WordSalad: The Poetry of Luke Prater

The ego of the Poet is a beast that growls for strokes;
quest for compliments excludes the all-important learning.
The ego of the Poet is, at best, a beast that chokes,
leaves the latent buds of Springtime in eternal yearning.

Big diction beats the pen or sword, and balls you got, I’m sure.
Heftier, though, is your head – need hats in larger sizes?
Don’t give a shit, man, if you writ a hundred sonnets pure,

that you break all rules of Lit, or won a thousand prizes.
The girls all love a Poet, yeah, you know it’s the allure.
Dish you serve proves vomitous, at last she realises -

it’s of no substance; motives were suspicious from the start.
Still you tout your Facebook Page, your chapbook, what a faceful.
The ego-beast, your captor, forces fool’s pride in your Art -
Must compete! Damn Facebook-rage! Another hack disgraceful.

(Stress Matrix Sonnet No. 3)

☆

The third in my own form Stress Matrix Sonnet/Stress Checkerboard Sonnet. Form Details can be found beneath my first, Forks and Spades.

I should be clear here that I’m using the term ‘ego’ in the most common sense (overly high opinion of oneself), and not the psychological/psychoanalytical one (the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious, and is responsible for reality testingand a sense of personal identity), nor the philosophical (a conscious thinking subject). Definitions from The New Oxford American Dictionary.

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His sleep was stirred before the burgeoning of dawning sun.
Regularly, years, despite vicissitudes, in bunk-bed
he wouldn’t stay – before the barrack’s early morning run
coughing, smoking, first of many. Found it cleared a tired head.

This gentle Northern lad defied the constant warning signs,
hacking at him, packets daily, deaf to implication.
Was not his place to question why, but wary of field-mines;

solace lay in morning’s dawning peace, a mute elation
accompanied by nicotine and tar, inclined, supine.
Old and well-thumbed copy of The Prophet travelled with him;

confronted by mass-rape and genocide, sick civil war,
continents dark seas away, with NATO forces keeping.

The inhumanity he witnessed slunk into his core -
blackened lungs gave up to cancer; Prophet never left him.

(Stress Matrix Sonnet No. 2)

☆

Second in my own sonnet form, Stress Matrix Sonnet (also known as Stress Checkerboard Sonnet). Details on it can be found beneath the first, Forks and Spades. This piece is another version of my previous post, The Soldier and the Prophet (which is in free verse ballad format).

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I’m standing with a handful of white pills; the road-sign glares.
Fuck the fork is knifing me, but spades I need for freedom;
this pit, knee-deep with blood and shit, and drug-induced night-scares.
Managing to claw out, cleanse, trade spades for forks and demons:

Do you reach up, or stay half-stuck? (My conscience hard as brick) -
needing pills and dins on pins, you wanna keep that going?
A half-existence meted out online, box-bound, brain-sick?

Welcome back the sun, the smell of life, the people showing
their faces, children tying laces, buskers jamming licks.
Market day, a happy fray – a safe foray, not knowing

what’s up ahead. ‘Extempore’ is in the keynote speech.
Feeling free is getting easier, on this condition:

eschew the drugs, and choose the road you see the traffic reach;
moving on, sing just for one, a renaissance rendition.

☆

This is the Sonnet version of my form Stress Matrix Dectet/Stress Checkerboard Stanza -

14 lines, 14 syllables per line – aBaB cDc DcD eF eF

where lowercase are iambic heptameter (7 beats/stresses per line), and uppercase trochaic heptameter. This yields a perfect ‘checkerboard’ of stressed and unstressed syllables (14 x 14, equalling 196 syllables).

Depending on where the Volta arrives (the ‘turn’ – resolution, or at least, change in tone, crucial aspect to a sonnet), there are 3 different stanza layouts (the rhyme-scheme stays the same). My turn quite obviously arrives with the last two lines, as is traditional in English Sonnets, hence the layout with a couplet to end on.

If the turn comes after the first eight lines, as it does in Italian Sonnets, the layout is
aBa BcDcD cDe FeF.

If it comes after line ten (unique!), then it’s aBaB cDc DcD eFeF (same as English but ending on a quatrain rather than the two couplets).

Who’s up for writing one? :)

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O Kýrie, eléison.
Engorging, slick, devour her skin;
Man’s avarice runs down his chin.

Atomic Power: blunt shotgun.
Her rising call – she’ll take us all,
tectonic plates unhinge the sun

with no respite, no interim -
O Christe, O eléison.

O Kýrie, eléison.
False credit, carriage, blacksack bin,
can’t hear the birds, can’t hear them sing;

endangered species face the gun.
Her rising thrall will force the fall -
one grimreap day will see us done.

In gouging: shit, sick in her skin -
O Christe, O eléison.

(Octain No. 5 – ‘Kyrielle’ High Octain)

☆

Kýrie, eléison – Greek for ‘Lord, have mercy’

Christe, eléison – ‘Christ, have mercy’ – both used commonly in Christian Liturgy/text.

This is a rewrite, in the Octain form I devised in December 2010, of the Kyrielle Sonnets I wrote recently.

