by 
“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.” Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living
see it moving – Life!
moving through the ache of time
seeking that place
where identity isn’t worn on a sleeve,
where individuals challenge the tribe,
where beauty frees itself from convention,
where the chains of fear dissolve
© 2020, Jamie Dedes
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
What do you think Life seeks to express through us? Tell us in your own poem/s and …
- please submit your poem/s by pasting them into the comments section and not by sharing a link
- please submit poems only, no photos, illustrations, essays, stories, or other prose
PLEASE NOTE:
Poems submitted through email or Facebook will not be published.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, February 17 by 8 pm Pacific Time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, check The Time Zone Converter.
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.
You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.
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Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 
Life –
pure,
primordial,
prana.
The subtle breath –
every second, minute, hour,
day, week, month, and year.
The challenges –
ongoing.
Learning to appreciate existence again –
this took some self-talking to.
Life, it can change–
pure,
primordial,
prana.
–Olive Branch
LikeLiked by 1 person
THE BOWER BIRD
Quintessentially.
Are we any different to the bower bird
following the in-built urge to procreate
offering or seeking a home for two
and then a few? More?
Genetic obligation to keep
the species going, dinosaur
or bug, potto, platypus or worm
living within their means.
Then we arrived, infusing life
with something different: nature,
nurture, conscience, community,
( though the trees showed us the way ),
artistry and greed. So here we are,
Tintoretto with a neutron bomb.
LikeLiked by 2 people
OF BALANCE AND TIPPING,
There is no formulae, of how and when,
To be concieved, to be birthed, or to exit the physical,
There is no blue print, of where and to who,
Souls pick flesh and names,
Yet, billions call earth home,
Earth is generous, almost insatiable in it’s taking, but also,
In it’s giving,
Seeking blindly in a path trodden for eons with bias,
Man is a stranger to his ways,
A racing heart out to conquer,
Often blinded by inner drives that feels little,
Or nothing for fellow kin,
Onwards match footing, marked by retrogression,
Ascending stairs to self appointed deityhood,
Man is a strange one even to fellow creatures,
Enough refuses to quench his man made thirst and,
Excess defines his bloated bludgeoning of everything,
He blames those he victimizes,
He laughs at the weak,
He taunts the struggler,
And despices the fallen,
His mortal body is a prison sentence for the pain of those easily manipulated,
What does Earth’s terrain teach the wickedness within man’s heart and deeds?
History never forgets neither does Karma smile,
The universe is the perpetual witness who never misses a detail,
We curse ourselves by our acts to others,
When we change the scales to gain us,
When we look the other way for inequity to grow roots,
When we wage dogged dogmas to kill thinking,
Or mislead to milk following for gain,
What then, after all the glory,
Begotten of spilt hopes,
Do we applaud the story of our life’s?
Nothing is not as empty as it sounds,
But a life devoid of balance whichever way it tilts,
Is a life distraught with gaps that harms,
Life is a gift ,
Sometimes without glamour or fair bells,
Still, it’s life ,
Sometimes without humor and with steep bills,
Still, it’s life,
And it’s differently the same for the grass and the grasshopper,
Man and beast,
Genders etal,
So we take within our means with a fair hand,
So we give within our means with a dear hand,
And act with the humility of the frail flesh, that all life is,
For to act otherwise,
Is to leap ahead into the abyss that historys of war chronicle,
And calamitous scrolls of nature angered enough to slap back the face of man.
As co-creators with the CREATOR,
May it be in arts or acts ,
Ours should be to seek to do good to all,
For we are children of the same sky’s,
And dust of the Earth.
To think otherwise is vanity, a fact that is in Vogue in our sad vague life’s.
Still, hope reigns in the hearts of few.
Hope is a mastard seed. Something will give.
Nancy Ndeke
February 2020
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GAIA’S OFFSPRING
Are we any more then than shadow?
Cast by some greater light, then adrift
Wriggling fingers of a greater hand
Scratching for some miserly purchase
From endless oceans of fine ground sand
Or pen and ink with which to stake claim
In truth no Shelley nor even Smith
The core of us barely substantial
Yet strut our stuff and nonsense at will
As self-appointed lord and master
Wild histories strained through calendars
Fuzzy snapshots back before colour
Ghost spirits captured in black and white
Beckon ever further inward yet
Moments, centuries, millennia …
Taurus, Scorpio, Aquarius
Join hands with Leo – a circle dance
To comfort those who seek for shelter
From the icy blasts of Fenrir’s howls
Parasites biting the hand that heals
Imagine that, a serpent with hands
Mythic conjurations down the years
Coded missives handed soul to soul
Like wormholes threading through the fabric
White with black within and black with white
Future yesterdays in present time
Before the confluence was broken
Who dreamt who dreamt before this head show?
Way back before the Word was spoken
Paradise captured in rhythmic rhyme
Across the darkness, “Let there be light”
Though not enough to read the rubric
Revealing the journey as the goal
Triumphs and failures, laughter and tears
Roaming eyes and hands mocked wedding bands
One for his nob and two for his heels
Reprobates disguised in monkish cowls
History’s course runs helter-skelter
Manifestation a game of chance
Your turn to despair, Ozymandias
Borne on see-through wings, ephemera
Born to dance one graceful minuet
Knowing too well death comes before night
In denial beneath the pallor
Masking the stench with sweet lavenders
The blood rushes faster and faster
The time approaches to pay the bill
The evidence is circumstantial
Time to see what hides behind the myth
Mayhap just a game – no blame, no shame
A pageant being played out as planned
In some realm beyond thought of purpose
Fresh blooms revealed all across the land
A new day emerges as mists shift
Wildflowers nodding slowly in a meadow
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Thank you for the opportunity and love to all from LA
MY GOWN
look beyond my dark thick gown
be strong and courageous
God is all around me
but you must look past my heavy gown
my light my freedom never closes
for i am not a door without a knob
look beyond my cowebbed gown
but make sure that you clasp your thoughts hand
you will need them for this journey
take time and show me that you are opening a window breathe liberation in
when the threads and seams of my tightly stitched sleeves imprison you
open your heart and push on through
the light is closer than it seems
there will be times when you’ll get lost amongst the blackest gauze of my deceptive petticoats
you will ache cry curse moan writhe in madness
dont be afraid to use the sharpness of righteous diligence to cut on through
don’t be afraid of my gown
within it lay your wings
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Jamie
. the same tune.
if they played the same tune
over, will despondancy ensue?
life is full of multiplicities, other
hard spellings, lessons to drench a life.
whilst in the midst, the struggle, we fall
and grow.
these things do happen,
to most people.
except some seem immune to
harm.
who are the chosen ones?
the radio plays the same tune,
faintly upstairs.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Life Expresses Through Us, The Truth
It is transparent, fragile, tender, light, soft
In flight, painless when free, a form,.an outline
Life is short see the industrious ant the tiny bee
in split seconds crushed killed under the feet
life is joy loss and sorrow,there is but tomorrow
all have a journey a purpose, strong or weak
all things but appear a meaningless scatter
when lost is the touch, body gone for ever
objects clothes even words don’t score
when cherished valued person is no more
one may keep snaps , books, cards and files
it becomes a storehouse of still silent piles
The heavy prompt rests on a serious note
reminds me of poet Ghalib and I quote
‘when I ceased to be,they found no ends
only’some love letters, some snaps of friends’
(chnd tasweer e butan, chnd haseenon ke khatoot
baad marne ke mere ghar se ye samaan nikla)
so what to leave behind and what all to take
leave the old memories, carry all good, no fake
for a writer, its the pen filled with non drying ink
the notebook , the laptop, to maintain the link
with it I may sling on my camera a gifted Sony
would love to ride and fly on a white winged pony
strong or weak, bright or dark, all end down on knee
but stars shine, will shine till eternity, for you and me,
Life tells us, it’s love, devotion, believing emotions’
strength surrender, impermanence here, eternity there
This is the enlightenment that distances matter not
If hearts have love, one is present, present or not
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Hi Jamie,
I loved Arundhati Roy’s quote (and your poem too)! You selected such a fecund topic — I could have offered 50 more poems around that subject. Thank you for inspiring us. I hope you enjoy your new apartment.
Mike
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Thank you for everything, Mike!
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“To Survive in a Haphazard World”
To survive in a haphazard world
In which good and evil are meaningless words
To understand what is happening all around
What has happened and what might happen or not
To feel what is good or evil to oneself and others
To think of what one’s done and not done
What one might do and what one must
To believe what one can’t think through
And to doubt those beliefs when doubts arise
To act when there’s no more time to think
But to stop that action when there’s time to think
Or it’s no longer needed,
These are what a mind is for.
July 26, 2019
(c) Mike Stone 2019
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“A Response to RS Thomas’ Poem (‘Balance’)”
Yes, God is the pirate who sails the wide seas
Between existence and non-existence,
Between time and space,
We walk His plank, not knowing where or how to fall
And yet we fall, abandoning our theories and our faith.
Our minds, then, what, pray God, is the purpose of our minds?
Our minds that weigh less than nothing,
Yet think of weighty matters,
These doubts, why were we given them?
To balance what we think can be known
Against what we think cannot,
So our soul may keep its balance
Walking God’s narrow plank.
July 25, 2019
(c) Mike Stone 2019
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“A Meditation”
Walking Daisy in the morning
Is a kind of meditation.
The trees burst with raucous chirping
A cat sits in a windowsill
Watching a lone bird walking
In the alley underneath.
What else can life come up with?
Oh look, there’s a butterfly!
It is the nature of beauty to beckon us
And our nature to follow.
A plump mango falls to the ground
As easy as that.
Would that all things good were easier
Than doing evil.
July 21, 2019
(c) Mike Stone 2019
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“The Hermit and the Cabin”
My poor soul, bless its,
Well, you know what I mean,
Would soar like an eagle over dappled valleys
Dragging my body along with it if it could
But it has grown accustomed to the weight
And cumbersomeness of my body
Like a hermit grows accustomed to his cabin
Of rough-hewn logs and thatched twig roof
Lost in a wilderness of loveliness and terror.
The cabin protects it in a small way
From the vicissitudes of a heart’s seasons
And the uncertainties of our knowing,
But eventually, the weeds send their tendrils
Through the chinks between the logs
At first admitting welcome daylight
But then unwelcome cold and finally
Strangling the logs with their slow sure strength
Until the hermit is forced to leave the cabin
Looking for another not too overgrown or exposed.
The old cabin will miss its hermit
Until the last log falls to ground
And the roof lies unthatched among the weeds, but
What cares the hermit for the cabin
Or the soul for its earthly body?
June 28, 2019
(c) Mike Stone 2019
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“To Be Human”
Poets, philosophers, and even scientists
Have wondered what a human is,
I mean precisely what,
And so, I offer ever so humbly,
Though it may be riddled with loopholes,
Nonsequiturs and insufficiencies,
My poor view of what a human may well be
Whether or not one is made of blood and flesh,
Walks upright or can construct a proper sentence:
First of all, a human should be in possession of humanity,
That is, being sentient of what goes on around oneself
And caring for the sentience of other beings
Whether they bear one’s likeness or not.
Humanity is not a single thing with thumbs and brain
But a great chain of being extending
Far back to some imagined Eden
And forward to worlds beyond imagination.
Lastly, humanity is not measured by what one knows
But how honestly one deals with one’s ignorance.
A human might be able to whittle it down a bit
But it will always be infinite.
June 15, 2019
(c) Mike Stone 2019
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Life moves like the Earth, revolving yet still,
it is unseen,felt only in places cut like crevices
and gorges, swimming in blood under cover
like rivers and streams, trampled over like
avalanches, corrosion and erosions, some
natural some by humanity,some by necessity
some to heal, some to accept, some to forget
some to live with,
Life is replete with diversity, color shape and
size,life is joyful serene and beautiful.
Life is time unseen, felt only, unpossessed
uncontrolled, it moves life
only time moves and reveals itself in ‘change’
in emotions reactions in patience in acceptance.
Life is a journey here, life has another life’.
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Reblogged this on The Wombwell Rainbow and commented:
Powerful prompt
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Thank you, Paul!
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Have a great day, Jamie.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! You too …
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