by 
“They have the guns, we have the poets. Therefore, we will win.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..these
the quiet afternoons pulsing peace,
Bach on the radio, sustenance simmering
on the stove of my tranquility, the days
chasing night, the nights chasing day,
rhythms caressing my face, love-bites
armouring the leg of my being, heart
beating at one with the sighing Pacific
and only gratitude for the gift of life,
no more scandalized by the news of
death, baptism into heaven, whatever
that means, but the reports center on
conflict, Palestine, Ukraine, Maghreb
easy to foment flash-points for horror,
even easier to forget just how sweet it is
to breathe with the moon and sun and
to grow with trees bending in the storms,
obeisance to the seas and sky and
living on the edge of eternity, time to
give it up, to give-up strife and anger for Lent,
to never pick them up again, to be moved only
by the gentle breeze of butterfly wings,
color and transport for our feasting hearts
© 2020, Jamie Dedes
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
We’re in the Christian season of Lent right now and abstinence is a tradition during this period. What if we were to hold some sort of international nondenominational lenten celebration, one that involves abstaining from war and conflict while committing to compromise and to unity with and respect for nature into perpetuity? Share your own vision in your 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Poems submitted through email or Facebook will not be published.
Deadline: Monday, March 9 by 8 pm Pacific Time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, check The Time Zone Converter.
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You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.
Jamie Dedes:
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- 2020 Poet Laureate of Womawords Literary Press
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..message to james..
i am fortunate that i have
much that is needed here
i feel for those that don’t
he titled his drawing
corona
and i shared it
i had done some of my own
without a thought
stay well
James
Sonja
in splendid isolation
the window wide
birds still sing
while i wash my hands
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Hi Jamie….thanks.
I have added my contribution yet i cannot see it. Is it received? x S
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Hi, Sonja! I’m just working on the post now. I don’t see anything in response to this prompt and I did check trash and spam to make sure nothing untoward happened. If you want to pop one in, I’ll include it. Thanks! 🙂
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.resistance to war.
:: this is a new story ::
where.
where does collaboration work? here.
with you, you, you and you, i have named you
before.
with tags and capitals, links and other stable
placings.
i was only stitching. a steady hand. it was an offer,
happily accepted.
i was only drawing. so we drew together. here
& another place.
i was only writing a, yet there are many of
us who came together.
we are alone, until we start working
together.
it comes a wider space, with mistakes and misgivings.
nothing in this world is perfect. it is raining today. the
washing is out.
neighbours help.
writers help, drawers
line our walls with
notes & labels. a few
of us
work together.
and do not fight.
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Got it. Thanks, Sonja!
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“March Respite”
On the way from
winter’s weather delays and icy
lashings to the exuberance of
excursions into splashes of
spring sunshine,
let us pause and ponder
and sacrifice the coveted asset of
busyness embraced by those who
clutter and choke their calendars with commitments
because idleness is undesirable and
“rest” really is a four-letter word. Let us
resist the temptation to burden and bully our
beautiful existence with over-toil and instead be still and
gaze at grackles hopping over grass drenched
by dew and chipmunks flashing their chubby cheeks
while honoring the early-bird boldness of crocuses
chasing away snow and the curling blossoms of
blue hyacinths mimicking Marge Simpson’s beehive hairdo.
Let us smile as sincerely and as gently at others partaking in
this pursuit of
peace and paz and salaam and shalom and shaanti and mir as
at our rushed brothers and sisters who are
abstaining as we strive to listen to the longings and
needs of our planet and of each other.
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Hello Jamie! Not last minute this week! Such an apropos request for this Lenten season. My response is entitled:
The Path – A double Nonet
The straight and narrow path calls to me
Stay strong, be brave, keep eyes ahead
Gluttonous green surrounds me
Lusciously tempting me
It can be all mine
Lumber, water
Resources
I will
Take
And
Share them
The path says
You have enough
Abstain from conflict
Caused by fear, greed, hurt, hate
Bridge ignorance with knowledge
Each slat a step to love and peace
Generosity widens the path
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🙂
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Come let us be, then in ….those
Warm sunny carefree mornings,
lazing on the mat , building castles in the air, as
soft gurgles of transparent streams make music
in the spheres, ripples of surging receding waves
play as Beethoven’s overture’s pauses, interlude’s
quietude engulfs the skies, being one with the golden
horizon where love reigns supreme-
Come let us waltz to Johann Strauss melodies,
And hold tender souls, breathe in pure peace, let the ocean
breeze caress the spirit for moments uncounted, evenings
may chase the nights, twinkles may keep bright the nights
emerging into holy day breaks, then in gratitude we bow to
find the gift of life, no more fear, no more strife, just poems
of love and tranquility, sweet soothing notes of flutes and pipes
and murmuring bleats of lambs innocent.
Come let us walk in forests safe, no Robin Hoods to play,
And sit with the squirrels, sing with the twittering birds, eat the
raw berries and lie on pine needles dry, let the animals freely roam,
the monkeys swing from branch to branch, flowers wild bloom around,
rest in shades and against the trunks as they brace the furious storms,
firmly rooted , no fear, no cuts, no brutal sawing of the elegant pines
no habitats destroyed, no homeless to die, no clearing no fines. Growing
on for invisible insects, purity and equality.
Come let us give up, then ………..for perpetual peace
Give up anger give up greed, give up deception and be free
give up hatred give up fights, give up conflicts give up wars
abstain from frowns to start wearing smiles, stop all conflicts for
miles and miles, give up force and corrupt power, and take up
tenderness as soft as butterflies, give up the guns and weapons and
work and sing with the bees, let us make life as sweet as honey and give
up once and for all the lust for money.
Come this is the time , let us then pray
May peace be high in perpetuity, the world may become,
as gentle as a butterfly
Amen.
