“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
“The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
“If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.” Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
The theme for Wednesday Writing Prompt, awakening on our rockey rebel road, June 6, 2018, was to share with us the poet in non-ordinary reality, the doorways that lead from the physical to the spiritual. This was perhaps not the easiest of prompts but these poets rose to the occasion with depth and panache. Lovely!
Thank you Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Bozhidar Pangelov and Anjum Wasim Dar. Bravo!
A warm welcome to poet, writer and educator, Michele Stepto, new to The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt. I included a link below to her book, which looks fascinating. It’s on my reading list.
Enjoy this fine collection with its profound delights and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. Links to each poet’s site are included below so that you can visit, read more of their work, and get to know them.
Fog
She received as a gift a carpet
with fog in it and moved
the furniture and rolled
the carpet out in the middle
of the room and found
that fog was rising out of it
in little wisps
and that when she stood
at the edge of it it
was just like standing at the edge of a cliff
high up over the ocean in the evening
when the fog is coming in
She moved the furniture back
and it did not
fall through the carpet
it did not disappear
she sat down in her old
armchair next to the lamp
and thought
she was floating in mid-air
on a foggy day
or flying a plane in the fog
everything feeling pleasantly
cold and damp as she closed her eyes
She sat there for a long while
dreaming about trees seen in fog
and things coming toward you
out of the fog small birds
who stayed put and didn’t fly in the fog
as she was staying put
now in her chair
their heads tucked
under their wings and dreaming
as she was of paradise
of their own Shambhala
high in the mountains
girdled in fog
or clouds
it hardly
mattered
© 2018, Michele Stepto
MICHELE STEPTO: I have taught literature and writing at Yale University for many years, and recently at the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont. My work has appeared online at Verse-Virtual, What Rough Beast (at Indolentbooks.com), Ekphrastic Review, NatureWriting, Mirror Dance, Lacuna Journal, and One Sentence Poems, which nominated “The Unfinished Poem” for a Pushcart Prize this year. Along with my son Gabriel, I translated from the original Spanish Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World.
„Убийството на Марат“, Бодри, (1868)
“Miss Corde was reading Plutarch by night the books then used to be taken seriously” Zbigniew Herbert
(Adam Lux – Meditations)
Miss (or already, why not, Missis)
is reading.
So did she before getting married. The revolution of 1960s All is Love is over.
She used to sleep in tents. Why not?
The freedom has to be defended.
Drums, fires, the screams:
“Down with! Who doesn’t jump is.”
Rumble behind the walls. Marat is. Alive? Death? Used to live?
The time is traveling. The crown’s refined hat.
The hair short. With all the colors.
“In a dress like a blue rock.”
Obelisk? Yes! of passing from
necessity to
necessity (for survival).
Mrs. Corde, is reading. The Game of …
She’s dreaming. “All is love”.
The day is the most usual.
Charlotte?
She administrated justice.
The falling stars are glowing.
Democratic changes in Bulgaria started after the Berlin Wall in 1989 Jean Paul Marat, a prominent French Revolution. Charlotte Conde is his murderer. https://shortprose.blog
© 2018, bogpan [Bozhidar Pangelov] (bogpan – блог за авторска поезия блог за авторска поезия)
REALM
Sleep deprivation
May lead to conversation
That you wake up inthemiddleof
Even though it is you who is talking.
The Goddess of Sleeplessness
In that other underworld
Has made you an emissary of her
Realm,
And conferred on you
The demigod’s trick
Of creating monsters.
Taillights
Become eyes…
© 2018, Gary W. Bowers (One With Clay, Image and Text)
A Smooth Skin
is ugly. Trace beauty
in bloody edges of scars.
Tattoo your face and hands
with raw wounds. Glow.
Bruises brighten your looks.
Pimples and spots mark sexiness.
Wrinkles entice awe.
The look is all in scabs.
Containers
do not contain. Vacuum
is packed with it all.
I wish you were more obtuse.
I can’t understand this clarity.
All is tightly enclosed in open space.
All is nebulous.
Please talk in riddles. Plain
Sentences confuse my head.
Exactitude is imprecise.
Clarity is obscurity.
Distance is not a measure.
I need you to be woolly with words.
Only The
incompetent do their jobs properly.
Ensure you are only partly trained.
Half skilled emergency services save lives.
It’s what you don’t know that counts.
Amateurs are the only professionals.
Fully trained and experienced cause accidents.
Complete competency leads to lack of trust.
Once experienced you are useless to society.
Successful people are always trainees.
They are oil in the cogs, ensure smooth running.
Mistakes ensure a job is done thoroughly.
They ensure society is rectified.
Be Promising
There are no promises.
Money does not exist.
Nothing to breach.
No agreements or vows.
One can never be broken.
You can never be on one.
No laws, no lines can’t be crossed.
You promise not to promise.
© 2018, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)
This Poem Must Be Taken Literally
My body is a rainbow
My blood is an explosion
My heart is a rusty cage
These are not metaphors
Please take this literally
That cloud is my opinion
That road is an orange
That wish is my house
That burnt toast is my belonging
These are not metaphors
This hand is a metal spade
This foot is a knife edge
This mouth is a dark valley
These words are made of light
This is not a poem
This is the ultimate answer.
This tells you how to live
This tells you the only truth
This Mop And Bucket
are poetry to me.
My pen is a mop
I stick in a bucket
of disinfectant floor cleaner
pull out mop sodden
with words and splash
them backwards and forwards
slop lines one after the other
Until the floor fair shines,
My mop is dry, needs another dip.
I squeeze out the gunk
back into the bucket.
More the floor shines,
dirtier the bucketful gets.
A good poem is a clean floor.
© 2018, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)
. reading for anna .
carrying the book, gently,
i find that jesus
is off the wall again.
breeze from the doors
blows him and cobwebbed minds
away,
as i write the small book,
on black keys of words.
gentle here this morning,
sun dreams in,
quiet in all the rooms,
and arms held high,
i come into the morning,
with string and sealing wax.
sbm.
© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher
.valley of the widow.
grey day, rain.
squeaky bath taps.
this is the valley
of the widow.
this is the day.
writing the wall,
trees stand tall.
yellow flags, the route,
to another place
© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher
There Is Someone
There is someone who talks to me
And keeps me waiting-
If only I could see The Spirit
Which I feel close by, yet so far
A bar on thoughts and actions,
I cannot think because my mind is quiet
And not moving or stirring
Lest the sweet words of The Spirit
May not find their way in-
And I may crush the tender layer thin
In between which keeps us bound,
I cannot let go the joy
I have found in my heart
at hearing the mellifluous melody
of the affectionate aura around,
which seeps into my soul to make peace
and washes smoothly away the tears
and the fears so deep,
I can now sleep with ease
For I cannot speak of the
Good Night Prayer
That descends in time so rare
my soul, to repair
And I cannot say that if I wake
Life may be like a snow flake
White and pure and sure, as
The Angels will come to Heaven, take.
© 2018, Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans)
“I had been experiencing brief flashes of disassociation, or shallow states of non-ordinary reality.” Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
Sometimes …
We love living in the shadowlands that ride our backs,
pregnant with dream demons and rhinestone illusions ~
On such days we come crashing at the abrading edges
of narrow channels and wide-open oceans
………………………………..’till we are
caught between moon-sight and sun-gold distortions
Easy then to precipitate bursts of chaos in the
hoary hibernation of our soul’s winter, denying the truth
in our own voices, the god-awful transience of our bodies
……………………….Yet here we are …
………………………………Yes! Here we are
awakening on our rocky, rebel road …
serving up our spiny poetry
like Don Juan his peyote buttons
© 2011 poem and photo, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved
WEDNESDAY WRTING PROMPT
Share with us the poet in non-ordinary reality, the doorways that lead from the physical to the spiritual. Leave your poem/s in the comments section below … or, you may leave a link to it/them instead. All poems shared on theme will be published next Tuesday. Please do NOT email your poem to me or leave it on Facebook.
IF this is your first time participating in The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com in order to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These will be partnered with your poem/s on first publication.
Deadline: Monday, June 11 at 8 p.m. PDT.
Anyone may participate, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, sharing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning nonjudgemental place to connect.
“I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone.” Nikolai Gogol
The heartening responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, the hanged man, May 30, which asked what people – well-known or not – inspire us. Thanks to poets Lisa Ashley, Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Sheila Jacobs, Sonja Benskin Mesher and Marta Pombo Sallés responded with work that is both beautiful and heartfelt. Thanks to Sonja and Marta for also sharing their illustrations.
Welcome to the multi-talented Clarissa Simmens, making her debut here with Austisophobia.
