I stare at your name
Correspondence that you sent
Marked as junk. It waits.
.
A Poetic Asides Form Challenge: Poetic Form: Senryu (5.7.5) A type of haiku about human relationships or emotions rather than nature. This Writers’ Digest ‘contest’ ends on 31 May/13
http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/wd-poetic-form-challenge-senryu
The subject of this poem is an email from my mother-in-law that I found this morning in my Junk File. She passed away a few months ago.
Pity me full clouded moon,
Keep yourself not hid
I am in need to howl.
.
Poetic Form: Reflective Senryu (7:5:7)
Writers’ Digest Poetic Asides Poetic Form Challenge: Senryu and Wordsmith Studio’s Weekly Photo Prompt: Moon Photo taken 23 May 2013 with Panasonic Lumix f4.8, exposure 1/8s, ISO 1600
The Weatherman’s Tuning Fork
This calm is earthquake weather, he said.
Grandpa said he had a feel for nature, the natural
order of things. He’d sway in the wind like a stalk
of wheat and say he could smell rain coming.
I wasn’t that well-tuned, not quite that acute.
I could feel rain when it fell on my skin but I sure
couldn’t smell it. Grandpa was a weatherman’s
tuning fork; farmers were always tempted
to give him a sharp ping on the head so he’d
predict the next day’s weather conditions.
He’d shout out Rain! or Sun! or Wind! like
a drunk with deliriums barking at stray cats.
Now it just so happened that on this particular
morning the sun broke the horizon hot as noon,
and the air crackled sharp with the scent of static.
Even the elm trees down by the creek ruffled
the air with unwelcome mixed messages.
And then the lightning and thunder started.
Long and thin, white-hot threads of lightning that
stitched the clouds tight to the sky. They carved up
the horizon with light and rolled clapped thunder
in walls of ear-shattering percussion. Earthquake
weather, Grandpa kept shouting over the thunder.
And then lightning hit an elm tree, pulverising its
bulk. We were thinking Thor as bits of branches
and trunk flew through the air but most of it
crashed into the field, shaking the ground where
we stood. Yep, it’s an earthquake, Grandpa said.
He hadn’t seen the tree trifled with by lightning;
He was too busy sniffing at the air for signs of foul
weather. It’s earthquake weather, he said,
and then the sky opened and it poured rain.
Shortly after the townsfolk mopped up the mess
left by the great flood of 1928, Grandpa admitted
he might’ve read the signs wrong; maybe weather
wasn’t his calling. I reckon that’s when he turned his
back on weather and decided to become a dentist.
.
.
Written for Miz Quickly’s Day 25 AprPAD and We Write Poems
The first line “This calm is earthquake weather” is from “Song” by Randall Mann.
Reflections on a Late Afternoon
I am drenched in long shadows that stretch
the minutes of late afternoon. These moments
richly coloured with fallen petals covering
the ground, and I breathe in small breezes
that ruffle my thoughts – this moment made
for pausing over shallow sips of tea
as daylight fades into late afternoon.
.
.
Written for Poetic Asides, Writers’ Digest
http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/wednesday-poetry-prompts-220
Of Bells and Rings
Love triumphs on this day;
bells ring joy, the news of promises,
of a wedding, of vows and prayers.
Love sees spring ripen into fruitful summers,
and a union bright with life’s beginnings.
Love brings the freshness of green, fulfilling
long hopes with gentle blessings.
This man,
This woman,
Two hearts,
A new life
that are as fresh as May rain and as warm
as a father’s heart for his daughter’s
departure. And on this day, they bind
their promises with rings that hold
them each, tight and fast to their future;
Rings that wear thin with time,
like old doubts and worries.
.
.
Written for the wedding of Walt’s daughter. Poetic form: Epithalamium
A Muse: Discussions with a Mirror on Tuesday Afternoon
Part I: Not Someone I’d Wish to Meet in the Alley
My muse is a tapestry of images
and events. Some true, some not.
My muse is a herb garden where
tarragon is the only discerning scent,
where all else succumbs to its desire
and will. Its thoughts bend still water
into motion and softness to stone.
It takes, it bends, it destroys,
and floods the heart with tears.
It is grey shadow, it is sharp light,
it is hooded and shapelessly opaque.
It’s bony and it’s starving for attention.
This muse of mine
is most certainly a woman.
Part II: How to Kill a Conversation
For all I know my muse …
is a spoon,
maybe that one chasing off with a dish,
or wait, perhaps that cow who ran off
with the moon. Maybe not – I think it’s quite
likely a dumpty, that silly sod who took
a great fall, and then spread thin as money
at Christmas across the ground while we
all puzzled over which piece went where,
and which came first, the egg or
(The chicken! The chicken!)
at which point metaphor meteors
fall like pearls from sky,
and if Hennie Penny isn’t the most amusing
fowl’s name … although Cocky Locky,
Ducky Lucky, Drakey Lakey,
Goosey Loosey, Gander Lander …
…and I take a sip of sweet fennel tea,
and realise that it’s the only thing
that will shut this bitch up.
