“Fog” , “This Poem Must Be Taken Literally” . . . and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

“The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

“If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.” Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

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The theme for Wednesday Writing Prompt, awakening on our rockey rebel road, June 6, 2018, was to share with us the poet in non-ordinary reality, the doorways that lead from the physical to the spiritual. This was perhaps not the easiest of prompts but these poets rose to the occasion with depth and panache. Lovely! 

Thank you Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Bozhidar Pangelov and Anjum Wasim Dar. Bravo!

A warm welcome to poet, writer and educator, Michele Stepto, new to The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt. I included a link below to her book, which looks fascinating.  It’s on my reading list.

Enjoy this fine collection with its profound delights and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. Links to each poet’s site are included below so that you can visit, read more of their work, and get to know them.

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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

© 2018, Michele Stepto 

MICHELE STEPTO: 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.

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“Miss Corde was reading Plutarch by night the books then used to be taken seriously” Zbigniew Herbert

(Adam Lux – Meditations)

Miss (or already, why not, Missis)
is reading.
So did she before getting married. The revolution of 1960s All is Love is over.
She used to sleep in tents. Why not?
The freedom has to be defended.
Drums, fires, the screams:
“Down with! Who doesn’t jump is.”
Rumble behind the walls. Marat is. Alive? Death? Used to live?
The time is traveling. The crown’s refined hat.
The hair short. With all the colors.
“In a dress like a blue rock.”
Obelisk? Yes! of passing from
necessity to
necessity (for survival).
Mrs. Corde, is reading. The Game of …
She’s dreaming. “All is love”.
The day is the most usual.

Charlotte?
She administrated justice.
The falling stars are glowing.

Democratic changes in Bulgaria started after the Berlin Wall in 1989 Jean Paul Marat, a prominent French Revolution. Charlotte Conde is his murderer. https://shortprose.blog

© 2018, bogpan [Bozhidar Pangelov] (bogpan – блог за авторска поезия блог за авторска поезия)

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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…

© 2018, Gary W. Bowers (One With Clay, Image and Text)

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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.

© 2018, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

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.

© 2018, Paul Brookes  (Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

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. reading for anna .

 

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.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

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

• sonja-benskin-mesher.net
• sonja-benskin-mesher.net
• Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
• Sonjia on Twitter
• sonja-benskin-mesher.co.uk
• Sonjia’s daily blog (WordPress) is HERE.

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There Is Someone

There is someone who talks to me
And keeps me waiting-
If only I could see The Spirit
Which I feel close by, yet so far

A bar on thoughts and actions,
I cannot think because my mind is quiet
And not moving or stirring
Lest the sweet words of The Spirit
May not find their way in-
And I may crush the tender layer thin

In between which keeps us bound,

I cannot let go the joy
I have found in my heart
at hearing the mellifluous melody
of the affectionate aura around,

which seeps into my soul to make peace
and washes smoothly away the tears
and the fears so deep,
I can now sleep with ease

For I cannot speak of the
Good Night Prayer
That descends in time so rare
my soul, to repair

And I cannot say that if I wake
Life may be like a snow flake
White and pure and sure, as
The Angels will come to Heaven, take.

© 2018, Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans)

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