“Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights it up like a brushfire. It’s the crack cocaine of the literary world.” Jasper Fforde, First Among Sequels
Where does your poetry come from? How do you receive it? That was the essential prompt for last Wednesday, The Witching Hour, May 23, 2018. What a fun and fine response. Clearly almost all of us think there is something rather magical or mystical happening. So here today, I’m delighted to share the work of old and new friends with their old and new poems, sometimes connected to the theme by a slight silken thread and that’s okay. All good. I know you’ll enjoy yourselves as much as I have.
Thanks to poets John Anstie, Paul Brookes, Marta Pombo Sallés, Frank McMahan and Anjum Wasim Dar and a warm welcome to Neeldip. Be sure to visit these poets and get to know them. Links to their sites are included. If they have no blog or website, you might catch up with them on Facebook. Congrats to our prolific Paul who keeps those chapbooks and collections coming at a breathless rate. Bravo!
Please do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.
A Fairy in Disguise
Meadows turned to mist even the azure’s smiled,
lights were blinded till a distant mile,
when she walked down the morning aisle.
Fireflies were her companion when she sang along nightangles,
Moonlight was her curtain,
As she strolled through the shrouded forest,
Midst the starry fountain.
Neeldip has sent a bio yet, but when he does, I will post it. Meanwhile he was invited in by Mart Pombo Salés. She said to him, “Beautifully written. Love how you recreate this mysterious atmosphere in the world of fairies and goblins. This is also the world of the Muse that whispers something in the poet’s ear. Is this why you say “A Fairy In Disguise”? Your poem carries something similar to a mystical experience. The ending is very powerful with the “starry fountain”. Isn’t that the fountain of life and inspiration? I think it would be perfect for the next Wednesday Prompt … ”
The Dream of a Poet
I woke up with a start some time ago;
A very familiar path;
from sleep infused, in semiconscious state,
with dreams of the unpleasant,
into a slow and rude awakening.
Was it a mystery magician or
con artist, the evil one,
who managed to deprive me of my freedom;
usurp my own free will;
transport me where I never want to go.
And then, somehow it dawned on me that I,
apropos my own illusion,
had written words that weren’t exactly true?
I’m not sure how this is…
But missive written. For poets. How to write!
Astonishing!
The anti-hero in my fated dream
insisted I capitulate
and turn my trade to more constructive end
by which it sought the truth
of why I wish to make my dreams come true.
It asked me who I thought I was and then,
without so much as by
your leave, it pulled me back into oblivion.
It also didn’t hear me
when my stentorian protest made no sound.
It was a vision; a reverie that spoke
of fantasies; woolgathering.
It is, in truth, as truth is meant to be
none other than my conscience,
speaking of the will to write and dream.
If answer there is one, I do not know;
so often out of our control.
The only thing I have to say is this:
it’s always up to you.
Only you can judge what’s best… for you.
By your own best devices, you don’t need
to take advice from where
there is no guidance better than your own
…save rules, and even they
can be ignored once you have mastered them.
Dream of spelt and salt cake I fire for you, and before you can seek future from way I burn clean my fireplace, clear your head.
Old ash and cinders block gust makes for poor-burning, makes for poor-thinking prepare my gob for my tongues my gob packed with ash piled ash in my grate piled ash in my head crumbles like walls from incendiaried homes
stop wandering off when I’m talking to you!
ash up against my fire-bars makes them overheat makes you overthink
so they sag and “burn through” make me virginal something to focus on something for focus recall collecting ears of spelt in reaper’s baskets
I said stop wandering!
rake remains of my last fire the last fire between my temples so ash falls through my grate train steam in your nostrils pick-off the cinders for re-use.
My lightweight dark lumps, not my powdery un-burnable pieces of roasted shale my exhausted voice.