I must also draw your attention to John Anstie’s homage to his stepmom, One of a Kind. Read it HERE.
Enjoy! … and don’t forget to visit these poets and get to know them and to join with us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are encouraged to share their work on theme.
AUTISOPHOBIA
Most people fear me
Now that I’ve confessed
My autism
Despite the internet
And other fonts of info
They think we all melt down
And want to commit violence
On anyone blocking our path
Even if we only know them virtually
When the main thing
We on the spectrum share
Is our despair
That we are unlovable
To others
Merely because
We don’t know
The right words to say
Or the correct facial expression
When we are thinking of what was said
And what we’d like to convey
I dislike pity
So when things get sad
I go into Warrior Mode
A secret code
That bids me to lift my head
Love myself
And most days (and nights) I do
But there are times
When I watch as others
Shower kudos on their
Sisters and Brothers
The Neurotypical
Who fit in
While the Neurodiverse
Like me
Suffer the penalty
Of being different…
(c) 2018 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) (Poeturja)
CLARISSA SIMMENS (Poeturja) Clarissa Simmens is an Independent poet; Romani drabarni (herbalist/advisor); ukulele and guitar player; wannabe song writer; and music addict. Her poetry is written simply, striving to compose musically, including talking blues, folktales, and memoirs of life. Facebook and Amazon. (photo © Clarrissa Simmens)
I have health and body challenges. This simply written narrative “homage” is trying to capture how it might be for my “Swim Buddy” and the thoughts that cross my mind about him as I swim and work out in the water. I hold nothing but admiration for him.
Swim Buddy
One random day he fell off a ladder.
Paralyzed on impact
never to walk again, they said.
What year ago did he appear
young man in a wheelchair
rolling into the water?
How many hours has he fought
his struggles unknown
to the likes of you and me?
What year did he appear one day,
legs booted and braced,
swaying from side to side?
He swims laps beside me most days now,
offers to loan his special chair—
my surgery is coming soon.
Some months with walker & cane for me,
sticks & braces for him forever,
we park side by side in the disabled spots.
We cross paths in the grocery aisle
sneaking looks at what we’ve chosen,
both leaning on our carts, canes tucked in.
He is greeted by many, a strange notoriety,
his story known on the island.
How many times a day does he say, I’m okay?
We speak hello by the locker room
noting the weather, he’s finished early today.
I don’t ask. We go our separate ways,
he to his truck, me to the water.
© 2018, Lisa Ashley
vincent van gone
john wayne took
kirk douglas to task
for playing vincent van gogh
“play real men, not queers”
is only lightly edited for conciseness
but vincent was a real man
not a very pleasant man
but none can deny that fierce passion
that took him to the coal mines as a lay preacher
and gave him to live as the miners did
In the wretchedest of poverty
(he was soon fired, of course,
for misrepresentation of a proper preacher)
humiliation and scorn were his daily lot
the townsfolk called him “crazy red”
and he lived squalidly
but he was a dreamer alchemist
and he distilled an elixir
of hurtsoul and seethy seeing
from his churning core
and spread the elixir on canvases
he is gone but not
rectangles of his psyche remain
© 2018, Gary W. Bowers (One with Clay, Image and Text)
I see the unexpected generosity of so called “ordinary people” as remarkable:
Caravan (Please Take Change)
Three women in the queue
The first empties her packed trolley.
Do you need any carrier bags?
I ask.
Three to start with. I have to sort out
What we’re taking in the caravan.
Why did I buy so much?
Help packing?
Yes please while I empty this.
We’ll do it for you offers one of the other women.
We’d love a caravan holiday. Don’t take up much space.
Five carrier bags full later she says. I’ll have to fetch my car round. I’ll never carry all this.
We’ll carry it for you. We’ve only got these odd goods propose the other two women.
I can’t have you doing that.
Yes you can.
A caravan of women carry bags
out the door.
© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)
“Don’t let it get away!”
my sister shouts as my Dad’s hot air
wrapped in rubber flaps up
over the ocean
in a cross gust.
We both climb in to steady it.
“We’re going out too far!
“I can’t see mum and dad.”
She shouts clambering back out.
She grasps the rope to pull
it forward but gust is too strong.
She lets rope go. “I’m going
back.” she shouts and swims away.
I try to paddle but gust is against me.