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Thank you Respected Jamie Ji
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Respected Jamie Ji
Envisioning Peace on Earth
Ages ago right guidance was ordained
can we revert to the simple times again?
The Earth is alive below, beneath
shaking disturbed cracking, still-
yet in revolution,moaning,
rumbling protesting, death sprawling
O’ pale moon, bear witness
O’ sometimes silent sometimes chirping birds
take notes to the skies, fly, as nature holds the
wings-from darkness to dawn.
Speak not of the blood
that flows like rivers from wounds
that oozes from cruel cuts by sticks and pellets
that drops from splinters showered by blasts
that is visible on clothes tattered and shrouds
O’ Moon
see the other side and send
a sign of peace
a bird of song
a light of love
a tree of enlightenment
Find, find a harbinger of truth
justice and salvation.
The Earth is alive below, yearning,
to heal -hoping, anticipating,
II
The decision is made, now
let us pause and reflect,withdraw
into a state of tranquility and calm
think about right and wrong
withdraw into simplicity like
the desert plain and warm
think of joy love and peace
comfort sympathy and not harm
of trees plants fresh and green
of buds flowers bright and colorful
of streams and rivers pure and clean
of seas oceans calm and serene.
so we all abstain from abuse
hatred jealousy and refuse
hasty greed and grabbing spree
and being content, with all agree
Hope be our constant company
one fine day, peace will dawn
all shall live in harmony
a dream it is, a vision new
together we all, can make it come true.
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I am cosmic
magnetic energy
hallucinating alternate dimensions
mask unveiled
I am in sympathetic vibration with the multiversal force
bridging time and space
creatively contemplated
coding time and consciousness
attempting to measure moments
waiting for resurrection
fusing conformity and dissention
through elevation
I am breathing in the cosmos
creationing and becoming
transform into music
feeling blue
’round midnight
I dance
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REACH FOR THAT CHILD, S/HE IS THE EMBODIMENT OF LOVE AND PURITY.
In us all, big, small and distance,
Is a child,
Regailing in the wonders of Nature,
Driven by appreciation of a stranger,
He watches the canterpillar, and Marvel’s at a blade of grass,
His play is pure, devoid of gender, even of color,
Humanity is one,
Divisions are selfishness driven by greed,
Our needs tell our oneness,
Not the relics of your worship,
Our pains inform our feelings,
Not boundaries and nationalitys,
Aren’t we all of a mystical source,
A river of interconnected beads,
Aren’t we dust, coming and going back?
We build monuments,
That stand in the way of truth,
Empasis being a stumbling block,
Lenses to discount and disclaim another,
We build economies,
That draw blood to stay afloat,
Trust has been eroded with the force of ideology,
History has been faked,
To mis- teach and misdirect our thoughts,
Away from the sameness of life,
Into the fabled divides that keeps us condemning,
O sons of men !
Why won’t we remember our days of childhood,
The bliss of spontaneous songs with fellow creatures,
When worship was praise of good will like kindergarten kids,
See how we build walls ,
Not to keep disease and wild life away,
But anyone deemed other by our spitting egos,
See how armed we are,
Not against alien invasion,
Or castrophes of nature,
But against fellow men,
From references of false teachings,
That has us,
Screaming obsecinities at who we are directed to hate,
We watch beasts marching in herds in the forests,
Fish swimming in choreograpged schools in the oceans,
As for bees, they work in uniform and focused synchrony,
Yet, US,
With capacity to think and make decisions,
Ours is a house so divided we are lost at home,
Wonder of wonders our humble beginnings are no secret,
Neither our sad ends,
We are for sure the danger that harms the innocent,
Yet , we do so with minimal remorse,
And maximum force under guise of ‘self protection’
Who is self if not fellow flesh,
Who is the other if not a mirror of your own,
We are at that time of year,
When over a billion hearts deny themselves to reach out to the sky,
Traditions of Faith’s talks of self denial to reach out to the light,
But pray tell,
Is the light we seek not within us and other?
Within each creature is the universe complete,
And for it to enjoy this space that life came to experience for a while,
Peace is Paramount,
And love of other is the foundation of good will,
Without which, our deeds come short,
Awake O men of flesh and dust to your moral campus,
Seek within the true nature of why our earth is in such agony,
Stand tall with the message of wholeness,
For wholeness is the path that allows life to thrive,
Not surviving from one calamity to the next,
A fact of the world we are currently living on.
Stand and be counted as an ambassador of Peace.
Reclaim who you were before misdeeds came to rule your concious.
Nancy Ndeke.
@ March 2020
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Warlord
loves to be entertained.
After a battle where skulls are blown apart
he loves to sit and laugh at Anthem For Doomed Youth.
After a skirmish in which men are screaming
With half a leg or arm bone shattered
By shrapnel, he guffaws at Dulce Decorum Est.
The more graphic, the more comic to him.
He says if you don’t laugh you’ll cry.
Laughter is healthy. Laughter is human.
Laughter affirms life, essential before
a fight amidst bullets, stabs and snipers.
“Oh What A Lovely War”, is his favourite film.
“All Quiet On The Western Front” a comic classic.
He knows we laugh at what we fear most.
War is like great stand up when you can barely
Breathe for laughter, your sides hurt
as if they need stiches. War is medicinal.
From port of souls, Alien Buddha Press, 2018
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We Live
in a fake peace between world wars,
shop and shop to stay reasonable.
Families are killed elsewhere.
We see their relatives tears on plasma screens.
Sometimes tears drop closer to home,
and we are reminded of our fake comfort,
that is preferable, a faux fur covered blade
sometimes bleeds and we are keen.
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Reblogged this on The Wombwell Rainbow.
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Thanks, Paul! You rock …
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