Clear my fire-bars of small cinders, clear all my ash, clear all the dead, dry bones out of my head recall the crush, grind
then roast the ears of spelt, yeasty like a pint of beer
Concentrate! You are lighting me fill my gob
with dry, unfinished paper cheap-newsprint not glossy magazine-print.
screw sheets into rough balls packed into this brain space not too tight, but not too loose.
Keep the paper open & crinkly don’t pack paper into hard nuggets, make them roughly spherical.
Should cover my grate with plenty of space to allow gust to blow away, focus these eyes, only one layer, as my tongues lick paper down everything on top will drop, roof falling in around my ears leave it at a couple of inches. Recall salt prepared pound crystals from brine
from a salt pan in a mortar, pack and inhale seafret. Cut lump with an iron saw.
I’ll not tell you again!
paper is to ignite the wood (next)
the next thought only enough, too much will clog fire-bars cause stack-collapse as your paper doesn’t burn well, stuff a loose sheet under my grate under my thoughts light it let my little tongues loose stuff sheets underneath burn them recall forbidden reading, books in flame, memories of things not spoken discarded ideas
I can be dangerous!
break up my ash with a poker. Recall stir of salt and spelt into carried spring water pure never touched the ground into meal that must be rested my pulped treeflesh.
I will lick away a support for my woodflesh. I lick away a flicker of an idea, a first layer
of contemplation.
(From “The Headpoke And Firewedding”, (Alien Buddha Press, 2017)
my thought needs substance crouched supplicant
to our hearthmind layer my gob can’t light my coal with paper my wood layer is for coal as my paper is for wood layer on my paper small pieces of wood (kindling) watch for splinters embed in your fingers for all day pain or a heated steel pin to remove. Carefully make a wooden pallet a raft of images on balled up paperwaves support my coal so imagination flares as I burn to speak.
Pray raft holds. Criss-cross wood, a cohesive structure.
You’re making my fireplace,
My head layered.
My gob layered.
Geology reversed.
Paper from trees. Dead trees made coal graduations of image, thought and idea.
When paper gone hold stays, mixture of thick and thin considerations.
Thin ideas burn easily, produce heat, thick sustains in depth delights my imaginations coal
(From “The Headpoke And Firewedding, Alien Buddha Press, 2017)
like wood is my imagination solidified sunblaze trapped voices, stories trapped build a pile of imagination on top of my wood-raft stuffed into my gob have a nice pile in middle.
Concentrate!
Choose pieces too small air-flow round my head restrict visuals. I cannot breathe. Choose pieces too big don’t get enough licking heat from the wood. Ignite my images , ensure fire-front removed for maximum air-flow, ignite the paper from underneath, ignite heads images underneath.
Focus!
in multiple places – get as much litlick quickly as possible, heat feeds between ignition points
if you will not put your mind on me I’ll burn your house down my water in the wood coal makes sulphuric acid lick surface off your brick funnel .
Images sear . Imagination needs time, fire blaze, cornfield stubble, while wood and paper left, this cellulosefuel heats imagination -fire to self-sustain your hard images buried deep, pressured become harder, blacker used in locomotives, steam ships, pitsweat, minehacked proppedimages your soft images nearer surface browner nostalgic soft focus biscuit tin tender.
Imagination produces smoke and tar when heated only,
when “dried out” get red-hot carbon fire makes imagination so hot. Recall tar melting on roads in sunblaze, sticks to soles coal tar soap photosynthesizes calls back its days as a plant.
I can be dangerous!
once my fire lit poke gently, release ash, break-up images stuck together by tar sticky mind coagulate.
Arrange cinders around the edge, add more images around fires periphery around
minds periphery. Don’t throw a bucket of imagination on my flametongue.
Always put a bit at edges or in middle. Images poked.
Poke my licking.
so ash falls through firebars so ash fall through the head.
Lift my burning images, ensure ash removed from under fire bars.
Imagination needs time to warm up.
Don’t smother with cold-images.
Kill lovely heat.
Longer to burn up. Pile it up around the edges, when it starts burning: poke and rake it into centre gradually.
When lit you give me a voice, a gob and tongues. Listen to my stories, record my voices, divine futures from decay of food thrown on me.
How virgin cakes of salt and spelt bake towards decay in heat tongueflicked wild jig of ideas before I ashreturn lose my tongues.
(From “The Headpoke And Firewedding, Alien Buddha Press, 2017)
Who knows where they have come from? No
summer rains to fill the limestone
caverns, no spring time residue
and yet the tongues of water spread
in new directions,loosestrife by
the water’s edge; and willow herb.
Across a once-ploughed field,
mineral insinuation
feeding the tangled hedgerows and
forcing the flush of hawthorn’s white.
Folded in dew, summer might bring berries;
fieldfare and redwing on winter’s winds.
(Seven Springs is a real place just north of us which feeds the River Churn that runs past my allotment and through the middle of town. So…)
Words and thoughts felt in transparency, unknown, unseen,
senses benumbed, as vision scans nature’s changing vapors
against a canvas, bordered by shivering trembling green leaves
of stretching, bound, firmly rooted growth, shaping into one
strong trunk…strange is the form yet studded with beauty …
as feather like as water drops, soft, in feeling, a medium,
which passes through, touching the body soul and spirit
breaking the trance to discover, an idea ‘arranging deepening’
in the mind, revealing a song’ or a story’ or poetic drama’
so ‘poetry should be naturally expressed’ though along the way-
‘there are places that beckon us to stop or warn that these lines
are true,these thoughts good, let the words flow’, in early drafts
don’t try to control the poem’, feel free to alter the facts’,yes,it is
easy then, but it is work, hard work, the idea comes from the unseen
it is then from ‘me ‘ to something real outside ‘ in order, to craft’
sometimes it is Light’ spreading gold in the sky on hills and land
cutting darkness to glory divine’ when green goes dark looks grand
mind stirs wonders eyes gather images and thoughts seek words
to amalgamate colors, beauty serene, majestic mystical hills of sand
who made them? how much more beauty must be in His Domain !
a poem can be, just be, it comes in moments, in time, at night
sometimes nothing descends for days, nothing inspires, a lone
still, lifeless object, may strike the soul, yet it all is formed only
when the mind in its richness of language receives the ‘order’
‘a divine gift ‘it is as poets have revealed in the past across ‘border’
Mirza Ghalib wrote’
‘ Aate HaiN Ghaib Se Yeh MazameeN Khayal MeiN Ghalib Sarir-e Khamah Nava-e Sarosh Hai
When mysteriously topics or subjects come in ones thoughts,
Then the sound made by the pen, resonates like the voice or sound of angles.
Poetry is not a profession, it is a destiny. Mikhail Dudan
Must be something about the witching hour,
magic after all, when from sound sleep I so
suddenly awake to the silent scratching and
rough shaking of a poem, uninvited but near
fully formed, dropping in from some unnamed
peculiar heaven or hell to disturb the languid
luxury of this rare blue somnolence. A poem from
neither the horn nor ivory gate that snatches me
from the welcome arms of Morpheus, from the land
of Demos Oneiroi, where I long – an elegant ache –
to return. I chew the poem like a baby new flavors,
trying to define shape and character, to hold the
memory intact until dawn when I can – perhaps –
name it. I … repeat it … repeating, repeating,
my mind wrapping itself around the words like my
arms the pillow, hugging their sensations, rolling
in the silk and nub and color, not willing to let go,
not able to sleep. In the chill before daybreak, I
give up and get up and taking the laptop in hand,
lay the words on a new page, ready post of the day.
Catching a poem seems sometimes almost a mystical experience. Where did it come from? And how often does it come at the most inconvenient time – when your trying to sleep, read, bath the baby, walk the dog. Pad and pen are constant companions. I’m not implying that it’s always easy to finish – to refine the poem – but sometimes it does come to us fully formed or nearly so. Tell us how you receive and experience your own poetry as an unexpected visitor, a surprise perspective or observation, a gift, or as a mystical thing … perhaps even as an occasional inconvenience.
