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philosopher’s stone, a poem … and your Wednesday Writing Prompt

living in a redwood forest,
cradling the wild and rocky,
nursing cold creeks
and ancient sequoia

he’s balding and blue-eyed,
steps out in running shoes,
old blue jeans, a white t-shirt
smelling of bleach

he flies high with
wings woven of words,
alchemical words,
philosopher’s stone

© 2013, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved; Photo credit ~ MorgueFile


WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

Write a poem about a poet, writer or artist you know. Capture their essence and, if you feel comfortable, share your work or a link to it in the comments below.  All are welcome, emerging or established. Prompt inspired poems will be featured here next Tuesday.


ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

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

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

“The Waters of Life” and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt


Wonderful responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, August 30, your wise owl eyes. I’m delighted with these works from Kakali, Sonja, Paul, Iulia and Mark and know you will be as well. Enjoy, like, comment and encourage these intrepid and imaginative poets. Visit their sites and get to know them better.

This week Mark Lanesbury has joined in with a profoundly lovely piece and as always with those new here, I’ve included a short bio by way of introduction.

Another prompt will post tomorrow and you are invited to come out and play.


The Waters of Life

Life and all its hardships, the rivers we do dare
Traveling dangerous waters, captaining its glare
The mastering of the winds, the swells of our pride
The holding of our tiller, for there is nowhere else to hide
But if I could but show, the beauty that dwells within
The reality in this path, built from where we’ve been
We see so much in our wake, but only through our fear
All the while on lookout, glancing to the rear
So grab that tiller firmer, know through this gale we go
That the sails of this journey, need this truth to blow
Find the hearts compass, point it as a guide
Hold it with gratitude, for in there you know you’ve tried
So seek out all your glory, venture to every port above
For within that travel far and wide, is a journey full of love

© 2017, Mark Lanesbury (Healing Your Heart, a manual of life from within)

MARK LANESBURY: My search for meaning in life. Going through the ups and downs in life trying to come to terms with that ongoing question that we all have…’is this it?’. And the process I took to finally understand that I’m a package and most of my life I had been playing with the wrapping, not realising that further in was this incredible present just waiting to be held, felt, listened to, understood and integrated into who I was to become. After recognising this part of myself, spirit asked that I put what I had learned somewhere that others may gain from it and help their journey just as I had also been helped to find that present within.


# Resurrected Quietude #

Scintilla of firewood I had kindled last year in your fireplace,
Celebrated its return last night to my destiny;
My fuzzy keekers,
My languid -feverish corpus,
My throbbing toes;
Were in most spectacular finds for thou,
In the dale of eclipse;
Unguarding my state
essence of my wise owl eyes,
Resurrected years after,
From the cinder of my mystical conjecture;
Like a phoenix;
The most spirited one -the Almighty resounded through my crinkled bosom;
Leaving abaft a lingering instant;
Immersing me beneath the rear of his wavy quietude.

© 2017, Kakali Das Ghosh


Once Them Lasses Start To Spin

with distaff and spindle whorl,
another year of sweat and effort
to break the stubborn sod
in the fields begins, so lads,
this day only, play the fool,
burn their flax and tow,
and lasses, while we laugh,
scurry round with water,
dousing our flames.

Virgin, mam, and crone, and present,
fate, and future, and spinner, alloter,
and unturnable are the stick
that holds flux of the flax,
delicate web of their clothes,
spin their unspun blood, breath,
bone and sinew and event
in a thread from underground.

Their spindle is a wooden rounded rod,
that tapers toward each end,
twists into thread, story,
fibres it pulls from
the distaff, the imagination.

The whorl is a stone weight,
fitted onto the spindle
to increase and maintain
the speed of the spin,
pace of the story,
twist of the imagination.

Spindle and whorl
spinner controls
suspended from the thread
that is being spun.

Worlds and stars spin,
use force and gravity,
to “turn” one thing,
into another.

Spindle and whorl
create through movement,
spinner at the centre
of be and become.

Once the lasses start to spin
with distaff and spindle whorl,
another year of sweat and effort
to break the stubborn sod,
while the threads twist.

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

The Sky Is Food

The sky is food.

Above iridescent coral canopy of trees
let us throw nets of birds
to catch the fish of clouds
the spider balloons
aeroplankton

aphids in the currents and eddies
cross the atmospheric bridges of gusts,
dead cells in clouds and ice
morsels for migrants in the swim
through rivers and waterfalls of air

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


..grey..

I wish to say that I do not mind the grey,

dark over lakes, morning mists, my hills,

my window shows graves, the quiet ones

**

the colour comes later, in the studio.

the land reclaimed, is bolder now,

energy splashes in orange.

colour comes, from friends in conversation,

music and sounds, and i eat them

with hunger.

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

..illness..

is a short word in varying degrees.

a slight one, can be alleviated with
unecessary treats, parfum , curling
round in soft places.

lift the spirits with little things, be
glad it is not a more serious form
of the word.

i drove the road yesterday, it
is such a pretty place.

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

:: the pool of tears ::

from where comes the love,

comes the pool of fear,

the fright of interrogation,

guilt,

i hear.

from where comes the mourning,

late afternoon,

and evening,

comes the spirit,

and singing,

dancing, ringing.

i hear the bells,

the crows,

the chaffinch,

and it shows,

my hearing.

from where comes the whistling,

comes the pool of tears,

the laughter we hear.

here.

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


The dual nature of clouds

A sponge to filter light and wash the pavement
A hammer to bang my head
And rise my blood into my ears
So I could see thunders and lighting shows before my eyes
A preview of the storm to come

The dual nature of the clouds
The dual nature of the light
The multiple nature of the human beings
An artist work of art
A dual nature artist
Both God and Flesh
Just a matter of perspective
A free will down to the subatomic level
And up to the clouds

© 2017, Iulia Gherghei (Sky Under Construction)


ABOUT THE POET BY DAY