I haven’t done a cleave poem for a long time and thought I was due for a bit of self-inflicted punishment. I’m adding it to the dverse open link night because these poems are so hard to write, and I’m pleased with the way this one turned out.
If you don’t know what a cleave poem is, it’s a three in one poem. Each side is a separate poem to be read vertically, one side dark, the other light, opposites. But they can be read horizontally as a single poem too.
Loud the city silence sings the moon
Breaking glassy fragments in a sea of darkness
All about the brittle stars blink and listen
I stop my ears to the swell tide’s refrain.
Though scraps of anger ride on peaceful calm,
White or red sails full of dawning
Grow round and full like moons on water
Fruiting in the heat lily blossoms, reflections
Of a summer night in a still forest pool.
Jane Dougherty Writes 
The world is like one giant empty city with just one person in it and that one person looks at the changing seasons the rise and lower of the sun and moon and even the animals that change with them.
That’s a lovely way of putting it. The whole poem is told by that one person, and each side of the poem corresponds to a different view point, one trapped in the unpleasant aspects of the city, the other on the outside with a knowledge only of the natural world.
Very True.
🙂
Always interesting and fun. Thanks so much xx
Thanks Jane 🙂
Pleasure x
🙂
Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
Thank you, Michael 🙂
Masterful, Jane! Haven’t tried one of these yet.
It’s like a Rubik’s Cube with words 🙂 Three in one, and all three have to make sense separately AND the two separate strands should be opposites. Go on. I dare you 🙂
The pessimist and the optimist. Havoc and beauty. Love it. Well done. ☺☺☺
Thanks Patricia! I love writing these poems but it’s hard! I’m glad the duality of it came over.
nicely crafted, the two cleaves expressing two different moods yet still working together. achieving the cleave yin and yang
Thank you! I’m glad you think it works. I find cleave poems the very devil to write.
Hadn’t heard of this form before. Most interesting! I’ll be back to read again, and study it.
It’s one to try if you need an intellectual challenge 🙂 It has to be read as two poems, one on each side, where both make sense read separately and tell opposite stories. But the whole thing has to make a single poem that also makes sense. I like the idea of this form, the way is uses both meanings of the word ‘cleave’ —to separate and to join. It’s neat, but it needs a lot of fiddling with.
Definitely sounds challenging! Might give it a try one of these days. Thanks for introducing me to the form, Jane. I really like the one you wrote. 🙂
I’m pleased! It makes the contortions worthwhile 🙂
I love the complexity of this form and its ( your) ability to hold multiple messages separately and as one.
I’m undecided about it as a poetic form since it has to be put together like a military operation. It’s more for the sense of achievement that I like it—so hard to write!
The result does not show any strain or effort, it just flows.
I’m so pleased you think so! That’s the hardest part 🙂
Nicely done, Jane! (And with a singing moon, too.) 🙂 I like your images and interesting word choices.
Now this makes me want to write one–as well as do all the cool prompts I’ve been seeing, but haven’t had a chance to get to yet.
I’m glad you like this, Merril. I’m always pleased when I’ve finished a cleave poem and got it to make sense all the ways you have to read it. It’s so brain-twisting!
It is satisfying when you get it to work. 🙂
Miraculous 🙂
🙂
Is that Munch?
beautifully done, seamless. (K)
Munch it is. The reference is in my files somewhere. I’m glad you like the poem. I sweated blood over it.
It doesn’t show (I think Merril noted that already).
🙂
Visually beautiful form and the imagery really hits home! (Need to give this form a go one of these days.)
Thanks Jilly. I find it needs nerves of steel, but we all have different mileage 🙂
I’ll put it on my list of forms and wait for the steel 🙂
I am not a fan of cleave poems but you have crafted this one well. The natural world wins for me in every way I read this :o) xxx
Thanks Xenia 🙂 I’m glad it didn’t sound too contrived.
:o) xxx
This is fantastic. I love that although we are reading more than one poem, the tone remains throughout that complete piece and its parts.
Thank you, Magaly! I’m glad you enjoyed this one and thought it worked even dismembered 🙂
Oh my…I loved this…so challenging and clever…it was like two voices speaking together different but the same.
I’m so glad you liked this Alison! I find it a difficult form to use, but when it works, it’s a real pleasure!
‘Though scraps of anger ride on peaceful calm, white or red sails full of dawning grow round and full like moons on water’ … soo gorgeously phrased!❤️
I’m glad you like it, Sanaa 🙂
Brilliant work, Jane. I didn’t set out to “cleave” but maybe with a bit of tinkering I could make it work better.
Yours is so atmospheric and each line so rich in detail. I have used an isolated line from another poet’s work as a title before (giving credit, of course). Yours is like a cornucopia of titles!