All poems shared on theme will be published here next Tuesday. Deadline is Monday May 28 at 8 p.m. PDT. All are welcome – encouraged – to participate no matter the status of your career: novice,emerging or pro. It’s about sharing your work and meeting other poets who may be new to you.
If it is your first time sharing your work for Wednesday Writing Prompt, please remember to email your photo and short bio to thepoetbyday@gmail.com to be shared along with your poem by way of introduction. Please don’t mail the poem. Share it or a link to it in the comments section below.
“Colorful demonstrations and weekend marches are vital but alone are not powerful enough to stop wars. Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight, when workers refuse to load weapons onto ships and aircraft, when people boycott the economic outposts of Empire that are strung across the globe. ”
― Arundhati Roy, Public Power in the Age of Empire
The last Wednesday Writing Prompt, May 16, Baruch, The Baker, was about genocide, unfortunately as prevalent in these modern times as any other in history. The count is 24 currently, including – and ironically – Gaza. Here are the sometimes intuitive, sometimes angry, always well-considered works of poets with a strong sense of social justice and injustice. A collection for serious thought.
Thanks to intrepid and talented poets: Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Frank McMahan, Sonja Benskin Mesher and Marta Pombo Sallés. Bravo! And thank you to Sonja and Marta for sharing their illustrative art.
Please join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are encouraged: beginner, emerging or pro. It’s about community, sharing, getting to know poets who may be new to you. Each poet’s site (if they have one) is linked below to facilitate visits. If they don’t have a site, chances are you can connect with them on Facebook or Twitter.
child rulebook
all conquerors
learned all they needed
from the child rulebook.
of course, it being
a CHILD’s rulebook,
some rules contradict others.
“i was here first”
will fall before
“my army can beat up your army.”
“i’m gonna tell on you”
derives from
“you will get it if mom finds out”
but is so often outmatched
by “now look what you made me do”
which is a corollary of
“it’s all your fault.”
the Standard Oil Company,
a conqueror from its inception,
practiced
“kick their ass/get their gas”
long before those words
we’re found on t-shirts.
in 1979
after a puppet government
set up by the US
was deposed,
and hostages were taken
at the American embassy,
Mickey Mouse
appeared on a T-shirt
flipping a bird and saying,
“Hey, Iran!”
now our roost is presided over
seemingly by a turgid towhead
with the impulse control
of an otter
and a sense of entitlement
derived from a lifetime
of always getting
all the toys
he wants.
dark forces pull his strings.
the human population
of Citizens United
is zero,
as is
its regard
for humanity.
removes unsightly
grease and dirt of people
who spoil your landscape.
Cleans as it polishes, replaces
their awful smell with fresh fragrances.
their profane beliefs with fresh air.
their noisy children with heavenly quiet.
our history with revised pages.
Preserves our pure culture.
They are an infection to be eradicated.
Their unmarked graves forgotten.
Ethnic cleanser for a cleaner society.
Buy into this great product.
Popularly known as genocide.
Find the glass window set in the cobbles
outside Humboldt’s University. You’ll
need to angle your view and wait until
the light reveals the whiteness of the empty
shelves,a void in Europe’s heart.
Judischen, entartate. This is where
they began the burning of the books,
flames and sparks, yellow like stars,lighting the way
to ghettos, wagons, lines of wire, ashes, bones.
Ghosts gather, tug at your sleeve politely,
plead that you read the Book of the Dead.
Its opening page lies at your feet. Descend
to lamentation’s rainbow.
Shoes, pointing in all directions
as if they could not decide which
way to go. Ahead the river,
wide and fast, its shore empty of
boats.And people.The shoes, fissured,
soiled, heels broken; children’s clogs.As
they stood in their final sunlight:
prayers? Huddles of comfort? Piss and
shit leaking onto ancient leather.
