hilly tincan evening

“We’re not our skin of grime, we’re not dread bleak dusty imageless locomotives, we’re golden sunflowers inside, blessed by our own seed & hairy naked accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our own eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sitdown vision.” Allen Ginsberg, Sunflower Sutra, Collected Poems 1947 – 1980


Well, and on this not quite as “hilly tincan evening,” a bit south of San Francisco, I wish you all the best. Sunday Announcements will return next Sunday. Sometime tomorrow – Tuesday – the collection of poems written in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt will post. Wednesday will offer the next prompt, a little something about hot August nights. Meanwhile, poem on my friends.


ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

orange fires at daybreak, a poem …. and your Wednesday Writing Prompt


She’s at it again, capricious Universe
She never stops cutting capers
Playing at blizzards back East, bopping
Like an adolescent at a school dance

Camping out on Venus and Mars
She tosses stars across the night sky
And lights orange fires at day-break
Warming flowers into jewels and pastels

When you see them in yellow
You know the Universe is laughing
Pink is her Cosmic “I love you! I do!”
Yep! Here she goes again and …

Now in California we can
Hear the splatter of rain on the roof
Fat drops to reconstitute dry earth
Wet is the promise of summer and
crops of  almonds and artichokes
avocados, oranges and cherries

© 2011, poem, and photo, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved


WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

“Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it,” is a quote often attributed to either Mark Twain or his contemporary Charles Dudley Warner, a newspaper editor. Tongue in cheek for sure, but imagine a personhood, a Universe expressing itself as weather, making a show of her peculiarities. How would you characterize her? Mercurial or consistent? Mean-spirited or generous? Does she seem random only to turn out to be intentioned?  Is the Universe a she or a he? Tell us in poem or prose. If you feel comfortable to do so, share your work or a link to it in the comments section below. Work shared in response to eaerch Wednesday Writing Prompt is published in The Poet by Day on the following Tuesday.

“Vacuuming her dressing table, you accidentally suck up her earring” and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

The poems published today are responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, July 19 – “because love poems are elegies.” As always, it’s so interesting to see how the perspectives differ.

Enjoy this wonderful little collection. Be sure to comment by way of encouraging the poets.

Thanks to Annie, Renee, Paul, Sonja and Colin for coming out to play this week.  Bravo!


“Goodbye,” she said

It has been – interesting

But …

The time has come

Leaving is difficult

Death is permanent

I must go …

To find myself …

Staying will only lead to

Death …

Maybe mine …

Perhaps yours…

Death is not

My style

Not my future

The choice made

“Goodbye,” she said

Leaving to Live …

© 2017, Annie Original Poetry (Annie’s Muse)

  • This is Annie’s first time here, so I’ll include her bio as is tradition, but it will be added in later today. Meanwhile, you can visit Annie’s blog and I hope you will and that you’ll visit the blogs of the other poets as well. J.D.

Forgiveness

is
more work for her.
Always afterwards she
strips the bed,
changes the blossom of linen sheets,

puts stained sheets
in the wash, hangs
them on the line or horse.

On ferries or in hotels
his jewellery catches
on hers, hours disentangling
earings, repairing necklaces.

His sweat drips on her,
not like a veil,
too soon, fat not muscle
flops over her.

He makes work
of her temper.

Takes too much time
to find sheet corners
that are never pulled
tight enough.

To her his help
is more hinder.

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow)

Vacuuming her dressing table …

Vacuuming her dressing table you, accidentally suck up an earring

and spend most of the day
your finger up the thin hole

of the bag until it drops out,
and you are covered in dust,

empty peanut shells, feathers,
cat fur and damn your OCD.

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow)


A Favor to a Friend

He was on leave her friend said
could she double date with her

a blind date she never would

but her friend’s cousin
was being shipped out
she said

so it was decided she was dating
a handsome young fellow
& she dating the cousin

a drive-in movie they went to
her friend in the front seat
& her in the back

with the cousin

she tried to oblige remembering
he was to be shipped out

so she tried pleasantries
to no avail
none at all

he moved in closer and closer
too close for comfort really

the kissing began
going on and on
without end

what was the movie on the screen
she didn’t remember seeing

he simply kept on kissing

did he ever come up for air
but he was on leave
wasn’t he

she was glad when the evening
closed and the movie was done
so she could go home

her friend the next day called to say
her cousin wanted to know
could he see her again
upon his return

but she tactfully found a way
to decline saying
absolutely
not

not another time

she needed air

© 2017, Renee Espriu (Renee Just Turtle Flight)


:: poet ::

it is just that some dislike

love poems, those that rhyme

all romantic. pretty though

they are.

some write of other

things, in a more

random fashion.

i like things private.

© Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonja Benskin Mesher, R.C.A.)

.. somethings cannot ..

some things cannot be put to word.

i try. hard. you lay there cold.

i stumble stutter say sounds backwards.

think i know? i thought i knew

you know.

there is silence. some socks

will not fit the drawer.

some things need tidying.

regularly.

some things.

there were bits of cabbage in the water,

now they are down the sink.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonja Benskin Mesher, R.C.A.)

294.

it all shows through
the other side
and backwards,
said

we the warriors
try to hold our own
under chaos
and scrutiny

invade the private place
at peril
you will kiss us,
kill us

is this love
or captivity?

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonja Benskin Mesher, R.C.A.)


your innocence

I forgive you –
the essential being
I am in love with
that looked down at little flowers
and took up whims with passion;
you are innocent in thinking that
you yourself deserve forgiving

well then I forgive the innocence
but nothing else:
perhaps there is nothing else to forgive
it being all your secret
and therefore nothing to do with me

forgiveness is an arrogant intrusion
into somebody else’s life

when I say it was
an elaborate charade
I do not mean you deliberately
tricked me rather I acknowledge
that I believed my own
solution to the discrete acts
you put on for me
to suggest the whole world was ours –
person place and thing

this fool
blinded by spot-light
entered into the spirit of the game
you’re so relieved to quit

one more day
to endure
(this I think you think)
of living where I fit
quite comfortably

our life ends
the day after tomorrow;
our brief life once
so promising
and I can see
you are excited –
something I might once have loved –
like a little kid at the start
of the summer holidays

© 2017, Colin Blundell (Colin Blundell, All and Everything)

The following poem from Colin is in response to the prompt on Wednesday, June 28

at a railway station

a black & white handsome dog
stands in an apparently patient manner
by his master while he fiddles around
with his bag on a seat on the platform

the dog looks at me
drinking coffee from a plastic cup
through the window
of the train waiting for departure

in an apparently beseeching manner –
when I smile he looks away as though

he can no longer bear human emotions
or confront the unknown or the untravelled –
in an arcane manner of speaking

© Colin Blundell (Colin Blundell, All and Everything)


ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

the counted days, the thousand nights – a poem


savor the counted days and
the thousand nights, the wealth
………………..of timed gifts …
this singular moment,
a million souls dancing,
reflecting something larger
like the moon’s glow as it
flames in your eyes by night

© 2017, poem and photo, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved