Strangely Muffled

Strangely muffled
by winter weather,
the world is quieted:
trees loom behind thick fog;
there are no footsteps
and footprints disappear
beneath frost and snow –  mind how you go!

Strangely muffled
by mountains of dust,
as if a desert was emptied
over the planet,
only the top branches
of dead trees can be seen;
animals and humans wade through detritus.

Strangely muffled
by heat and thick smoke,
the planet rolls and bounces
through space, a tumbleweed,
shedding its sterile seeds,
towards oblivion.
No more life in the old girl – she is strangely muffled.

Kim M. Russell, 22nd October 2024

Image by Getty Images for Unsplash

It’s Tuesday and, over at the dVerse Poets Pub, Dora is hosting Poetics with mantras or repetita juvant – it’s useful to repeat things.

Dora says that “writers of all sorts have found repetition of phrases or lines like a mantra to be a useful rhetorical tool… Mantras are also useful as motivational slogans or encapsulated truths in mottos that get us through hard times.”

She tells us that “mantras… show up in poetry from the earliest times because of their strong lyrical appeal.” Dora also give us examples of the mantra as a rhetorical tool in poems by Merril Glass, Joy Harjo and Amber Tamblyn, amongst others, and how a mantra as a life lotto can be useful, for example, in poems by Wilfred Owen, who turns the motto ‘Dulce et decorum est’ on its head, Rhina P. Espaillat, who repeats her grandmother’s motto ‘Find work’, and Gabrielle Calvocoressi.

Our challenge is to either use repetition as a rhetorical device (repetition of word or phrase or line) in constructing our poems; or write a poem revolving around a motto whether useful or not in life, perhaps passed down in family or culture, and show how it’s been used or misused. If we’re ambitious, we can combine them as rhetorical device and a motto, like Wilfred Owens’ poem.

41 thoughts on “Strangely Muffled”

  1. This is incredibly deep and poignant, Kim! I especially resonate with; “Strangely muffled
    by mountains of dust, as if a desert was emptied over the planet.” ❤️❤️

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  3. The winter season brings out this emotion of strangely muffled. You evoke that feeling of aloneness and hurling towards nothing like a tumbleweed through space. Love this one Kim.

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  4. Tha apocalyptic feel to this, an earth “strangely muffled” in its death throes, strikes to the heart, Kim. A vision of loss, this hit me the hardest:

    “a tumbleweed,
    shedding its sterile seeds,
    towards oblivion.”

    A truly chilling use of repetition to achieve the poem’s purpose.

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  6. shedding its sterile seeds,

    Ominous poetry that inscribes itself onto my mind…, so very real…and in that line of yours truth…a poem speaking out for a planet in pain.

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  10. Yikes, nuclear winter and the resulting dead planet. Chilling. And the repeated line is counter-intuitive, the world dying not with a bang but with a whimper.

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  17. Your first stanza lulls us into a sense of a Winter naturalism but then it takes a very dark turn and so much hinges on the US election that I think we are all filled with dread, Kim and you are not the only one whose poem reflects these shadows…

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  19. I think you have aptly described just how life seems right now. I liken it to the verses found in the gospel of Matthew, verses 6 -8 where such a time is spoken of. Interesting times we are living in, that’s for sure, Kim.

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