Hurled backwards, no funeral flowers
save the smoke curling from the guns,
downwards, where the Duna receives
them, cold, reddening as it flows,
mere dross and cargo. A flask of
spirits opened, a cigarette
lit, safety catches on, the world
more Judenfrei.
Shoes, now again
pointing in all directions.
Spring anticipation in the air
Orange reddened sun
Gets ready to hide its rays
Behind the lowest of all mountains
Mirroring itself on the lake.
Vanity at its highest level.
Yet the picture turns out different
In a mixture of yellow and blue
Of greed and sadness a faithful clue.
“You’re so vain,
You probably think
This march is about
You…”
Reads the banner
At the Women’s March
January 21, 2017.
Millions came together
Across the globe
To raise their voices
Against your choices
Mr. Trump.
Your misogyny,
Racism,
Xenophobia,
Your greed and your lies
Are most unwelcome
Because it is your vanity
That makes you lie.
Where’s the first media-built man
That promised jobs for the working-class
To make America First and great again
When all you bring is constant pain
Erasing truths and liberties from earth.
The second man’s now on the surface,
Two sides of the same coin,
And the reddened sun sets down
While Vanity School runs high
For Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders,
Frauke Petry, Beppe Grillo…
And the like.
Even Spain’s Rajoy’s a little Trump,
Profound ignorant and clown,
Who drains the fund backing pensions
With an air smell of corruption.
Won’t you grant us, Catalans,
Once for all that referendum
Any democratic state would offer
To a stateless people to decide:
The right to self-determination.
No, instead, you’re blurring powers
Just exactly as Donald Trump
Judicializing politics and sending
The very democrats to court
For organizing a participatory process
In Catalonia, November 9, 2014.
Vanity School expands its limits
And buys a handful Orwell’s 1984
While the sea has just began to weep:
Mare Nostrum, Mare Mortum,
In 2016 almost 5.000 people
Drowned and died
From 2000 till now 30.000 dead!
With Barcelona’s pro-refugee rally,
The largest in Europe and perhaps
In the entire world till now,
We will surely not have enough
To eradicate our human misery.
The red sun has just hidden
Behind the lowest mountain
And as darkness unfolds
The picture changes colors:
Grayish blues carrying their shadows
On a rippled lake obscured
Where birds and ducks move
Swiftly countercurrent.
I was sitting on a meadow one day
A book in my hands, how long I can’t say.
Three hens came close to me and showed no fear
I was most surprised as they came so near.
Was it my presence, so benevolent,
What made them approach me so confident?
They just trusted me and I did the same,
Collective confidence was here the game.
Animals, humans, need it in our lives,
To trust others instead of carrying knives.
Another day, walking in the city
I sensed there was no aggressivity.
On a street, a gay couple holding hands
Perhaps Barcelona now understands.
One person was black and the other white,
They were no longer a most dreadful sight.
Collective confidence was there again
Let’s hope this new tolerance will remain.
In Germany the principle of trust
Seems to be essential, it is a must.
I walk along one of its widest streets
It’s a frequent place where everyone meets.
Then I see a bookcase on a corner
It is public and with books, I wonder.
Books placed in the middle of a street
How pleasant it is to read so sweet
No one thinks to set them on fire
People read for pure desire.
Books travel, they come and go
The shelves have something to show.
No shelf becomes ever empty
For books there are always plenty.
Again collective confidence
Makes possible such a tendence.
Yet confidence remains shadowed
Too much the Germans have swallowed.
As Martí Anglada (1) once said
Their excessive confidence led
To the horrors of the genocide
Did they all ignore what was inside?
Heidegger was controversial
Did he think it was so special?
The Nazi regime would be the best tool
To reform university, how fool!
Essen celebrated Love Parade
Look at all the mess some people made
Beer bottles rolling on the floor
Of that crowded train, I want no more.
On railtracks drunken people walking
The train driver gave us a warning.
