“I had been experiencing brief flashes of disassociation, or shallow states of non-ordinary reality.” Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
Sometimes …
We love living in the shadowlands that ride our backs,
pregnant with dream demons and rhinestone illusions ~
On such days we come crashing at the abrading edges
of narrow channels and wide-open oceans
………………………………..’till we are
caught between moon-sight and sun-gold distortions
Easy then to precipitate bursts of chaos in the
hoary hibernation of our soul’s winter, denying the truth
in our own voices, the god-awful transience of our bodies
……………………….Yet here we are …
………………………………Yes! Here we are
awakening on our rocky, rebel road …
serving up our spiny poetry
like Don Juan his peyote buttons
© 2011 poem and photo, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved
WEDNESDAY WRTING PROMPT
Share with us the poet in non-ordinary reality, the doorways that lead from the physical to the spiritual. Leave your poem/s in the comments section below … or, you may leave a link to it/them instead. All poems shared on theme will be published next Tuesday. Please do NOT email your poem to me or leave it on Facebook.
IF this is your first time participating in The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com in order to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These will be partnered with your poem/s on first publication.
Deadline: Monday, June 11 at 8 p.m. PDT.
Anyone may participate, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, sharing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning nonjudgemental place to connect.
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- Disclosure
Transition from revolution to reality and transition back! Sorry, Jamie that way, but it’s due to lack of time!
https://bogpan.wordpress.com/2018/06/07/25-years-and-more-later/
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No problem! Glad to see you. 🙂
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my second response:
This Poem Must Be Taken Literally
My body is a rainbow
My blood is an explosion
My heart is a rusty cage
These are not metaphors
Please take this literally
That cloud is my opinion
That road is an orange
That wish is my house
That burnt toast is my belonging
These are not metaphors
This hand is a metal spade
This foot is a knife edge
This mouth is a dark valley
These words are made of light
This is not a poem
This is the ultimate answer.
This tells you how to live
This tells you the only truth
This Mop And Bucket
are poetry to me.
My pen is a mop
I stick in a bucket
of disinfectant floor cleaner
pull out mop sodden
with words and splash
them backwards and forwards
slop lines one after the other
Until the floor fair shines,
My mop is dry, needs another dip.
I squeeze out the gunk
back into the bucket.
More the floor shines,
dirtier the bucketful gets.
A good poem is a clean floor.
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A LARK ASCENDS
To the memory of Ralph Vaughan Williams
I just don’t understand how it is done
the translation of sound to notes on a stave
not even for one voice or solo flute.
But I grasp the drive to capture bird-song,
wind -howl and the cries of the bereaved,
to work; no slackening before death took you
plans for weeks and months ahead, the only way
to face each day before the void. Melodies
drawn thread by gossamer thread:
I am there in the meadows when I hear
them played, in the woodlands and the salt-marsh,
music arcing back to a vanishing
world , to its ancient taproots, gifted free
to any willing listener. Our music teacher told us you had
died and all I knew then was Greensleeves .Now
your music threads my clothes and weaves
its way into my dreams. When it is my turn to leave,
Elihu’s Dance, larks and blackbirds will sing me home.
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This is last week’s prompt, so I won’t include it with this Tuesday’s post, but I will find a time and place to publish it. Thanks, Frank!
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Hello Jamie, my poem: https://momentsbloc.wordpress.com/2016/11/17/afloat/
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my first response. A few non ordinary realities:
A Smooth Skin
is ugly. Trace beauty
in bloody edges of scars.
Tattoo your face and hands
with raw wounds. Glow.
Bruises brighten your looks.
Pimples and spots mark sexiness.
Wrinkles entice awe.
The look is all in scabs.
Containers
do not contain. Vacuum
is packed with it all.
I wish you were more obtuse.
I can’t understand this clarity.
All is tightly enclosed in open space.
All is nebulous.
Please talk in riddles. Plain
Sentences confuse my head.
Exactitude is imprecise.
Clarity is obscurity.
Distance is not a measure.
I need you to be woolly with words.
Only The
incompetent do their jobs properly.