I’m glad you like this! Your poem is in a class of its own, Victoria. It’s like two voices murmuring, or the chorus in a play. f you did try to piece the two halves together, it would make a great cleave poem, but the original stands on its own merits 🙂
This is so beautiful! I have never heard of this form, but truly, you did it quite well. May have to try my hand at it sometime.
Thank you! It isn’t a form I use often because it’s more like putting a 3D puzzle together than writing poetry, but just occasionally, the result is worth it 🙂
I read your comment from the responds to the first.
At first read…I did see the poem as a one person coming from other different points of view as how they feel and interpret the city itself. You brought a taste that is delicious and vibrant.
Thanks Charlie. I have very mixed feelings about the city. This seemed the appropriate kind of poem to express them.
The city itself is tough and carries a load of good and bad within people or the environment. However which one might feel about it.
You did a magnificent job and capturing every detail that tells the meaning behind the poem.
Cities are part of humanity, warts and all. But we have to learn to make them friendlier or they’ll kill us. Thanks for the compliment, Charlie, I appreciate it 🙂
True. Balancing out ourselves to rid off the negativity that drains us in. We must be stronger than low and reach the strength that is us to make things better and center.
Your very welcome. 🙂
🙂
I don’t know why you felt it necessary to punish yourself, but we were rewarded with your effort!
I need to bolster my self-confidence. It’s a hellishly difficult form to get to work out right, and I have to prove to myself that I can do it. It’s safer than climbing mountains or parachuting 😉
Okay yes, I can see how writing this is a form of torture. You do it well. That either means you’re an above average poet, or you’re into abuse. Either way, it’s a wonderful poem.
If it’s easy, I distrust it 🙂 Thanks Charley. I was particularly pleased with this poem because it’s such a difficult form. Sometimes you can twist the words around for hours and the thing just doesn’t gel. This one did, miraculously!
It does seem one could read this as three different poems. I like the description of using scraps of anger to stop one’s ears.
I’m glad you think it works, Frank 🙂
You’re a devil in disguise, Jane! Now you’ve reminded me of how wonderful cleave poems can be, I’m more than tempted to have a go at one today!
This one of your is a stunner! I especially love those ‘glassy fragments’ of the loud ‘city silence’ and the ‘brittle stars’ that ‘blink and listen to the swell tide’s refrain’.’
I’m glad you like it, Kim. I started another one yesterday evening and gave up. It was too complicated to get my head round. I reworked it into a simpler poem this morning instead.
That’s what happened to me when I first tried one – inspired by ou!
It’s luck rather than talent, I think. Sometimes they just won’t work out. When they do, though, it’s magic!
It’s an interesting device, sort of a cubist take on mood. The linear read nailed it, the vertical columns were icier — forcing an abstract read — but invited a triune read. Well done.
Thanks Brendan. It is like writing in 3D with the light and dark sharing the same cube but on opposite sides. I’m glad you like the result. Sometimes it’s a mess.
Lovely piece!
Thank you!
Perfect for the “still water, reflecting….
Thanks Annell 🙂
I’ve heard of this form before, obviously read one or two, probably on this forum and it’s going into the notebook for a form to try. So much to do!
It’s a brain teaser, but when it works out it’s special 🙂
What a cool form…I think we should give it a go as a prompt at dVerse sometime! I love the merging of the positive perspective with the negative. It creates an entirely different mood doesn’t it?
Gayle ~
That’s the really neat part of the cleave poem, getting two opposing ideas in the same lines. It’s worth persevering with.
A new form to me and one that I can see is a real challenge to pull off. You did so with some verve.
Thank you! If you can see why it’s difficult, you’ve read what I thought I’d written, if you see what I mean, with the contrasting sides. I think of it as a triptych, heaven one side, hell the other, and in the middle, the sum of the parts.
I think I did read what you thought you had written because you appear to have understood what I wrote about what I thought you had written. 😉
And if you can follow that, you can write a cleave poem. 🙂
I really like the intellectual challenge of this form. I tried something similar, but it didn’t work quite so smoothly.
It’s hard to think in terms of opposites in the same phrase. Often though I think it’s luck that makes this form work. Sometimes no amount of fiddling will make it turn out right.
Ooh, I like this and I like the idea of this. I’ve never heard of a cleave poem before. I imagine there are some happy accidents of language that occur during the writing process. I love “sings the moon in a sea of darkness.”
That’s exactly right. Some happy associations occur when the lines are put together. Sometimes it works, and when it doesn’t…the whole thing unravels!
This form might suit my puzzle-loving brain.
I suits my urge to worry away at something until I get it right 🙂
Well done, Jane. I haven’t inflicted one of those on myself yet. I may never inflict on of those on myself!
Thank you! There’s no obligation. The spirit only moves me rarely. Otherwise I leave well alone 🙂
Wow! Just found you blogger! I was looking for some poems and I found this!!! Good job!
Thank you Cate. Glad you like it 🙂