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“among small things yesterday” and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Here is the collection of responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, he’s a tumble weed, September 13. I’m quite pleased with the efforts of Renee Espiru, Paul Brookes, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Iulia Gherghi, Collin Blundell, and Kakali Das Gosh. Bravo, poets! Enjoy the reading, visit their blogs, and strike-up a friendships with other poets.

The next Wednesday Writing Prompt will post tomorrow.  All are welcome to come out and play, no matter where in the world you live or where you are in your career, emerging or established.

Rainbow Lace Muses

dreams are like the sweet smell
of ambrosia
not like
the bitter of coffee
before her

she sits by the restaurant window

staring at nothing

and seeing everything

perhaps she sees her life
without children
running about
demanding
time

time she doesn’t have and
does not have to give
for life should chord

space and quiet

life should be filled

with writing muses
laced with rainbows

filled with artist
paper

& tools for both
housed in a place

beneath
trees

sprinkled with star dust

a place with fields of
wild flowers so
she can commune

with nature
with her
soul

she is lost in her thoughts
as the restaurant
comes to life
around her

with the laughter of

children

playing

she is reminded that life
hinges on choices
of ambivalence

like her food
turning cold
it is only
new

within the essence
of the moment

© 2017, Renee Espriu  (Just Turtle Flight and Inspiration, Imagination & Creativity with Wings, Haibun, ART & Haiku)

Reminds

herself to use her legs when pulling out weeds so she don’t get pain in her back

aggravated by weight of cat litter bags she puts in her tartan shopping trolley

when she meets her friend Flora in town
to share a tuna salad homemade

by Sully the African refugee in the local cafe.

© 2017, Paul Brookes   (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

Bairns Are Old Codgers

Before I get taken to play at my soft playcentre,
my one year granddaughter toddles with her zimmer frame.

Later we will take her to the memory cafe
where she’ll remember her past lives.

“Hard”, of before dawn and midnight hours:
A welder in the Clyde shipyard, 1942.

“Stinks that,” she says of the steel shavings, and Swarfega.
“Heavy”, of the hammer…

A kitchen servant in a big house.
“Hurts”, of calloused pestle and mortared deferment…

I’m all giddy at tumble down
slides, scramble nets and ballpools.

© 2017, Paul Brookes   (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

Sausage

roll flaky pastry diagnostics.
Watch your stop motion self

on cafe CCTV dance on chessboard
squares black and white faux marbled

floor. Reflection in glass as check your hair over fresh baguettes or bottled citrus.

“Don’t You Want Me, Baby” pumped
over speakers amid oven beeps and bleeps.

Blow on Sausage roll for barefoot baby
strapped in pram for the ride of its life.

© 2017, Paul Brookes   (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

..among the small things yesterday..

was a larger thing, not world news, happily,
not somethinhg to chew over.

amongst the colours, the gifts, the tiny cup,
cracked, collectable, among the people
at the friday club is friendship, a bigger
thing.

quarry cafe.

although many of us like smaller items,
we have grown to know that close friends
are a quite very big, important thing in a
life. small life.

© 2017, Sonia Benskin Mesher  (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA and Sonja’s Drawings)

One pub too many

In my high school years
I was addicted to one pub
Every day around six p.m.
I would take the dog out
The dog was the pretext of course
The pub was across the park, nearby the lake
His owner was like a brother to me
His entire family was my family for awhile
Their harmony, their happiness
Were my refuge
I was safe there in that glass pub
Soon enough I became a student
New places to explore
The pub on the top of the National Theatre
The pub of the University of Architecture, this one was more a club
For playing cards, all sort of games
The pub of the Literature University
Placed underground, with black oiled walls
We divided fairly our time between those three
I would start my day with a coffee in the Literature’ pub
Puff my cigarette while studying faces
The smoke would burn my eyes
But in that quasi darkness no one would notice
Lucky strike, no filters or some Romanian stuff, equally strong
I would always forget my lighter
So asking for a light would start a friendship
Next, at noon
Me and my friends would visit the Architecture’s pub
There the students were taller
Handsomer, intriguing
Here we would take our lunch
Being a far more light full place
And in the evenings, when some money grew in our pockets
We would join the roof crowd
On the top of The National Theatre
Where crème de la crème would meet
One or two pints of beer would grant the effort
When broke or during the exams
The nearby pub will greet us at 3 a.m. in the morning
What else but a beer to fixate your knowledge
Or to provide a blissful sleep
I wasn’t picky
Whatever would come first
Very soon the school was over
Life stuck its teeth on us
Devoured by our duties and responsibilities
We can afford only fast food restaurants now
Just before movie starts
The animation movie, 3D
With its special glasses that cover an
Underground slumber

© 2017, Iulia Gherghei (Sky Under Construction)

when we look at another person

forgetting for the moment that they
might be looking at us in the same way –
all those behavioural manifestations –
do we not impute to them
a kind of completion settled composure
compounded of what we take to be
definite things – arrangements of thought
intellectual substructure of identity & feeling?

take anybody you imagine you know
however they might be in themselves
do you not see a certain settledness
of body & mind spirit & dalliance
towards the world? look how they move
with dignity or resolve or shuffle their feet
with an uncertainty they might overcome
suddenly with intention direction & purpose

and how do they see you
mirror of themselves hearing about them
arranging a Bruckner symphony
for a hundred recorder-players?
like the man in the roadside café
I’d never met before
and am never likely to meet again
told me he’d just done

it’s all a matter of gaze
and the content thereof

© 2017, Colin Blundell (Colin Blundell, All and Everything)

#O!The Cafe Owner#

O !the rural cafe owner
Let me enjoy the blinding heavenly light
The accompanied whistling winds
I-a tumbleweed has ushered
your cafe
To pleasure an eternal liquor ,beer or wine of love
Let me escape from the crustfallen life
A chain of of diurnal routine
Let me recline at the front porch of your tavern
Enjoying a dirge quiescence
Let me exempt from the bricks and mortar ,chimney bellflower and clamorous clarion
O ! the rural cafe owner
Let me fly away from the anguish intolerable
May it be just for few moments
But I would sip the red wine of the loveable apple
Forever …….

© 2017, Kakali Das Ghosh

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

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he’s a tumbleweed, a poem . . . and your Wednesday Writing Prompt

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he’s a tumbleweed

this rootless man

moving

like a migrating bird

changing cities
as easily as another might
switch coffee mugs or find a new cafe
with a different baker for pastries and
a different source for roasted beans

as if life

might change

at a new address
or on the single quaff of a new brew

as if he could find himself
in the company of strangers,
of unknown neighbors
sitting at anonymous tables
in silent camaraderie with
smart phones and tablets

he sits, stares

looking past – not at – his iPad

a woman walks by, shoots a smile
into the dark heart of his alienation

he receives it
like a dying man receives chest compression,
a jump-start to his imagination and he could
envision her that night, looking at the same
moon, mooning over the same stars and
revisiting dreams once thought dead

© 2015, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved; photo courtesy of Moss Will under CC BY  (attribution) 3.0 license

Cafés are wonderful places to observe human behaviour and the human condition as people visit, hold meetings, take a break, write, sit lonely or peacefully in the noise and crowd.  Paint a word portrait in prose or poem of someone you noted and remember from a recent visit to a neighborhood café. If you feel comfortable, please share your response – or a link to it – in the comments below. All shared work will be featured here next Tuesday.

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

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“. while in october .” … and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

I’m delighted to host Kakali Dos Ghosh, Renee Espiru, Paul Brookes and Sonia Benskin Mesher today. Between them they have almost covered a year in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Portrait in February, September 6.  Read . . . enjoy . . . and please join in tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome.

#Autumn’s blaze in September #

Ablaze is my hamlet ,
Sheeny it is with autumn ‘s color in September ,
Bounteous it is along azure blazing firmament
with dotted aerials ;
A ravishing secluded garden it is ,
with border less kash dandelions  in skyline ‘s shine ;
A whisper -levitating through ravines and deep gorges ,
An inkling creeping through the cerulean kiss -curls of the deep bay ,
smearing the mysterious realm of twilight and moonbeam ,
casting  a gentle kiss to a conch -cell in dormancy ,
on the glittering sand chest fondling a  golden rivulet ,
enunciates the inhalant of Devi Durga ;
Ample shiulis loving the hardes ,
The goggle of the stubborn kingfisher in the Eastern hills ,
The red specked butterflies ,
Clink of anklets of a maiden solitary ,
Everything -everything is just to light up ,
Its a durbar to love ,
to kiss ,
to  thrill ,
and to worship the Goddess the mother .