I get out, grab the rope, try to haul,
the current is against me. I climb
back in. Watch the beach, and mum
and dad disappear, till there is only
the gusted, grey green waves.
It is cold. In my trunks I curl
into a question mark
in the rubber dinghy.
Suddenly, a shout. A huge hand
gathers me and dinghy up.
I rise into air. Lifted
into a smelly fishing boat.
“Thought tha wa lost their lad.”
the sea god says.
© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)
Pied Wagtail
As I pack another’s bag
He says ” I were a packer
down pit. Tha’d have made
a good packer.”
I set each odd shaped stone
in place to hold back debris
hold up the pit roof so others
may have space to work.
As I pack her bag
She says “Aren’t they beautiful.
The pied wagtails”
She watches their skitter
and bob outside the shop
window. “My dad was
a blacksmith in the pits.
Well, he was a farrier,
But when they got rid
of the ponies he became
a blacksmith. He allus
told me Pied Wagtails
nested in pit prop piles
stacked outside the pit.”
My pit prop holds up
the roof that others
may safely work.
The pits are all closed
their memories are all open,
a black and white skitter and bob.
Packer:
Pack – Roof support made of stone. Large stones at the front, built up like a dry stone wall.
Packer (1) – One deployed to build the pack walls and fill behind with debris.
Packer (2) – A big piece of stone to use in the pack wall.
Packing – Act of building a pack wall and filling a void.
Packhole – Void at coal face to stow dirt either or both sides of the gate from the ripping lip.
© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)
Showing them
i.m.Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis 1929-1993
They discussed her wardrobe for Texas.
Simple, elegant outfits, Jack suggested
especially on the Dallas trip – to show
those fur-hugging diamond -dripping
dowagers what good taste really was.
She showed them: chose a pink Chanel
suit, navy blouse and matching pill box
hat laid out the night before, accessories
hidden while she smiled to crowds along
Elm Street, waved a white-gloved hand.
When he frowned,suddenly,slumped
forward in the heat’s glare she hunkered
down, cradled his broken head in her lap,
scrambled across the limousine’s trunk
with white kid gloves polka-dotted red.
She lay on the back seat, her body draped
over his, wouldn’t let go until she reached
the Trauma Room of Parkland Hospital;
sat outside,refused to remove her gloves,
relinquish any more of him to strangers.
She showed them, showed the world as
L.B.J.swore the Oath of Allegiance on Air
Force One and she stood at his side, wore
blood-stained stockings and snags of dried
grey matter on her shocking-pink suit.
© 2018, Sheila Jacob
i read Glyn Hughes, sometimes.
sometimes, i look at the photograph,
and wonder how it was that last year;
think of
how you wrote to me, sent
me your book
with a private inscription.
© 2018, poem and illustrations (below), Sonja Benskin Mesher
jon lord
the words came clearly, shining,
by the kettle early. knowing
i must write,.disappearance on
the stairs, may they drift in later
like a moth, soft and quietning.
now i write nothing, just
the shapes and patterns,
the notes on keys, tapping.
usually the same each morning,
until the differences,
show, and we are challenged.
john lord is gone, his words and sounds
remain.
© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher
I do not have any poem specially dedicated to a famous person for their courage, wisdom or whatever other qualities to admire, but I have a homage to some anonymous people that unfortunately are no longer among us:
Time
cannot be changed
or escaped.
Time is a thief,
a friend to no one
and every day is
a gift.
You cannot change time
or travel back
to reverse those things which
should never have taken place.
People killed for no reason
or
is there ever a reason
to kill other human beings?
Those people did not get lost.
When you’re lost you’ll sooner or later
find the way back.
Or perhaps not.
But you’re not erased from Earth.
Those people were killed,
just a few compared to other countries
in our world.
None of them will ever return
to the world as we know it.
They’ve just been removed too soon,
swept away by the cruelty of others:
white supremacists, Muslim terrorists …
But which governments are orchestrating
such massacres in our world?
Who’s feeding the monsters
is equally a monster.
Let’s tackle the root of the problem.
Only this way we’ll be able to say:
I am not afraid!
Time and human cruelty
are friends to no one:
Charlottesville, Barcelona, Cambrils
and many more.
The outcome is always the same.
© 2018, poem and illustration, Marta Pombo Sallés (Moments)
2nd poem: A tribute to a Catalan allegorical figure, the Pescallunes, a moon fisherboy, and to those anonymous people following his example:
Someone unplugged and unscrewed
the moon and the stars.
