My apologies. When I logged in this a.m. I saw that I accidentally scheduled two prompts today. I’m leaving them both up since poets have started responding. 😦 At any rate, if you want to participate – and I hope you do – please feel free to do so for both if so inclined. Thank you!
.
The days were as golden as the sunsets
when we played on the Jersey Shore,
sandy and fevered in the summer heat,
the sun fading our hair and swim suits,
the evenings finding us a motley bunch,
hungry, ready to ply some old tin forks
to my aunt’s mac and margarine.
.
After dinner we tossed our gritty bodies
into a claw-footed bathtub. Sand swirls
where once the tub was white and scoured.
We’d move on, impish, soap-scented and
clean from the bath to our cots and lay on
worn sheets. We were quick to transition to
a sound-proof sleep, comforted by breezes
lapping at the open windows, leaking
promises of more romp and wrestle days.
.
While the moon-lighted nights pondered and
kissed broken shells and unkempt seaweed,
a cold custard of salty-wet beach waited …
for us, the dawn and our small bare feet
in blithe dance to a rowdy morning swim.
.
But these were short stays. Sunday would
arrive, unwholesome and unwelcome, time
to pack our bags and our laundry, our aunt
and uncle – raw-edged nerve – and we kids,
our spirits subdued, our skin browner-hued.
.
© 2013, poem, Jamie Dedes; I have no photographs of the Jersey Shore. This one is of Seal Beach in Northern California
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
Well, this one is akin to the first composition assignment on returning to school after summer vacation: Tell us about your most fondly remembered vacations. Perhaps you enjoyed it because it involved family and childhood. Perhaps it was a dream vacation come true. Or, maybe it was an unexpected adventure. Or, perhaps your best vacation is the one you are planning now. Tell us about it in poetry or prose and, if you feel comfortable, share your work in the comments section below or leave a link to it. Responses will be published here next Tuesday.
We continue with the current recommended read: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Left, right or center – American or not – it’s a must read.
LESSON SEVEN Be reflective if you must be armed. “If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.” Prof. Snyder, On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
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Love the poem about your childhood outing. Fun! Here is my response to your prompt. https://reneejustturtleflight.com/2017/04/15/white-flags-flying
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Wonderful! Thank you. Am working on the Zine but will check this out later. Thanks for sending the photos. Lovely.
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Thank you and yes, you do a wonderful job on putting the Zine together.
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Thanks. Kind of you to say so. You are included in this issue, you know. 🙂
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Yes, later today I plan on reading as much as I can of the issue as I usually do. I really like to see what others are writing. But today the rarity of sun is out and we are going to take a drive to enjoy it. 🙂
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there was a time [embolden the title!]
when one bottle of wine
seemed as if it was going to last forever;
the one I’m thinking of (purchased
one dinnertime in summer at 7/6d)
occupied a space in my life
a mile high and spanned the gap
all the way to Tibet; as you drank a glass
that dinnertime it seemed to refill itself
from the dregs of love
when one kiss would last
as long as the Rachmaninov cello sonata
whenever you put the record
on the turntable and let the needle fall –
obliterated in the so well-known cadences
which I could have been whistling
had my lips not been squashed against hers
when a bicycle ride would construct a day
down to the sea and back
across the long valley and over the downs –
magic ride often repeated –
I fill it from these dregs of memory
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Love how the wine refills itself and “dregs of memory.” Another fine poem. Thanks, Colin.
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Jamie – I’ve only just discovered this opportunity! Thanks! I really am so old-fashioned. WordPress is a Rolls Royce and I’ve just been polishing the rear mirror.
By the way I got out of wage slavery in 1992 rather than 1999 though whatever the date it still seems either like yesterday or 50 million years ago!
Onward!
Colin
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Hi Jamie, This is my response to today’s response:
To Italy
you never expected this
we touch Florentine great black hog’s ringed cold snout
a ritual au revoir
taste best bitter coffee on the TGV
see snowed peaks of lower Apennine mountains
out of warm train windows
enter massive
Milan train Station
nine days coach trip
poke me in the side
when coach pace nods me off
stroll spiral down to medieval streets and a tilted horse race square
walk Rome’s cobbles amphitheatre
marvel at Vatican mosaics
we thought paintings
want to stroke cordoned vast
marble muscles
lilt up Venetian canals
wonder why when renovating buildings at home
builders don’t have picture tarpaulins
of the building beneath
you never expected this
for my fortieth
expected Wales or Scotland
then I request you order
a passport,
and live nine days
out of a suitcase
and thank your late father
our invisible companion
who made this possible
Paul Brookes
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A wonderful poem/story/trip. How fortunate, Paul, that you were able to do this. See your poem here next Tuesday unless for some reason that doesn’t work for you.
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Thanks Jamie for the prompt. Hope all is very well?
Here is one response……
. again, the small things.
it is the little things that excite, even
in the height of summer, low look
for seeds, small flowers studded
in hedgerows, dry stone walls here.
our lane remains dusty, unmade, plans
delayed a while to update. developers have
bought the big house, a nice place for holidays
and rabbits.
the stone lion is gone, due to health
and saftey, wobbly.
there is a small pool, to look
in for blessings , a reflection
on the day .
seeds
for the future.
sbm.
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Well done as always, Sonja. A post for next Tuesday. Bravo!
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