Half & Half is My Friend

Oh, Half & Half, how do I love thee

With your Half & Halfness you fill my cup

And join my sugar to make a happier me

As my energy levels move forward and up

From the day of beginning to lunchtime

More awake and alert for the day I feel

Ready to get writing and adding my thoughts

And through the days I will continue to shine

Never would I think of drinking an eel

Instead, only you I drink in milky knots.

Oh yeah. An Ode to Half & Half. Why can’t we write Odes to whoever and whatever we want? Why should it have to be something amazing like a soulmate or Mount Olympus? I mean, by definition an Ode is:

1.  A lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter.

2.  A poem meant to be sung.

Just because some of the most famous Odes are about things the author loves, does not mean it always has to be. For example, I can write an Ode about pluralized things like shoes, eyelashes, stickies, blades of grass, pants, scissors; or I can write about mundane things like toasters, refrigerators, paper, mugs, dummy books; or locations that encompass much bigger parts of the world like schools, hospitals, airports, countries; or even people like…oh, I don’t know, anyone.

I don’t think I have actually written an Ode since my senior year in high school. That was 10 year ago now. I like Odes. They are almost a randomly patterned poem, but of course patterned otherwise they couldn’t be called an Ode. They’d be just called a free-form poem.

There are plenty of types of poems to be able to express one’s self: