what a morning, good morning
burst of apricot, showering light
drizzling glee, a child’s laughter
if I had to live for just one day
it would be this one, morning-glory
nodding her bright-eyed blue head
and i know, there’s no such thing no such thing as a death star
there’s only life, over hill and field
shining into windows, on warm grass Look! the daisies are smiling
and the California poppies are
popping yellow like corn in a pot
the moon was muse last night
today the sun is in love with me
Submissions to The BeZine, June 2019 issue will open in April. Look for announcements mid-to-late April.
CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS
ARTEMISpoetry features poetry, reviews, and essays by women. Submissions for Issue 22 close on 31 August. Details HERE.
THE ACCOUNT publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and is open for submissions begging May 1 and through September 1. Details HERE.
ANIMAL: A BEAST OF A LITERARY MAGAZINE, “an online lit mag where artists of word and image explore the ephemeral between human and animal,” publishes nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and art. Details HERE.
BREVITY publishes “extremely brief essay form” and craft essays and is open to submissions up to 750 words from established and emerging writers. Honorarium. Submission fee. Details HERE.
THE TIN HOUSE ONLINE featuring fiction, nonfiction, poetry “and more” opened for submissions on March 6. Paying market. No submission fee. Details HERE.
THE WRITER, which is “dedicated to expanding and supporting the work of professional and aspiring writers with a straightforward presentation of industry information, writing instruction and professional and personal motivation. In the pages of our magazine, writers share experiences, expertise, struggles, advice, successes, and suggestions…,” welcomes queries. Details HERE.
TUPELO PRESS, fostering the literary arts since 1999, hosts and “Million-Line Poem,” a collective poetic process involving poets from around the world contributing couplets to create a unique organic art. Details HERE.
COMPETITIONS
2019 BERKSHIRE PRIZE FOR A FIRST OR SECOND BOOK OF POETRY (Tupelo Press) is open for entries through April 30. $30 entry fee. Cash award and publication. Details HERE.
2019 CAVE CANEM POETRY PRIZE is open through March 31, 2019. $1,000 cash ward, publication, fifteen copies and reading. Entry fee: $20. Details HERE.
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
James Baldwin (1924-1987), American poet, novelist, playwright, social critic
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word “love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace – not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
JAMES BALDWIN (1924-1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic, and one of America’s foremost writers. His essays, such as Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-twentieth-century America. A Harlem, New York, native, he primarily made his home in the south of France.
Baldwin’s novels include Giovanni’s Room (1956), about a white American expatriate who must come to terms with his homosexuality, and Another Country (1962), about racial and gay sexual tensions among New York intellectuals. His inclusion of gay themes resulted in much savage criticism from the black community. Going to Meet the Man (1965) and Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (1968) provided powerful descriptions of American racism. As an openly gay man, he became increasingly outspoken in condemning discrimination against lesbian and gay people. Bio via James Baldwin’s Amazon page HERE.
If you are viewing this post from an email subscription, you will likely have to link through to the site to watch this video. I happened on it today, which inspired this evening post. Twenty-eight well-spent minutes.
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
Are we frail humans able to embrace the light, forgo the mundane for the miraculous? Maybe? Maybe not? Maybe sometimes? Maybe we try and fail. Tell us about it in your own poem/s and …
Share your poem/s on theme in the comments section below or leave a link to it/them. All poems on theme will be published on the first Tuesday following this post. (Please no oddly laid-out poems.)
No poems submitted through email or Facebook will be published.
IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.
PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.
Deadline: Monday, March 25 by 8 pm Pacific Standard Time.
Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning non-judgemental place to connect.
You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.” Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
I think it was Sherman Alexie who said imagination plus anger equals poetry. Here we might be inclined to say imagination plus acceptance and a soupçon of humor equals poetry as Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Deb y Felio (Deb Felio), Jen Goldie, Marta Pombo Sallés, and Anjum Wasim Dar conjour their afterlives, their dissipation “Into the / Elsewhere” as Gary writes. The results are rather stunning. Two poems read like meditations. Paul imagines not just himself but others and even points to the degradation of earthly conditions, as does Anjum. Paul touchingly includes his son. It was not planned, but our theme comes on the loss of W.S. Merwin who famously wrote On the Anniversary of My Death. These are the responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Where the Wisteria Grows, March 13, 2019. Thanks to our six lively and intrepid poets. Enjoy!
Readers will note links to sites are included that you might visit these stellar poets.
Enjoy this collection. It just might inspire some more of your own poetry; and, do join us tomorrow for the another Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are invited to come out to play, beginning, emerging or pro poet.
A Seepage of Spirit
The flesh in which I resided
Spilled its life’s blood onto the asphalt
And last vibrations that influxed
To my twin tympani of eardrums
Were Screech Thump Holy/Sweet Jesus
and the fog of my spirit meandered
with the help of–what else?–a spirit guide
whose nonvoice soothed nonadmonishingly
and invited my fog to revues
I had had
Love and waste,
Graceless gluttony,
Needless haste,
Petty cowardice,
Endless friending,
Harsh truth-grapples
Spiral-trending.
the angel (might as well call her so)
freed me of some
of my nonsensical notions
and told me my elsewhere was coming.
not quite yet though.
she invited me to skim
the landscapes and tableaux
of the venues where i’d
devoted my life’s energies,
and my fog narrowed in
to a ceramics studio
and the furnace roar
of a gas kiln
where i let my fog fill
the interior, becoming
a volume of inbetweens,
everywhere the vessels
and statuettes and frieze
weren’t.
i controlled sensing
so that the heat
was a perfect hot bath. i seeped
into the glaze-fusing forms
and blessed them, peeking
with bucking-broncos omniscience
into the lives
of the students who created them.
Suddenly I doppelganged
Into the 1979 lobby of the MGM Grand Hotel,
Pulled a cashwad out of my pocket,
Threw $140 into the table,
Received my chips,
Put $80 on the Pass Line,
Rolled an Eleven, and let
Myself dissipate
Into the
Elsewhere.
Watch thee sen as time fetches on
as tall hawthorn hedge that bars
tha from t’other worlds
in its cloud ghosted ditch
gets thin this season so as folk
from other side can fetch them
sens over an bleed through to ours
and tha’ll see these weird folk
take a stride outside thee door.
Blaze a candle in tha home
and set a flicker lanterns, jack o’lanterns,
candles outdoors to show
the weird folk, spirits and all
direct way back to where
they bide from, so as they don’t
detour where they’re not welcome.
Respect them, they’ll respect thee.
This night light a fire
in tha hearth
for to protect thee sen
or better thee sen.
Scribe on a scrap a paper
a part of thee life
tha wish to be rid on
anger, a baneful habit,
misplaced feelings, disease.
Lob it int flame
so tha may lose
that part tha ashamed on.
From the third and final book of my three volume A Pagan Year called Ghost Holiday as yet unpublished
just atter midnight
man of house
I do this ritual.
Get out of bed
call upon me dead folks
to help me this neet.
I potter round our house
barefoot no belt or owt.
Nine dried black beans in my gob.
Me hands raised
thumb thrust through
me clenched fingers,
after protruding clit
of Mater Manua,
mam of good dead.
wi this I ask she look art for us
aginst any unwanted spirits,
the larvae
who broke into our house.
I wash me hands,
chuck some beans with me left hand
over me left shoulder look farard
turn me head,
avert me face to right,
as I raise palms of both hands
against left a says
“With these beans I lob,
I redeem me and mine.”
I do it nine times
every room in our house. wash me hands agin,
clang a gong and shaht
nine times “Ancestral spirits,
time tha flitted!”
From the third and final book of Paul’s three volume A Pagan Year called Ghost Holiday as yet unpublished; also previously published in Three Drops From A Cauldron
FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.
Once freed from this world’s gravity, my spirit would ascend the skies
encounter the Almighty who welcomes me,
in love and purity, I rise
Empowered with all knowledge I never knew before
He offers me a choice of how to serve and live
and how to love him more
One is resting in the magnificence of his kingdom’s golden streets
another is in the heavenly choir,
Every note his praises release
The third is different, within his hand
a bloodstained cloth he holds
a shelter and a comfort for all in every land
I would return unseen but felt
when others cry from death, abuse, so many reasons
grief and pain are dealt
I choose this path to visit earth
now with new found power and purpose
surrounding others with the remembrance, they have been loved from birth
this cloth brings hope, comfort, and healing
for times when nothing else could
believing they were forsaken, forgotten and would rather be dead than feeling
I watch as the power of that cloth, blood stained,
dries tears and comforts loss, returns their hope, and courage
for another day, regained
It shelters them in the dark of night, in storms and in affliction
wrapped around them they hold on
receive it as a final benediction
My spirit never wearies since it is no longer of its own
but is with the child, the mother, the man
whispering, ‘you’re not alone.’
This is my hope for eternity, finding paths to trod
to bring hope, and comfort to anyone
needing the love of God.
Ominous winds sweep the earth
Brazen.
Flames get higher and almost
Burn you.
Breathing fresh air while rowing,
Your journey
Goes on.
The piercing ground lies at your feet,
The sheltering sky is also pierced
And more distant
Than ever.
Take your needle
Start to sow
Recompose the broken pieces
Of life’s puzzle.
This thread is your most
Intimate resistance.
Sow the sky, the ocean and
The earth.
Make a dress to protect the nudity
Of the leafless tree.
Save the heart from burning
And keep on rowing your boat.
Keep yourself afloat.
“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL.” Anjum Wasim Dar
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 