Sun streams
distorted by blind slats.
Window to the world
disjointed paths of light.
image from pixabay.com
inhumanity
Empathy
What if I became you?
A three-letter being instead of a one.
Not won but lost.
In your shoes with one lost sole.
A lost soul.
What if you became them?
A four-letter being instead of a three.
Not a one. Never won.
You as them. Not allowed in.
On the other side.
Outside, like them.
The other’s side.
Not here. Never here.
What if you were them?
You, an other.
Merril opens the new year at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. She asks us to consider time and space and what if. Her prompt: “What if you – or someone else – or some THING else – took that less or more-traveled path? Would it make a difference? Will it make a difference? Look backward, forward, inside, and out. Then wonder, what if?” Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Stop by and begin your 2019 by imbibing some words today!
Todays Create Tomorrows. . .
Words matter,
sly winks silence not.
Words hurled into sea of humanity
ripple inhumanity.
Build waves tumultuously
till tsunami destroys.
Words matter,
crowds riled to group-think.
Vitriolic spittled slogans,
us-them denigration.
Barbed words
create the wire.
This era,
tomorrow’s ancient script.
Our ever-living shame.
De hosts Monday’s Quadrille at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today’s prompt word is “wink.” A quadrille is a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!
for far too many . . .
Brown girl dreaming,
tattered ribbons woven
through dark tresses.
She walks in beauty
always plodding upstream,
seeking answers to secrets
from the center of the world.
Oh, to make a joyful noise
that all might hear in high fidelity.
Shout love triumphs hate.
One hundred white daffodils
strewn upon blood soaked streets
could turn a pinkish hue.
Become peace roses beneath our feet.
Oh for those inalienable rights
to be shared amongst us all.
Beyond the hour of land divided,
us and them transformed to we.
To prosper, pain free,
beyond this faithful and virtuous night
into and during every living day.
Or was that Declaration,
that torch held high
to those across the seas . . .
were those just words and symbols?
The happiness project
never intended to be shared,
never meant to be?
August 9th is National Book Lovers Day and National Hand Holding Day, International Day of the Word’s Indigenous People, National Rice Pudding Day, and National Polka Day! It’s also OLN (Open Link Night) at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Folks can post one poem of their choosing – any form, any topic.
In honor of National Book Lovers Day, I’ve posted a “book spine” poem written with book titles, all from the bookshelf on my desk. Reread the poem, and you’ll find these titles, in this order:
brown girl dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Ribbons – Spring/Summer 2017: Vol. 13, No. 2 (Tanka Society publication)
she walks in beauty (A Woman’s Journey Through Poems) by Caroline Kennedy
Upstream by Mary Oliver
Secrets from the Center of the World by Joy Harjo and Stephen Strom
Joyful Noise (Poems for Two Voices) by Paul Fleischman
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
A Hundred White Daffodils by Jane Kenyon
The Hour of Land by Terry Tempest Williams
Pain Free by Pete Egoscue
Faithful and Virtuous Night by Louise Gluck
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
hey, bun! right it wrong
there are days i can be in a haze. a daze. or a funk phase. i seem to be addicted to twenty-four-seven news. seams unravelling. politics, shootings, kapoho buried in lava. earth shudders, smolders in unrest. seems everywhere.
one day this week i should go cold turkey. weak? just do it. a day without news. without gnus. there are no gnus in boston. my phone as phone only. ear to the metal. eyes won’t smolder. just ears, if I get a hotty call.
nature irked, smolders
belches red, spills, spews lava
tourist season be damned
It’s Haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Jill asks us to try our hand at avant-garde poetry — to write an unventional haibun. Traditional Haibun: one or two paragraphs of tight prose followed by a haiku about nature that includes reference to a traditional season, IE spring, fall. So – capitalization be damned; and I’ve added a tourist season.
Photo: from art exhibit in NC: standing in front of what looks like a traditional mirror and somehow, the artist makes steam come out of your head in your reflected image! These days, that’s what the news does to me far too often.
IMPORTANT reference: We stayed at the beautiful Lagoon House on the Big Island in 2000, 2001, and 2005. See 2001 photo below and explanation beneath.
Lagoon House. I was in contact last week with the realtor who continues to offer rentals on the Big Island. He sadly told me the entire Kapoho area, including Lagoon House, is now under 30 feet of lava from the Kilauea eruption. It will literallly be hundreds of years before this area of the Big Island is inhabitable again.
She Melts
blue ice cold as cold can be
cleft from frozen earth abandoned
floats alone drowning
so deeply down in sea of despair
deplorable evidence scarred inside and out
man’s neglect his indifference
temperature rises her tears flow in melting fear
frequent fissures pulled asunder
disaster nears she dies more each day
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where today Paul asks us to write a contrapuntal poem. The term is taken from the musical world and means counterpoint…a piece of music with two or more independent melody lines.
Read this poem three ways (IE three melody lines if you will).
1. left column only
2. right column only
3. from left to right in total – as in all the way through the first line, ignoring the big spaces between the columns; then all the way through the second line etc.
Iceberg photos from out trip to Antarctica. Eyes photo from Pixabay.com.
Bowery Dame
Hey mistah!
What are ya waitin’ for?
Lookin’ for some kix?
Just a fiver for my special K!
That’s a kisser ‘n lots more.
You a sea capn’?
Crunchin’ time
away from the missus?
C’mon and sail my ship!
They called her a total froot loop,
nuttier than a fruit cake.
She owned her corner,
struttin’ her stuff in the Big Apple.
Jack of all trix in her trade!
Arms wrapped in bangles
lucky charms danglin’,
jinglin’ through all seasons.
Frosted flakes her winter glitter,
traded for sweat beads in summer.
Garters held by safety pins,
no chex and balances in her life,
just one day to the next to the next.
Known on her unseemly block
as the My-Fair-Lady dame,
clients banged her for a few bucks.
Yelled out their cheerios
as they straightened their ties,
hopped a taxi,
and went home to their wives.
I’m hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse today, the virtual pub for poets, and we’re brand name noodling! I’ve given folks three categories: candy bars, cereals, and perfumes. I’ve listed at least sixteen products in each category. Folks are to choose ONE category, and write a poem that includes at least TWO of the product names within that category. . . using them as just words in the poem.
I’VE CHOSEN THE CEREAL LIST FOR THIS POST: Kix, Special K, Cap’n Crunch, Total, Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Trix, Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, Chex, Life, Cheerios, Fruity Pebbles, Alpha-Bits, Cocoa Puffs, Count Chocula, Harvest Crunch, and Puffed Wheat. I used the first 12 in this poem.
Also did a poem using the Candy Bar list! Take a peak!
Disillusioned
“apologizing to the other passengers. As if car sickness was a crime.” page 111, 5th line in 3rd paragraph of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
“You the sand I’ve crawled across.” page 111, 5th line in 3rd stanza in Jelly Roll by Kevin Young.
Disillusioned
Apologizing to the other passengers
as if car sickness was a crime.
Commuter train to end of line
end comes everyday.
Nauseating life of dregs,
there and back and there again.
Everyday merry-go-round hell.
Cell phone glued to your ear,
apologies for my stench.
I was you until I burned,
abandoned by the man.
You happy across the aisle,
my respect tossed to winds
abracadabra, like magic dust.
Path of self-worth, weed-whacked,
lost soul like tumble weed.
Arid dunes, grain smothers grain,
insurmountable pile.
My brain is a desert skull.
Bleached-bare eye sockets,
parched blind of caring.
And you sit there like him.
You the sand I’ve crawled across.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Amaya asks us to bridge the gap: take a book near your bedstand, open it to page 111; copy the 5th sentence/line in the 3rd paragraph. That is the first line of your original poem. Choose a 2nd book and do the same but, this is the last line of your poem. And she admonishes, NO CHEATING! When I saw the line in The Kite Runner I was ready to pick a different book! But, no cheating…so Disillusionment is what came out of this prompt.
Allegory
Standing midst the city bustle
carousel with children chortling
dark-suited briefcase clutchers
people-ears attached to cells
city buses garbed in gaudy ads
taxis weaving, hotly honking
rushing quick-stepping humanity
standing midst the city bustle.
Standing midst the city bustle
lone curbside flower bed
stems bedraggled, drooping heads
once gaily bright and newly sprouted
dulled by daily apathy
straw-color shrivel, stripped to shreds
barely living, shadowed existence
dying midst the city hustle.
NaPoWriMo Day 4. Prompt is to realize the importance of description in poetry. It’s all in the details, hence, no photo today
April: National Poetry Writing Month, a poem a day til the month of May.
Lost
She lurched through life
masked as some kind of bandit
hoping to steal affection,
waiting impatiently
for the mardi gras of life
to throw beads her way.
She stumbled on embankments
peripheral vision hampered,
mask drawn too close to her soul.
Glancing downward,
sun blinding, glare too harsh,
she saw the rat staring from gutter’s grate.
Tomorrow would be yesterday.
No map to guide her.
she finally gave up hope.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where today Mish is asking us to write a poem that somehow deals with the word “mask.”
