Happy New Year, Comrades. May all be serene and beautiful in all corners of your life this year.
Today I wish to participate in the writing challenge to write an Ode. I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks Heather. The video you included is valuable. Saving it.
Thanks David. You’re simply amazing for thinking up this little nook where we get to practice weekly. I’ll be here on and off. Sometimes I have “baby” duty and such… Thanks for having me here this week.
Comrades, for this prompt submissions are open until Monday, Jan. 6, 10:00 AM (GMT+2)
Ode to My Trickster Thoughts Aging in My Hippocampus
Where are you now, you deceiving thought? I looked for you in the coffers of my hippocampus: there where everyone tells me old thoughts and memories are stored, but I couldn’t find you.
I need a word with you on how you misled me into thinking I was a failure.
See, back then I thought I was going somewhere; that everyone was going somewhere too. You egged me on, making me believed that somewhere was where I was headed. And that I best hurry or there’d be no place for me. So I hurried, hoping not to tumble and fall. But I fell and you made me think that to be a failure.
You lied but I know better now: that fall was to get me here walking in the path of grace, reaching for connection in life’s river where we all follow the same river, going everywhere, looking for other humans—to be here and to hold up when one of us tumbles and falls.
I wanted to pull you out to delete you forever but now I want to thank you. You did not lie, you tricked my mind. But why?
That was a long time ago, how can I preserve you now that I know all our paths, even yours, are irreducible. Where can I find you?
Copyright ©️ selmamartin 2025
Well, I gave this prompt my bestest on a poem I wrote recently and modified for the challenge. This is a first draft. Please tell me how I can improve it. Thanks, all. I bless you.
- A REBLOG of a Post First Shared in 2019 - January 6, 2025
- ODE W3: Ode to My Trickster Thoughts Aging in My Hippocampus - January 5, 2025
- After Robert Frost: Golden Shovels - January 4, 2025
Nicely done, Selma
Thanks dear Robbie. Be well
Old thoughts are tricky to capture. A fun poem Selma
Hehe. 🙃 Fun and tricky. Thanks so dearly Sadje. Xo
You’re most welcome
Poems are the right words in the right places. They work best with fewer punchier words. I really like your work- but it will be even better if you look at phrases like “I need a word with you on how you misled me into thinking I was a failure. ” and think how you can say that more succinctly. You write well- you can write better!
All poets edit and edit. 😊
Oh my Kim. This is the kind of feedback I need. Thank you. Yes. I’m so wordy. I still haven’t learned how to express with less telling. Thanks again. Bless you.
First drafts are shitty indeed. 🤣
Old worries, but as we get older, they seem less somehow.
When older we do away with baggage. Yes. Thanks Diana
😄
Some things are put away for a more useful time. When self-doubt creeps up for me, I use it as an opportunity to give myself a pep talk.
Pep talks. Yup, such valuable thing to do. Thanks Melissa. Happy New Year to you and crew. Xo
Happy New Year!❤️
I enjoyed this one, selma. sometimes the old thoughts are just stored away in a drawer that is jammed, but give it time
A jammed drawer—yes, that’s it 😆
I know you’re right. Bless you. Happy New Year.
<3
I like your take on the ode. A conversation with your thoughts. I’m so glad you joined in!
That it. A conversation with that thing that stirred me the wrong way when naive foresight was lacking. Easily manipulated. Thanks for reading Heather.
The video was so informative.
I love Neruda. No obsessive rhyming.
Also love Keats who adheres to strict rhyming as if sonneteering. But I’m neither Neruda nor Keats 🤭 and this is what I am made of at time of this first draft 🙇🏻♀️. I’ll try to join more as time allows. Happy new year.
(Aside: Hey, Heather, still waiting for you to be my pen pal… when time allows I’m still ready to welcome you)).
Blessings.
I think this poem is great, Selma, but I don’t think it falls under an ode. I watched the great video Heather posted as well, and I took away from it that an ode is an exaltation or praise to something/someone we admire. I feel this poem is more of a letter to your subconscious more than it is a praise of it, though you come to the conclusion that it put you on the right path eventually. I’m no expert, but you asked for our thoughts, so there you are. XOXO
Yvette M Calleiro 🙂
http://yvettemcalleiro.blogspot.com
Hey, Yve. Happy New Year. May it be phenomenal.
Hey Yve. I’m so honored to have received this enlightening feedback from you. You’re so right about the anemic praise factor that comes across as you read. I so get you. Thanks for reading and opening your heart to me in that regard. You’re a gem.
Also, the format. Didn’t see format rules but for the one Neruda poem of the fish.
I’ve written perhaps two Odes in my life. Forgive me for bringing this bad taste at the start of the year.
Please wash away that bad taste by reading this one. Written for W3 a while back. This one I think you’ll approve of. LMK.
BLESS YOU Amiga.
Oct. 2023: https://selmamartin.com/ode-to-words-w3-prompt-74-for-weave-written-weekly/
No need to apologize, and there was no bad test. I truly enjoyed your poem. I’m new to odes as well and am no expert! I just took the instructions from the video and tried to apply them. I don’t think my ode fit perfectly, either, because my last stanza wasn’t all positive, but this is why I love this community. We allow ourselves to try new forms and grow while we practice. XOXO 🙂
Yes. Wonderful community. Bless you…
“I wanted to pull you out to delete you forever but now I want to thank you. You did not lie, you tricked my mind. But why?”
Beautiful choice words & place. I like.
Selma, I love how you confront those trickster thoughts and transform them into a lesson of growth and grace.
Much love,
David
Thank you dear David. Hugs. Hugs. Hugs. Do you know about Presents on New Year’s Eve, NY Tree, and Dedek Mraz? Perhaps your wife does…no pressure, I just posted an oldie concerning those points. Again, bless you.
I wrote this once (the answer to your question)
https://skepticskaddish.com/2020/12/31/holiday-thoughts-part-ii-jewish-v-not/
👋 aww. I see I see. Great response to my question dear David. The very essence!! Thanks so much dear friend.
I really enjoyed reading that piece. Stupendous.
Please be well. Happy New Year 🥳
Thanks for asking, friend!
*hug*