Hendecasyllabic Poetic Rant

Hendecasyllabic Poetic Rant

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I like to start my day by watching the news.
While drinking a snarling hot cup of coffee
As I watch the news, I write in my journal.
Writing down my dreams, stories, and poetry,
But after watching the news, I get the blues.
Watching politicians behaving badly,
Putting political games over the country.
The House of Representatives just voted,
Out their speaker playing partisan games,
With another government shutdown looming.
U.S. politics is now dysfunctional.

Intriguing isn't it... all these forms. I have another one for you. The Hendecasyllabic. I have read a few hendecasyllabic poems on the website of Jan Haag and could draw only one conclusion. The hendecasyllabic has only one requirement: every line has to count eleven syllables. That is, it! Just eleven syllables per line, and you can make it as long as you like.

My example:
Is it so hard...

Is it so hard, to enjoy autumn, my friend?
Watch the rainbow in the sky; it’s giving hope
to the ones, who need it the most. God does care.
Watch the color of the leaves, and discover
the new leaves for next year are already there.
Watch the forms of the clouds, passing in the sky,
feel this internal rest; no more wondering why,
things happen, as they happen, yes, life goes on…
and we are all going to die, in the end.
So go out, and smell the air of the season,
enjoying the fall, seems not so hard, at all.

© Bianca 2004


Poetry Forms:
http://home.planet.nl/~boons468/Poetry_Forms.html
Some of my art:
http://home.planet.nl/~boons468/Bianca.htm


New Prompt: "The Hendecasyllabic" is the form that we are going to use today. One stanza, 11 syllables per line - and in this case 11 lines in length.

The topic is free to choose.

Note:

I chose as my topic the current disaster in the U.S. House of Representatives over selecting a new speaker.

The following is my attempt to explain what is going on with the controversy over the voting out of Kevin MC Carthy as Speaker of the House. These are my interpretations, and others may have other opinions. I tried to be factual as much as I could.

The Leader of the House of Representatives is called the Speaker. He is the leader of the majority party in the House of Representatives and has considerable power as he sets the agenda including which pieces of legislation he would put forth for a vote. Kevin McCarthy was the leader of the Republican party which held a slim 4-vote lead in the House.

The Speaker has never been removed before, so we are in uncharted waters, and thus the U, S. Congress is even less functional than normal. There are big decisions on keeping the government open looming in three weeks, aid to Ukraine, and Israel on the line, disaster funding also running out, and the need to beef up border security, all of which are super-urgent and have bipartisan support, as does the idea of keeping the government open.

Since the House is the body that has to initiate spending requests, with the concurrence of the Senate and President, (the so-called power of the purse) absolutely nothing of substance can happen until they elect a speaker. It has now been two weeks since the ouster vote, which was led by eight radical Republicans upset by the previous Speaker's decision to avoid a costly government shutdown by working with the opposition party (democrats) to avoid the shutdown.