.
.
Margo’s Poem Tryouts: You and Your Muse
http://margoroby.com/2013/05/21/poem-tryouts-your-muse-and-you/
A Clash with Green
I speak to you of a clash with green,
of ash forests with tints awash with shades
beyond my count, and into villages fair where
gardens hot with colour attempt to tame nature.
.
.
Written for Joseph Harker’s Refinery prompt of 19 May/13 as I listened to “Bach in the Amazon”
A Stone Revealed
To a stone, a touch, a crush,
to crack with blazing heat,
a stone, a slab below my feet,
to cut, opaque, to shine with breath,
a stone, to fracture, grains of sand,
bleak nebulous strewn on this land,
from stone to sand, a vision, mirage,
stony winds hovering around,
behold your timeless face unbound.
.
.
Written for Sunday Whirl Wordle # 109 Words: nebulous, bleak, cut, vision, timing, touch, hover, crush, opaque, blazing, slab and breath
A Dissolving Moon
The meat in this relationship,
they agreed,
was as thin as paper,
and for an instant
they thought
they saw the moon drop,
just a bit, the maestro’s baton
missed a note,
maybe skipped a beat,
and they held their breath,
both suspended
between who would speak next
and who still had the strength
to turn, to walk toward
stars strung along the skyline,
but neither walked, neither spoke;
they knew the moon was
dissolving in their heated long kisses.
.
.
Written for Naming Constellations Refinery prompt 11 May
http://namingconstellations.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/the-refinery-pamela-sayers/ Write about a personal relationship using a celestial metaphor: heavenly bodies, space, weather, etc. Don’t make it about two specific people, but make the interaction they have specific. Have the poem be six stanzas long, each no more than five lines; in the fifth and sixth stanzas, the reader should begin to see how this metaphorical interaction represents the whole relationship. Include the words “skyline”, “suspended”, and “paper”.
Observations From The Eighth Step
I once sat on the eighth step
to the basement of Grandpa’s house.
I knew it was the eighth one
because I counted them.
Eighth from the bottom
and eighth from the top.
Those stairs were due respect;
they were varnished ice,
and they treated stocking feet
with disdain and intolerance.
Grandma wouldn’t have shoes
in the house, so we’d moor them
like boats in pairs on the porch.
And as I sat there on the eighth
step, a bit too scared to move
in case my stocking feet slipped
into limbo through the open risers,
I sat there quietly entranced
watching Grandpa dancing
with a tall cotton thread mop.
Grandpa was mighty tall and lean,
like a Norwegian pine he was,
and spindly as rising smoke.
He always seemed to be
on the move, on the run.
I didn’t know it then but one day
I’d grow up to be just like him –
tall, lean, spindly, and completely
incapable of sitting still. We loved
to move, to run, to glide and feel
the world rush by us like wind.
And as I sat there on the eighth step
watching him holding a mop
and dancing across the basement,
I asked “Whatcha doin’, Grandpa?”
and he replied, “Dancing with a cotton
thread mop, child. Are your eyes dim?”
I didn’t answer because sometimes
my eyes were dim; sometimes I felt
dim all over. And I sat there
for the longest time, watching
from the eighth step of Grandpa’s
stairs as he danced round and round
through soft streams of dusty light
with a tall cotton thread mop.
And again, I hasten to say that only
a third of this tale’s true. All the rest
is fiction of the highest tall-tale degree.
.
.
We Write Poems prompt #157 “Zen and the Soul of Body Maintenance”
and Poetic Asides prompt #219 “On the Run”
The Earthiness of It All
Worms never scared me
never turned me into
a girlie-girl.
I loved them –
their twisty curly bits
that swirled J shaped
hooks off the end
of my finger. I loved
that they lingered
and lounged
wrapped around
my thumb.
Earthy jewellery.
Nature’s ornaments.
And they were also
damned useful for fishing.
.
.
Miz Quickly’s Prompt; Day 22 – Earth Day, and Flashy Fiction’s All Things Small prompt
Spring on the Tableau
Your little silver
vase sits between flames
of candles bright, glows
with apple blossoms –
spring scents greet the air.
But winds howl down
the branches, raining
winter into May, white
petals stir the air,
blossoms in my hair.
Your little silver
vase greets apple scents.
.
.
.
Poem Form: Tableau – two stanzas of six lines each that must reflect a scene or representation. Written for Poetic Bloomings
