The future is beginning now. When I arrive, I am what was missing before.
Tomorrow always becomes a yesterday. My past was once unknown to me.
Time is after all, a glutton. Best to concentrate on the moment, every time it comes.
Written for NaPoWriMo day 24.
The prompt is to “write a poem that begins with a line from another poem (not necessarily the first one), but then goes elsewhere with it.” “The future is beginning now” is from Mark Strand’s poem, The Babies, published in his Collected Poemspublished by Alfred A. Knopf in 2015. He is a former Poet Laureate of the United States and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Image is from Pixabay.com
Look upward with me, magnify the solar system. Marvel at what is light years away.
Now stand in still of night, look up with naked eye. Millions of tiny shining lights, star specks in ebony sky.
No matter our egos, we are simply small creatures alive for a millisecond of time.
All the more reason to be humbled by the universe, to live and love, thankful for every day.
Posting to dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe, and noting it is day 2 of NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month.
I’m hosting Tuesday Poetics, introducing folks to John McKaveney. John is a friend from San Diego who has an undergraduate degree in Astronomy and Astrophysics, is a lawyer, and has an amazing telescope! For today’s prompt, I’ve provided four of John’s amazing photos and asked folks to use at least one as inspiration for their poem today. See information below, about the photo I’ve used here.
Photo by John McKaveney. The Orion Nebula: “This is an active star forming region about 1400 light years away, of condensing gas and dust, illuminated by newly forming stars. Our solar system formed in a region much like this about 5 billion years ago. The photons that were observed when this picture was taken, left the nebula in 624 AD. At that time, Mohamed had just won the Battle of Badr, in Saudi Arabia, the classical period in Europe was ending and the middle ages beginning, the Mayas were just beginning to build their largest pyramids, and Europeans had not yet set foot in North America. Throughout this entire time, those photons of light were traveling through space to be captured to form this photograph, where their journey finally ended.”
I fell off the wagon tonight. Sprite at the holiday party just wasn’t merry enough. Only one Cosmopolitan, drinking with Santa tasted so good. then another another
an Alice-in-Wonderland night falling down, in to the rabbit hole another time yet again. I need help.
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting and asking people to include the word “fall” or a form of the word, within their poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Have no idea how Alice became an alcoholic….sometimes the muse just takes you down the rabbit hole! Image from Pixabay.com.
Do not come round me with doom and gloom, tales of burnt toast, Trumpian despair, woe-is-me whines about this country. I desperately want instead, to believe happiness lives.
Let us walk outside. Look for children skipping rope, sharing colored chalk, drawing sidewalk art that regales the urban streets. Let us look for smiles.
You do know we can vote? We can demonstrate. We can share our thoughts in poetry and blogs, letters and chats with our neighbors. We can choose to spread the good.
When you come to visit me, bring into my home a jubilant spirit. In return, I shall give you a welcome gift, bundles of daffodils tied in crimson ribbons. Can you see the joyfulness in that? Together, we can concentrate on hope.
Written for dVerse the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Sanaa is hosting, offering up a new poetic form for us to consider called Line Messaging. “Line messaging is a poetry form created by Angel Favazza where the poet seeks to utilize the last line of each stanza to bring forth and represent an idea, a thought and notion . . . the last line of each stanza, when read separately from the poem, should deliver an independent messsage or be a poem all on its own.”
Thus the last lines of each stanza above create the following much shorter poem: Hope Lives:
To believe happiness lives let us look for smiles. We can choose to spread the good. Together, we can concentrate on hope.
There is good in the world, I remind myself collecting my thoughts. In morgues across this country body bags, small and large. In churches and theaters, in schools and grocery stores, automatic military assault weapons kill. To concentrate on the good, sometimes difficult. Scattered thoughts.
Scattered thoughts. Sometimes difficult to concentrate on the good. Automatic military assault weapons kill in schools and grocery stores, in churches and theaters. Body bags, small and large, in morgues across this country. Collecting my thoughts I remind myself, there is good in the world.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Laura asks us to consider “cleaving to antonyms”. One method she suggests is to write a Reverso poem: same words read backwards and forwards, making poetic sense. She also asks us to choose a pair of antonyms from a list she provides, to include in our poem(s). I chose scatter and collect.
Today, in 2023, politicians and the NRA use the 2nd amendment, ratified in 1791, to justify private citizens owning military assault weapons. Do you think our founding fathers could even fathom the power of an AK 47? Or want Mr. Joe Blow living in the cabin down the lane to own one? And Mr. Smith, three cabins away? And Mr. Jones, across the lily pad pond?
In the Newtown slaying at Sandy Hook Elementary School, twenty children were slaughtered in a matter of minutes. Bodies were so obliterated, in some cases shoes were used for early identification. Three nine-year olds were recently killed in Nashville. The state legislature in Tennessee will vote today to expel three Democrat representatives because they joined more than one thousand of their constituents, the people who elected them, on the statehouse grounds in a demonstration for gun control.