They were stolen away from us
and we were left with a dark blanket,
covering the surface of the Earth,
under which we must live our lives.
Amid the darkness, in the sky
of a salted night, some of us
sit by the same old sea,
or mountain, or field, or by that river,
where once a sickle moon reflected itself.
Soft wind combs the lonely fields
of broken dreams.
Some of us search for the lost moon and stars,
electricians looking for some spare parts
to screw and plug in again in our hearts,
in the sky of illusions.
Some of us have brushes in our hands
starting the repair job,
painting a new landscape.
Someone plugs in the sun
and when the night comes again
stars and moon begin to shine anew.
The mirror of the sickle moon
reappears on the river waters.
As the ancient legend tells
a fisherboy wants to fish the moon
and put it in his bucket.
Someone laughs at him
and at the impossibility.
But deep inside the boy knows
he is a pescallunes,
a moon fisherboy,
like any other inhabitant
of that small Catalan village.
The fisherboy knows deep inside
our world needs more moon catchers
like you and me,
people with plenty of illusions,
dreams and projects.
© 2018, poem and illustration, Marta Pombo Sallés (Moments)
And the 3r poem is again an allegory or personification:
A long time ago
I got used to living with
My open wounds,
The last withered while
I was staring at the sunset
In the middle of the fog.
Yes, you told me so many times
About your suffering,
How your heart shrunk
Fisted in bleeding red
While your eyes tasted
The salt of the ocean waves
And cristal pearls were running
Down your cheeks.
On that plane you felt
The freezing coldness
Where just one thing
Would not freeze:
The fountain of your tears.
Yes, indeed I remember
All the pain on that plane.
You sent me back to the
Land of rejection.
Yet I am a resilient rock
With my withered wounds
That I carry since ancient times
On this eroded earth.
But to exist is to resist
And so I dwell in human hearts
Who care for each other.
And may I receive your boasting waves
Crashing on my shores
Those hearts will restore me again
For I am silent love and not vain.
© 2018, poem and illustration, Marta Pombo Sallés (Moments)
One iced night mom took his hand
and led the boy to a no man’s land
And in the darkness of that night,
he came to know himself as blight
Born upside-down and on a tether,
no turned up way to make him clever
Both heart and memory came away
with jilted mom on that crazed day
Excess baggage he seemed to be,
surviving much-grudged care you see
Imagined poems filled his dreams,
soulful skimming of raw life’s cream
On winds of change other blows,
but joys embedded he has known
And in the end life’s still worthwhile
Life was precious to man and child
Upside-down fuels such rare view,
and capsized life is a lonely pew
But when time came to make a close,
only sweetness from a thornless rose
I was intrigued by this gracious man’s history: a breech birth and coincidentally his Tarot birth card was the hanging man, illegitimate, difficult life but no victim mentality, and a graceful acceptance of death when the time came. I’ve no idea why this came out rhymed. As I may have mentioned before, I don’t care for rhymed poetry and rarely write it.
© 2017, poem, Jamie Dedes, all rights reserve; illustration is in the public domain
“Jung looked upon the situation pictured in the hanged-man as an invitation to plumb new depths of being – a challenge rather than a punishment. ‘For the unconscious always tries to produce an impossible situation in order to force the individual to bring out his very best. Otherwise one stops short of one’s best, one is not complete, one does not realize oneself. What is needed is an impossible situation where one has to renounce one’s own will and one’s own wit and do nothing but trust to the impersonal power of growth and development.'” Jung andTarot: An Archetypal Journey by Sallie Nichols
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Not everyone is delivered wrong-way into the roiling sea of life, but everyone is delivered into challenging situations at one time or another. Every day we meet heroic people who have overcome adverse circumstances or lived with them gracefully. Remarkable! Some people never cease to amaze. Who do you find admirable and why? Write a homage. Tell us in your poetry that you post in the comments section or via link/s to the poem/s on your blog.
All poems submitted on theme will be published here next Tuesday. Deadline is Monday evening, June 4, 8 p.m. PDT. If this is your first time participating in Wednesday Writing Prompt, please be sure to post your poem or link in the comments section but send your bio and photo to thepoetbyday@gmail.com to be used by way of intro to readers … and me! 🙂
All are encouraged to join in Wednesday Writing Prompt to exercise their writing muscle and make new poet friends.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 