The Annoyance of Flies … and other poetic responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt
Who Has Seen the Wind?
Who has seen the wind:
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
– Christina Rossetti, The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)
Readers will note links to sites if available are included that you might visit these stellar poets. The links for contributors are always connected to their blogs or websites NOT to specific poems. If the poets have no sites, there’s a good chance you can connect with them on Facebook.
Do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt, whether you are a beginning poet, emerging or pro. All are welcome – encouraged – to come out and play and to share your poems on theme. All poems on theme will be published here on the following Tuesday. You are also encouraged to share your work in your first language, but it must be accompanied by an English translation.
fickler
weather fickler
than a fratboy
teaser tickler
doff yer hatboy
pack maniacal
if you’d venture
through varietal
storm’s indenture
witch by threesome
micro coven
preheat gleesome
solar oven
then go breezy
cool and steady
due to easy
whorly eddy
species halving
oceans rising
ice sheets calving
ill advising
earth the icebox
earth the griddle
close the spice box
solve the riddle
© 2019, Gary W. Bowers (One With Clay, Image and Text)
As some of you know, Gary is multi-talented, combing visual art with poetry or prose narrative. He is also a potter. A sample of his work is pictured here. Gary’s pottery is available for purchase. Further details HERE. Note the business care. We appreciate Gary’s wry humor.ter. A sample of his work is pictured below. Gary’s pottery is available for purchase. Further details HERE. Note the business card. We appreciate Gary’s wry humor.
Werdin Alley
cold
concrete
the walls
are brick and
yet have witnessed many things
the stains of age are in the page
of the city’s palm the angels speak and demons kick out in laughter
i walk on thorns the books are long and i can’t see anything that breaks the spell of misery’s iron grasp
the worried sunrise comes and shines a light that fades into the cracks of time in the monuments to lethargic progress and flowers bloom in screens of doom and shots are too quickly taken
unlike Tokpella this alley way has finite space and we all walk in crippling slumber John Wayne won’t get me here
amongst this man made thunder the blood is thin and made of ashes
as i lay the east escapes from me
Pahana you are over due
canyons fell down
life out
of
balance
© 2019, mm brazfield (Words Less Spoken)
The Cost Is Prohibitive
to refreeze the poles,
bury carbon dioxide beneath the oceans,
to save our fellow animals extinction,
the death of insects.
We have to watch the pennies
to manage this extinction event.
The cost will be too high.
We could bankrupt ourselves
to save the earth.
Is it worth becoming paupers
to save this planet?
Count the pennies in your purse.
Count the lives in your hands.
© 2019, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
The Annoyance Of Flies
Is the thing I miss most.
A buzz of irritation landing
Like a single tickle
On the skin,
Not even a continuous tickle
Then the awful thought of where
It landed last where it accumulated
Potential disease so you swat,
And it returns and returns
Till now when it never returns.
And spiders die, birds die.
Never to return. The annoyance
Of things that will never return.
© 2019, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
Your Damned Anthropocene
“We are as gods and might as well get good at it.”
as Stewart Brand said, and you agreed.
O, your presumption did not account
for the delicacy of flesh and bone,
the death wish of the human soul,
even in this supposed transhuman age.
You had an impact on my future,
I’m not sure I forgive you.
There is your clear signature
in the fossil record , an observable
sudden decline
in the abundance and diversity of plant
and animal life. Perhaps we should
define your time from here.
Did it start when we traced your pulse
at the start of the Industrial Revolution?
Your carbon-dioxide pulse that underlay
what you thought was global warming.
O, your dreams to guide mankind towards global,
sustainable, environmental management.
How could you see
the juggernaut was unstoppable?
And as we move our minds
from this body to that,
we do not lose the terrors of being lost,
the night sweats of our own death.
From Paul’s collection The Spermbot Blues (Oppress, 2017)
© 2019, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
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.
The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jamie Dedes
More poems by Paul at Michael Dickel’s Meta/ Phore(e) /Play
Climate Schlimate
Animals dying
Habitats going
To pot
The ice is melting
Oceans are rising
It’s hot
Countries are drowning
Yet people thirsting
For what?
Science believing
Your eyes deceiving?
It’s not
Deniers lying
Oh so frustrating
The lot
Stories need sleuthing
Do some researching
A thought!
Our earth is crying
Who here is trying
To stop
Cars keep polluting
Factories spewing
The rot
More than recycling
Money resolving
Boycott
Now what’s our ending?
The land needs tending
We ought
Who are we saving?
People not caring
They’re taught
World’s for the taking
No one is sharing
Distraught
Another Lai Poem, this one written for Jamie’s Wednesday Writing Prompt at The Poet by Day. Her request: What are your everyday observations of the fallout from climate change. Or, maybe you don’t think climate change is for real. Tell us why.