Yes, somedays, it’s hard to concentrate on the good. And there is a lot of it. But some days, with 24/7 news, it’s difficult. Politicians are concerned about taking race out of books about Rosa Parks; banning books in schools and in town libraries; forbidding girls in schools (or anyone in schools) to talk about menstruation/periods until sixth grade; want to deny children, until they are eighteen, any kind of counseling or medical help for gender issues; remove gender studies as a major in colleges and universities; outlaw drag shows; deny women any rights to their reproductive health including in some states, denial of abortions under any circumstances or, in the news yesterday, after six weeks of pregnancy.
And we have mass shootings every week it seems.
So there you have it: a message read forwards or backwards. Anyway you look at it, it gets more and more difficult these days to concentrate on the good.
Apologies for the rant today – dear Glenn would understand. I miss him.
Toddler’s rosy ice-cold cheeks. Zooming, bumping down icy hills on cafeteria-trays as sleds. Crack-the-whip flying on ice skates. Chocolate ganache, icing supreme, marguerita on the rocks, please. Icicle turrets on snow castles, I scream for ice cream. Smiling me, at a list like this.
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Mish asks us to include the word “ice” or a form of the word, in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.Image by annca from Pixabay
They lived a merry-go-round life senses dulled by blurred vision. Maniacal calliope music, mired in manufactured grooves.
She rode the blue horse its mane gilded in gold. hands cold on metal pole, forever spinning ahead.
He rode two steeds behind, eyes wild with lust chasing her round and round, never gaining ground.
Desperately out of synch his up to her down so close, but always out of reach. Gold ring dangling in neon lights they rode on and on and on.
Rewritten from a poem I penned in 2016. Shared at dVerse OLN LIVE, the virtual pub for poets around the globe, today, Saturday January 21st.
Come join us LIVE from 10 to 11 AM EST, Saturday, January 21st. Read a poem of your choosing aloud, or just come to watch and listen. We’re a very friendly bunch! Click join us…you’ll find the link for Saturday’s LIVE session here!
Time is a glutton. Step back in time with me, behind gardenia laden breeze. School days, school days, good old golden rule days.
I remember mother’s shaking hand, she enjoyed a staccato existence. Track my life Crayola bright. It must be a dream because they leave the body.
I was born to die and so many have blood on their hands. May you burn in hell.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. For Thursday’s Meet the Bar prompt, Laura asked us to create a “Found Poem” by using only the first lines of the first poem we wrote in each month of 2022. We cannot add any words to the first lines, except prepositions and conjunctions to assist with the flow of the poem. I’ve added three words: “behind, because, and.” The two lines, “school days, school days, good old golden rule days” are the first line of my haibun written on August 2, 2022. This was indeed a sudoku prompt but with no choice as to the lines of our poem for today. I was quite surprised to see these first lines….some quite dark!
Oh . . . let it go! Quit complaining about growing old. I’m half-way through my septuagenarian years, big deal! If you divide life into seasons, I’m probably long past autumn, well into winter. Things I have on my must-do list, goals to achieve, to make my “mark” on the world?
So what if some of them don’t get done. I’m happy I can bend over to pull on my galoshes! Carless in Boston, I leave footprints in the snow walking to the store or to the doctor’s office. Shows me I’m still here, above ground. I’ll bet I can still make snow angels. I know I can – you’d just have to help me get up.
Think of life as a merry-go-round, concentrate on the merry part. So we can’t climb up to sit on the tallest horse anymore. Let’s just sit in the carriage the one with benches on both sides. It goes around just as fast as the horse. It just doesn’t go up and down anymore. That’s us you know . . . leveled out to enjoy the ride.
I’m hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse today, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I’ve provided a list of song titles about winter and cold weather. Writers must include at least two of the song titles from the list, within their poem, word for word. They can add punctuation between the words of the song title; or split the words over two lines (enjambment); but the titles must clearly be included in the body of the poem, word for word.
I’ve included three titles from the list in my poem: Let It Go, Winter Things, and Footprints in the Snow. Pub opens at 3 PM EST. Come join us!
Sun still shines at dawn to cause their demise at Charter Street Burial Ground.
I crave escape. A pen, and a plethora of words curtailing his gigolo lust, two stars over, from above the moon.
Respect provides a healthier view. Illuminated on my tree, “There is good in this world.”
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe where today is Meet The Bar Day. Laura asks us to look at the most recent poems we’ve written, preferably the last twelve poems, and taking the last lines from each of the poems, rearrange them into a new poem! A poetic sudoku! I did exactly that, not adding any words; not using enjambment (splitting words over two lines). These are the exact words from the last lines of the last twelve poems I posted to dVerse, (minus a prosery prompt since that was prose). Interesting how it turned out. Photo is from a visit to Glendalough, Ireland on a cruise a number of years ago.
