So I Got it Backwards

Well.

I decided to try writing a pantoum.

Except I trusted my memory.

Never trust your memory with something like a pantoum. Especially not a few days before Thanksgiving, when you are busy wrestling with a fridge that should have been cleaned out... more than a few days before Thanksgiving.

However, be encouraged. You didn't wait until Christmas to clean your fridge. And your weariness and busyness simply resulted in a backwards pantoum. By all estimates, the stuffing and mashed potatoes and pies are still going to be okay, though you won't rest completely assured until Thursday has come and gone.

A pantoum is supposed to go like this. Stanzas of four lines (as many as you like), where you keep taking lines 2 and 4 and turning them into the next stanza's 1st and 3rd. When you are ready to finish, you supply your last stanza's 1st and 3rd in the usual way and you grab your very first stanza's 1st line and make it the 4th, and the 3rd and make it the 2nd.

Now, do you see why you can't trust your memory with something like a pantoum? Mine turned out backwards, or upside down, or something like that, so I'll give you some links to real pantoums when it's all over. In the meantime, my backwards pantoum...

On the Walnut Dresser

White phone is in love
with whispering fan— old
fashioned, it turns away,
gazes through wires

at the pale yellow room
white phone is in love
with a silver neck, so
fashioned, it turns away

where a dying sun long has gazed
at the pale yellow room,
mirrored and walled
with a silver neck, so

still it cannot move
where a dying sun long has gazed
at mornings that silent break.
Mirrored and walled,

fashioned, it turns away,
still it cannot move.
White phone is in love,
at morning's silent break.

This post is offered for One Shot Wednesday. Photo by L.L. Barkat.

Examples of Right-Side Up Pantoums

Evening Harmony, Charles Baudelaire
Stillbirth, Laure-Anne Bosselaar
Parent's Pantoum, Carolyn Kizer


Thanks to poet Kim Addonizio for the idea of making one item be in love with another. Also, it is not her fault I wrote a backwards pantoum. She explained it splendidly, should I have taken the time to consult the explanation. :)