Nothing happened, yet soon after
There was more than one disaster:
The Duisburg tunnel, the Germanwings flight
Excess of confidence, a loss of sight.
Then came the Volkswagen case, a new shame,
Where again just too much trust is to blame.
Which country in the world, never mind
Each place carries such cases behind.
If the excess of confidence is no good,
Will we ever learn to act the way we should?
Martí Anglada is a Catalan journalist and the author of the book La via alemanya (The German Way), Brau 2014.
Your heart is smarter, my Baruch,
then your head,
which is smart indeed –
and your hands and gnarly fingers
are smarter still.
They fashion bread from
cream-colored flours,
silky to the touch.
Kneading the dough
patiently, patiently
letting it rise
while I sleep – safe, in my bed.
Up at six a.m. we walk sleepily
down a lavender-gray street,
an apricot sun peeking at us
and, rising higher in the sky,
it seemingly follows us to you.
Cheer-filled arrival with greetings
and smiles from dear Baruch and
warm sugar smells, yeasty scents
and the sight of golden loaves,
some voluptuous rounds and
others, sturdy rectangulars.
You have baked cinnamon rolls,
a child’s delight, pies and
sticky buns too…and cookies!
“We’ll take a French bread” my Mom says
pointing to a crispy brown baguette.
“And a raisin bread.”
She adds …
“We’ll need that sliced.”
I watch your hands flit gracefully
like butterflies in a green valley
stopping here and then there
to pull fragrant loaves from display
and slicing them, neatly packaging,
then reaching down over the counter
you hand me a little bag of rugelach.
As I look up, reaching for your gift
I stop breathing, arrested by
a wisp of blue on your forearm.
I am studious, a reader, dear Baruch,
I know what that tattoo means …
Looking down, with a whisper I choke
“Thank you, Baruch!”
swallowing that lump of sadness,
trying not to show my tears. What right have I to tears?
But then you, dear Baruch, come
bounding round the counter
with warm hugs and soft tissues,
as though I was the one hurt.
From that day forever more,
I saw you only in long sleeves.
At lunchtime, I demanded –
“Mom, tell me about Baruch.”
And she does.
I am pensive over our meal,
canned marinara and slices of
of your baguette.
Dear Baruch, with each salty bite
I eat your tears and
the blood of your daughter.
Nights she stares at me from that
sepia photo by your register.
Baruch, did she, like me, assume
a grown-up life
of school and jobs,
marriage and children? And you! You must have assumed
the tender comfort of
her love in your old age.
Do you hold the vision of her
young and happy in your
brave, kindly old heart?
Does your ear still play back
her childish laughter,
the sound of her voice
begging for a story?
Do your warm brown eyes still hold
her smile in remembrance?
When you see little girls like me,
does your anguish grow?
Dear Baruch, our dear Baruch –
how will you set your child free
from that faraway land and
cold, unmarked mass grave?
“The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread.
When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out ‘stop!’
“When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.”
― Bertolt Brecht, Selected Poems
Some folks say they don’t believe there was a Jewish Holocaust and some young people are unaware that it happened. Some folks say “never again,” but there are 24 or more genocides, including Gaza, that are happening even as I write this post, even as you read it. Some Americans fail to recognize or don’t want to acknowledge that this country was partly built on a foundation of death. Even the Bible is weighted with stories of genocide.
Tell us about your own pain, perceptions and perhaps resolutions born of this knowledge. Write of your awakening to this reality as a child, your adult perceptions or, perhaps depending on where you live, your first-hand experience.
All poetry shared by you will be posted here next Tuesday. The deadline is Monday evening, May 22 at 8 pm PDT. If you share a poem for the first time, please send a brief bio and photo to thepoetbyday@gmail.com. These will be used to introduce new participants to readers. Thank you!
Chief Settle (public domain photograph)
“My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain…There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory.” Chief Seattle, The Chief Seattle’s Speech
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