I believe that climate change is happening at an alarmingly fast rate due to the negative impact of human consumption and disregard for conservation of our natural resources. We try to do our part to lessen our carbon footprint, however we can only do so much within the systems that don’t support this mission. For example, where we live they have stopped recycling paper except for cardboard, stopped recycling plastics and only recycle glass and metal. These recent changes have been due to China’s refusal to take garbage from the United States (read about it here, here, here and here).
Are we destined to become like the society in the movie “Wall-E”? As a mother, I do worry about the condition of this planet that my children will inherit. You would think that other parents/grandparents would feel similar however the prioritization of profits and a “not my problem” shortsighted attitude seems to derail this concern. At this point, if we don’t actively combat climate change, our future doesn’t seem that great.
©️2019, words and illustration, Irma Do (I Do Run, and I do a few other things too)
What is Climate
temperatures boil in hot headed shooters
caring ices in well financed legislators
floods pour into memorial services
droughts claim childhoods
man/woman/ somewhere in between
right/wrong/somewhere in between
family/stranger/somewhere in between
leaders/liars/ somewhere in between
freedom/fatality/ somewhere in between
protector/predator/ somewhere in between
school classroom/shooting gallery/ somewhere in between
future/funeral/ somewhere in between
climate change / everywhere
climate change / nowhere
climate change / always in between
© 2019, deb y felio (Writer’s Journey)
Letter to Bluejay
Peanuts no longer lure
your cries I used to hear,
I long to see your aquamarine,
your cerulean presence.
It is the time of year, yet
no elder firs, nor ancient
maple lure you back to nest.
Perhaps you’ve found
a cooler place to rest
with your cousin Cardinal.
P.S. they say:
“THE DEADLY EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING HAS BEEN METICULOUSLY RESEARCHED. IT’S STILL NOT TOO LATE BUT THE WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY IS QUICKLY CLOSING.”
© 2019, Jen Goldie (Jen Goldie and Starlight and Moonbeams … and the Occasional Cat )
.…early summer…
we noticed it that day and found it omninous.
february 2019
the sea is quiet as we have never seen it
sun as hot as it gets
like summer
they gloried in it
the bathers
the media
we watched
while the ice melted.
© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher
.. clearing the jungle..
google, i get pictures of the amazon and related places,
being scoured, and a dead
horses head.
he said that some are lying on their ages.
I expect sir if you were there, so would
you.
the politician.
the jungle in calais.
© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher
- 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.)
- Sonja on Twitter
- sonja-benskin-mesher.co.uk
- Sonja’s daily blog (WordPress) is HERE.
Photo Credit : Anjum Wasim Dar © CER 2019
Clouds Cry
Say, “Have you considered? If your water drains away,
who will bring you pure running water?”
For long, now we hear ‘something is happening
valleys shrinking, rivers running dry, green trees
vanishing, insects dying, snows frozen, melting
sun seems closer, worries of bees and the breeze
who has cut the trees and blocked the waters
and built houses and plazas in every quarter
who has increased the dumps n heaps of waste
now are holding seminars for solutions in haste
The earth seems tired of turning and spinning
making day and night warming and cooling
and now when air is so blackened n thickening
mankind is screaming that climate is changing’
now when I see clouds gathering in the sky
they come rumbling I wonder why they are
grumbling? raising a storm , hue and cry!
are they showing a fire, frowning on a
sinful desire? warning of The Heaven’s Ire?
or to cool the bonfire? I wonder if their thunder
is a song a celestial choir? praising moist sapphire,
dust we see, dust we are yet the particles conspire,
to relieve us from our misery cooling comfort
we do require, I know they come to admire
and blessing us, will soon retire to the ocean
home entire,leaving a message, a purifier !
be at peace and mercy,be not a crier or a liar
be like us without any fuss, a graceful high flyer-
in rain we sing n shout n play but break the law,
then face the bolt, stormy weather is Gods’ Wrath ?
remember the rains and the flood! beware when
deserts will be green, sandy regions will be rivers
Change is ordained Change will come, time and age
make life’s stage, cut short by man or by divine nature
Oh Clouds Gather in the sky ! And I don’t wonder why
they are lonely up in the sky, does it rain or do they cry
they cry when water is not used as it should be, it is not
saved, it is not stored, it is ignored, it is wasted…day by day,
when it is polluted hour by hour, and stolen moment by moment ,
drop by drop and when it is controlled by selfishness and possessed
by power, when allowed to flow away,becoming a cause of quarrels
when used as means of showing aggression and stressing suppression
Clouds cry then, they are on duty for the plants and living beings
to spray water to wash away the filth and clean the atmosphere
to quench the thirst, fill the ponds, make land fresh again, Stop’
I say think and become aware,waste not, the danger lurks near…
Clouds cry for they have fears,
should we try now, to wipe away their tears ?
© 2019, Anjum Wasim Dar
“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
ABOUT
Poet and writer, I am a former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently, I 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 by Northern 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.”
The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others
“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
Poet and writer, I am a former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently, I 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 
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 