Ensure you are only partly trained.
Half skilled emergency services save lives.
It’s what you don’t know that counts.
Amateurs are the only professionals.
Fully trained and experienced cause accidents.
Complete competency leads to lack of trust.
Once experienced you are useless to society.
Successful people are always trainees.
They are oil in the cogs, ensure smooth running.
Mistakes ensure a job is done thoroughly.
They ensure society is rectified.
Be Promising
There are no promises.
Money does not exist.
Nothing to breach.
No agreements or vows.
One can never be broken.
You can never be on one.
No laws, no lines can’t be crossed.
You promise not to promise.
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gentle here this morning
sun dreams in
quiet in all the rooms,
and arms held high
i come into the morning
with string and sealing wax.
sbm.
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.valley of the widow.
grey day, rain.
squeaky bath taps.
this is the valley
of the widow.
this is the day.
writing the wall,
trees stand tall.
yellow flags, the route,
to another place
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Thanks Jamie
The first response
https://sonjabenskinmesher.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/reading-for-anna/
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In response to the prompt, “Share with us the poet in non-ordinary reality, the doorways that lead from the physical to the spiritual,” I’m submitting the attached poem, “Fog,” in .dox format. Please let me know if you have any difficulty opening the attachment.
/Users/michelestepto/Desktop/poems/fog/Fog, for The Poet by Day.docx
I have taught literature and writing at Yale University for many years, and recently at the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont. My work has appeared online at Verse-Virtual, What Rough Beast (at Indolentbooks.com), Ekphrastic Review, NatureWriting, Mirror Dance, Lacuna Journal, and One Sentence Poems, which nominated “The Unfinished Poem” for a Pushcart Prize this year. Along with my son Gabriel, I translated from the original Spanish Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World.
Thanks,
Michele Stepto
/Users/michelestepto/Pictures/Image_2.jpg
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Lovely background. Thanks for the bio. I seem to be unable to pull up the links. Or, did you mean to connect with Sandburg’s fog. ??? At any rate, I can’t pull up the image either. Sorry! Maybe just provide a URL or post the poem in comments. Thanks.
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Here’s the poem, Jamie. (No Sandburg intended, though his fog poem was the first poem I remember memorizing!) I don’t know what to do about the photo.
Fog
She received as a gift a carpet
with fog in it and moved
the furniture and rolled
the carpet out in the middle
of the room and found
that fog was rising out of it
in little wisps
and that when she stood
at the edge of it it
was just like standing at the edge of a cliff
high up over the ocean in the evening
when the fog is coming in
She moved the furniture back
and it did not
fall through the carpet
it did not disappear
she sat down in her old
armchair next to the lamp
and thought
she was floating in mid-air
on a foggy day
or flying a plane in the fog
everything feeling pleasantly
cold and damp as she closed her eyes
She sat there for a long while
dreaming about trees seen in fog
and things coming toward you
out of the fog small birds
who stayed put and didn’t fly in the fog
as she was staying put
now in her chair
their heads tucked
under their wings and dreaming
as she was of paradise
of their own Shambhala
high in the mountains
girdled in fog
or clouds
it hardly
mattered
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Great! Go ahead and send me the photo. thepoetbyday@gmail.com
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Aren’t we all as poets, in some way, rebels. Your poetry speaks showing it is unnecessary to have a voice with sound to hear. Hope you are well.
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You too, Renee.
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REALM
Sleep deprivation
May lead to conversation
That you wake up inthemiddleof
Even though it is you who is talking.
The Goddess of Sleeplessness
In that other underworld
Has made you an emissary of her
Realm,
And conferred on you
The demigod’s trick
Of creating monsters.
Taillights
Become eyes…
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Good. 🙂 Take it this is the complete poem.
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Yes. Sorry. This has happened more than once, I know.
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Absolutley no problem, no worries, Gary. Thank you for joining your work with mine.
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REALM
Sleep deprivation
May lead to conversation
That you wake up inthemiddleof
Even though it is you who is talking.
The Goddess of Sleeplessness
In that other underworld
Has made you an emissary of her
Realm,
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