determined
    not to cry, not to care

    ~The ice cream truck’s bell rang as it headed down the block~

    The state of being punished began to bother her,
    leading to a tearful apology. She reversed
    her psychology, promising to be obedient,
    and oh, the expedience with which she licked her cone.

  19. It took me a while, but I finally got one penned. Time available for poetry is being carved out of other obligations and becomes precious these days.

    Dreams

    Illusions, they say, are
    Daydreams played out on
    Reality’s movie screen,
    Waiting for recognition
    By the dreamer and the world.

    ~Yet lies become truths unveiled~

    To believers who desire
    The dreams of others over
    The heart’s desires held within,
    Left to wither on vines of hope
    Tainted by another’s daily illusion.

    • yet in both cases dreams remain unrealized. how sad (to me) A reminder that my dreams should be all mine–not depending on what others have done

      • I know what you mean, Darlene. Sometimes we embrace someone else’s dreams for the sake of love for them, but we sacrifice our own dreams in the process, many times. Then we ask ourselves if it would be selfish to want something or our own. That’s sad.

  20. I believe this is a mirror cinqki with the tilde in the middle. . .

    blank page
    not a one
    word has flowed from
    mind to fingers to screen
    frozen
    ~start typing~
    title
    byline, setting, and date
    heroine’s name
    active verb
    go on

    Darlene Franklin ©2014

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