© 2017, Kakali Das Ghosh

December Passion

the Fall brought her to me warm and soft
with dark brown eyes and tiniest hands
reminding me nine months prior to the
month of December when passion ignited
fervor between cotton sheets and darkness
transforming cold into heated pleasure
where in the aftermath holidays came
filling the kitchen with baking of pies,
sweet sugary cookies warm from the oven
& the promise of love lasting a lifetime

© 2017, Renee Espriu (Just Turtle Flight and Inspiration, Imagination & Creativity with Wings, Haibun, ART & Haiku)

April

1. Flo’s Day

Perhaps thas a thought I’m boss
only of fragile bunches, cocker;

but I also overlook tilled fields.
If crops have flowered well,
threshing-floor is stacked;

if the vines flowered well,
there’ll be wine; and fruit.

Once blossom nipped,
vetches and beans wither,
and thy lentils. Wines also bloom,

stored in great cellars in jars
a scum covers their surface.
Honey is my gift. I call bees,

to the violet, and clover,
and grey thyme.

I charge youthful years
to run riot with robust bodies.

Tha wears colourful togs, mucker, walk around with flower bouquets in thee fist,

your neck or hair wreathed in flowers. Tha scatter lupines, bean and vetch. Homes
scented by large purple Lilacs.

Go to races, or hunt deer, goats
and hare, enjoy bawdy plays and mimes.
Tha dance, sup and eat a feast
of roasted Lamb, homemade breads, fresh

and roasted spring vegetables, fruits, nuts, pastries. Give fresh cut flowers to tha neighbours, lay them on tha closest’s grave.

2. Victory’s Sacrifice

These are victories

fresh green shoots, leaves and flowers,
woodlands heady scent of wild garlic ,
bird song and bleating lambs

wild daffodils appear alongside the river
smaller and more delicate,
trumpet shaped flower a paler yellow.

kittiwakes, guillemots, razorbills, gannets, fulmar, shag and puffin return to seacliffs

blackthorn blossom a froth
of clustered white flowers
on thorny branches
before the leaves burst bud.

curlew’s soft, bubbling call,
Ring Ouzel’s a blackbird
with white bib blasting
out of the heather

emperor’s, orange and yellow
day-flying moths, eyespot patterns
on their four wings, struggle
from cocoons on the moors.

I sit and down a sacrifice of golden ale
sunglint on pint glass, a fine sup,
thankful another winter’s
deaths and distress worked through.

3. White Lady

Crowned white lady with flowing hair,
and fiery shoes, carries a spindle
and a three-cornered mirror
that foretells the future.

For nine nights before May Day,
chased by Wild Hunt Winter,
hounded from place to place,
she seeks refuge among villagers.

Folk leave their windows open
so she can find safety
behind cross-shaped panes.

Implores a farmer she meets to hide her
in a shock of grain. He does.
next morning his rye crop
is sprinkled with grains of gold.

© 2017, Paul Brookes  (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

. november.

describe the moment when walking

through the garden wind whips by.

look up the sky is full of leaves flying.

wonder and be joyful at all that there

is here.

do wet leaves blow as good as dry?

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA and Sonja’s Drawings)

.september.

i did not want to get involved, nor be noticed.

particularly, nor impress.

yet you said you loved me, never mind the diagnosis,

mirror image.

so that was done.

dusted.

they came in differing aspects, by now I did not

want to get involved, nor did i.

remember I told you that I do not fall

in love?

we were in the garden.

this is not a mystery, just reality.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA and Sonja’s Drawings) 

. while in october .

stand back to spite the craving,

look on as from afar.

leaves fall.

people, some write hymns & mantra

others watch tv, not the news.

oh no not the news, the truth is too

depressing, a bit near the mark.

good to live gentle, bites of reality

to flavour your safeness.

leaves fall.

with gratitude. the bakers has

closed as has the dress shop.

a side table will be convenient.

while children are in hell , Aleppo.

leaves fall.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA and Sonja’s Drawings)

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

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Portrait in February, a poem . . . and Your Wednesday Writing Prompt

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there’s a portrait in February of percale sheets
and the tempting rondure of warm shoulders
tucked under a rosy duvet and late mornings,
coffee in bed, playing your hips like the strings
of a harp, the rhyme of a true love’s honor,
soft, the whiff of spring, the meadow violets
their heart-shaped leaves and felicitous flowers
promise of summer peace in damask gardens
wealth of silver roses, tart lemons, frisky mint
finger tip the faded hillock of hair on your neck
and let go of all that is false and mean for this –
the warmth of our ardor, the trust in our kiss

© 2017,  poem and photograph, Jamie Dedes

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

Take the characteristics one specific month – any month that you like – and turn it into a sensual poem … and let’s keep it tasteful please. If you feel comfortable, leave your prompt-inspired poem or a link to it in the comments section below.  All shared work will be featured here next Tuesday. The deadline is Monday night at 8 p.m. PST.  

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY