Poems from My Novel

In my novel, Render the Dream Beyond Yesterday's, the main female character (Lulai) meets a boy at a young age (Lasse).  She imagines her life with him, but her vision is blurred by rosy, tinted glasses, which animates and romanticizes her surroundings in more than one occasions.  Her perspectives and her recollections of everyday life events were different from everyone else's —eyes that see things with the cup brimming over, spilling over, and always half-full.




The Ingenue

Their first meeting occurs around Chapter 5-6.  Lulai is sixteen-years old with an appearance that resembles an ingénue, (but a young lady at her youth).  (Young ladies can be misread as an ingénue; it takes a sophisticated eye to discern them.)  The guy has a newsboy—street boy look, riffraff, rule-breaker —managing his way.  Young ladies should be wary of getting involved with these types.  Here is the poem that precedes the chapter:



The Pauper

Lena and Lasse in the Pink

In springtime of years—we are in the pink,

Ah, in prime—the salad days, the green years,

A young novelty:  Lady and lad meet,

It’s at a superb party on the eve,

Like a gulf of Israelis, Palestine,

In springtime of years —we are in the pink,

The maiden, blind and bleary to the drift,

The dazzling lights to her budding years,

A young novelty:  Lady and lad meet,

The dews of the grass gleams and by its glint,

Sets out a dream, a mystic make-believe,

In springtime of years —we are in the pink,

She fancies crème de la crème, the elite,

His sacred words to rank first and beat,

A young novelty:  Lady and lad meet,

She tugs at her heart, softens to who ekes,

So she comes amiss from the previous, 

In springtime of years —we are in the pink,

A young novelty:  Lady and lad meet.

*                                                            *                                                              * 

After Lasse (a nice guy) around Chapter 9-10, Lena meets the wrong ones, guys with gigantic egos who aggrandizes their own worth.  Some really think of themselves as they are in their own minds.  Lulai is humble, quiet, and keeps herself in the background.  Inevitably a guy nobody likes gives her a panic attack. 



The Strut vs. The Reserved

Compelled by a crave to nick, mill his mark,

For weeks, he kept by his bid and held on,

By this, I crouched to a chase of a die-hard,

But in suite, I ail; afflicted in awe,

His psyche upturns, evert the eddy,

Mark that struts only by his bloated head,

None of it true, true only in his mind,

But mine, my river flows quiet and quelled,

By then, his rip tide rise—rippled, billowed,

He plumes and preens, then he huffs his hauteurs,

The stream I ride spurt in windless waters,

I hid in the ring under a bushel,

He paraded around, said:  “Mind, Look, See!”

Coveting cynosure for eyes on him,

Nothing of two houses abut flowered,

But surely, demoiselle will sow and sprout,

Tis another story, mark it in time.  

And finally, in Chapter 12-13, Lena gets involved with an older man whom she has imagined in a relationship.  But early on, her intuition lets her on that it is unsuited for her.  She knows ahead of time — it's going to be a turbulent ride.  I revised the poem in Fibonacci sequence (10 lines w/increasing syllables):  1 syllable, 1 syllable, 2 syllables, 3 syllables, 5 syllables, 8 syllables, 13 syllables, 21 syllables, 31 syllables, 52 syllables.       

Paula Abdul's Opposites Attract (throwback)

Beginning, End

Start,

End,

Begin,

Abrupt Start,

But close, stop and shut,

Time it began fast as it did,

It’s a dawn taking rise; it’s an untimely gloaming,

It’s an untimely sundown and nightfall, it’s a premature sunrise or an inverse,

It’s a drive gear flipped around to a reverse, entrance, exit, hot steam bath, cold icy bucket, not a marathon, but a sprint,

Protracted brief encounter, endless flock, pretend, immaterial, not factual but a fiction, an inauthentic fake, a deficient, not a flush but bluff, wildfire perished to ember, an end with traces of ashes and cinder.