Eight lines as two tercets and a couplet, eight syllables per line with the first line repeated (as much as possible) as the last. Meter is iambic or trochaic tetrameter, but fine to just count eight syllables per line for those who prefer that. I’ve used iambic tetrameter here.

Rhyme scheme – A-b-b a-c/c-a b-A

(A = repeated refrain line. c/c refers to line five having midline (internal) rhyme (eg. here/sneer), which is different to the a- and b-rhymes)

High Octain is simply a double Octain, but as one poem – the refrains are the same (though varying them to some degree is perfectly acceptable), a- and b- rhymes are the same, and the c/c line with the internal rhyme can optionally be rhymed in the second instance (as here). There is no restriction on the level of repetition, but in most cases the stipulated refrain A is enough; this may even feel too repetitive and need varying somewhat (as I have in this one), particularly in the High Octain, where it appears four times.

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.

If onanism means we’ll read in Braille,
Hellish future for mistakes committed.
If Papal dignity is to prevail,

counting of these sins should be omitted.
Forget it, mate, let’s oil the rusted gate;
for my sake, please take these acts committed,
and let my swelling diction penetrate.

Children grow up guilty private bankers,
(or laundering the stains, at any rate).
Vatican stays gold, like Dow high-rankers.

Urinals at the Vatican... (pinch of salt here - and Photoshopping by someone as yet unnamed. Too good to miss though)

Form – newly invented! Stress Matrix Stanza/Dectet (aka Stress Checkerboard Stanza/Dectet). 10 lines, 10 syllables per line.

a-B-a | B-c-B-c | D-c-D

where lowercase are iambic pentameter and uppercase are trochaic pentameter – they alternate the whole way, giving a perfect ‘checkerboard’ of stressed and unstressed syllables, ten lines down x ten syllables across (=100 syllables completely evenly distributed and the rhyme scheme also utterly even/symmetrical mathematically). For those unable to do the iamb/trochee thing, you could try it just counting ten syllables per line. You’ll be missing my main aim of the stress checkerboard, but it may well still be a nice form. We wait and see…

If I highlight the stressed syllables (and remove the stanza-breaks), you can more clearly see the ‘checkerboard’ of stresses and unstresses evenly distributed over the 10×10 (100) -

if O | na NI | sm MEANS | we’ll READ | in BRAILLE,
HELL ish | FU ture | FOR mi | STAKES com | MI tted.
if PA | pal DI | gni TY | is TO | pre VAIL,
COUN ting | OF these | ‘SINS’ should | BE o | MI tted.
for GET | it, MATE, | let’s OIL | the RUST | ed GATE;
FOR my | SAKE, please | TAKE these | ACTS com | MI tted,
and LET | my SWELL | ing DIC | tion PEN | e TRATE.
CHILD ren | GROW up | GUIL ty | PRI vate | BANK ers,
(or LAUN | der ING | the STAINS, at AN | y RATE).
VAT i | CAN stays | GOLD, like | DOW high | RANK ers.

No offence to any Catholics :) I’m sure you can see that this is a statement agains the old-school belief that masturbation is sinful and unhealthy. We have a common word for it in Britain – ‘wank’/'to wank’/'wanker’ (hence the ‘bankers’ etc).

Thanks to poet friend Carys for the brilliant title (all but the ‘Catholics’ part, which I added. Am I going to Hell now? :) )

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True deference is how I view
our meetings, cradled, innocent.
Our greetings peel, are quickly spent,

hours bulge, disfigure, warp, with you.
These keen eyes trace a joyful face
each time two friends embrace anew.

From other lifetimes roads are leant;
true deference, my point of view.

☆

This piece is in my own form, the Octain that I devised in December 2010, of which over a hundred have now been written (just five by me – this is my fourth). Wanna try one? Details on the form can be found beneath my first, Breathe.

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I’m finished carving girls from stone,
creating women, crave to touch,
from blocks of marble – figures such

when animate, I’m not alone;
but stone is cold, and I grow old -
call on the gods to make this koan

true woman-flesh to warm my clutch.
I’m finished carving girls from stone.

☆

Second of my newly-invented form, the Octain. Details on structure/rhyme-scheme etc. can be found underneath my first Octain, Breathe. Anyone wanna give it a try?

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She breathes old stone and winding lanes,
cathedrals, ley lines, sacred sites.
When John of Gaunt spoke of the right

this England had, Her hills, Her plains -
see, they’re still here. Deep-six that sneer,
dare venture from your Tarmac veins.

Stay silent in a field at night,
and breathe old stone and winding lanes.

☆

This is an Octain, a form I invented just yesterday, prompted by friends asking me when I was going to devise one of my own.

Structure – 

eight lines as two tercets and a couplet, eight syllables per line with the first line repeated (as much as possible) as the last. Meter is iambic or trochaic tetrameter, but fine to just count eight syllables per line for those who prefer that.
Rhyme scheme -

A-b-b
a-c/c-a
b-A

(A = repeated refrain line. c/c refers to line five having midline (internal) rhyme (here/sneer, in this case), which is different to the a- and b-rhymes. Any extra midline rhyme is a bonus)

Anybody wanna try writing one? I need testers (so far five people have tried it, aside from myself). Oh, go on…

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