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the hawk has flown, a poem … and your Wednesday Writing Prompt

black and white
“Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.”
― George Carlin

white
a ghostly memory
of damask roses
night-booming jasmine
olive trees, heavy with fruit

black
reimagined into white and
gone the fear of bombs
gone the crumbled buildings and crushed hearts
the abandoned cities, the empty streets
now the children play, they study
the houses stand and the gardens grow
hope towers, a moral high-ground
the ghost is the dove
and the hawk has flown

© 2016, poem and Illustration, Jamie Dedes; All rights reserved; the Bleeding Heart Dove photo below is courtesy of morgueFile.

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

Times and places of peace leave no scars to jog our memories and stoke the fires of our hope. Remember peace or imagine it: What would a world at peace look like?

If you feel comfortable, leave your poetry or prose or a link to it in the comments section below.  All work shared in response to this prompt will be published in a post here next Tuesday.

Jamie’s THE WORDPLAY SHOP: books, tools and supplies for poets, writers and readers

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

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abridged. and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt


“I think that we’re beginning to remember that the first poets didn’t come out of a classroom, that poetry began when somebody walked off of a savanna or out of a cave and looked up at the sky with wonder and said, ‘Ahhh.’ That was the first poem.” Lucille Clifton (1936-2010)

Celebrating American She-Poet (8) Lucille Clifton, homage to my hips

LAST WEDNESDAY’S WRITING PROMPT June 14, 2017 What are you’re thoughts on soulmates? Tells us in prose or poem.

Thanks to Sonja Benskin Mesher and Paul Brookes who came out to play and to all who read a thank you too!

The To And Fro

to and fro the iron
over bedsheets, his shirts,
as she stands three hours

hot poker of pain
in the small of her back,
lists what else to do,

take down window nets,
wash and iron,
vax front room,
lug it upstairs for bedroom,
carpets,
hoover front room,
lug it upstairs for bedroom
carpets,
clean windows inside
to and fro,
to and fro
polish beneath knick knacks
bought on holiday,
to and fro
strip and remake beds,
make his tea,
always meat and two veg

He arrives home and says,
“What have you ever done for me?”

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Womwell Rainbow)

Fishman

She loves him
though he is water.

Her mam says “When I gift you
a fishes tail it will hurt
every time you use it
to and fro like a wave.

It’ll seem to him
a beckoning.

I’ll give you a tongue.
Every time you sing to him
you’ll drown a little more.

You’ll have each other,
but I’ll lose you.”

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Womwell Rainbow)

abridged .

she said they were soul mates, with a yorkshire accent.

both much the same. it lasted a while with ups & downs.

the usual.

then it ended.

this is the shorter version.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA)

© 2017, photograph, Jamie Dedes

Jamie’s THE WORDPLAY SHOP: books, tools and supplies for poets, writers and readers

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the way love works, a poem … and your Wednesday Writing Prompt

maybe a thing about particles and waves
or wave-particles and the way light works
and moves, the way soulmates’ eyes ignite
from moon dust, the way some ancient god
smiled and blinked, flicked an able wrist
to strew some billion stars across a
darkly barren sky, then asked his goddess
to suspend the amber moon …
its caress so softly lighted, it stirred
the hearts of night-blooming lovers

but surely …

surely the years run like the cheetah and
soon-or-late some hearts quake asunder,
just as surely as moon dust and starlight and
the way a true love fills in the fault lines

© 2013, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved‘ Photo courtesy of morgueFile

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

What are you’re thoughts on soulmates? Tells us in prose or poem. If you feel comfortable, leave your work or a link to it in the comments below.  All shared work will be featured on this site next Tuesday.

Jamie’s THE WORDPLAY SHOP: books, tools and supplies for poets, writers and readers

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“the wild rumpus will now begin” … reader-poets respond to last Wednesday’s writing prompt

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT, June 7, 2017 Remember “Let the wild rumpus start!” in Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are? Such a wonderful book and that exclamation has stayed with me – probably you as well – and I always wanted to do something with it. This poem is what came from that inspiration. So, my challenge to you this week, is to use “wild rumpus” in a poem.

Thanks to Paul Brookes, Gary Bowers, Sonja Bensken Mesher and Renee Espriu for coming out to play.  Poem on…

He Was Pandemonium

He caused such a noise, such outcry, such a racket
from the time he crawled, had words & was walking
& with every sibling that arrived within our midst
there was discord between them and between us
from a knock on the door with unfortunate news
of the fact that a boy was perched upon the roof
to his sisters upset as they walked into a bedroom
to see the scurry of a frog causing a commotion
to the neighbor stating your son is in the alley
ought not to be experimenting with matches ought he
to the surprise knock of the police at the door
with a number of hood ornaments in his possession
to the night of upheaval he came home quite sodden
that as I thought in dismay of all the pandemonium
of the day he was born with strawberry blond hair
never I thought ‘the wild rumpus will now begin’ and it did

© June 2017, Renee Espriu (Renee Just Turtle Flight)

‘the shelter’

I will
quite like a wild rumpus here some time,
a make shift band, a straggled procession
down the lane, chanting, scaring the neighbours.

it is often quiet here, though Kenny’s voice
carries.

there will be four of us, costumes and laughing,
happy knowing who we are, comfort in skin.

we used to push you in the toy pram, your legs
spilling out, our selves the show.

it is often quiet here now, you have grown, this
is not your area.

we walk the district quietly.
wait in the shelter.

I will
quite like a wild rumpus here some time.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonjia Benskin Mesher, RCA)

jumperwear

my child a sump is
the coming of plumbing
and mycroft a plump whiz
and speeches undumbing.

but times lately jump us
we show unpreparedness
and fate may then trump us
unto our assbaredness,

so let us don jumpers
to join the wild rumpus
our rumps warm as dumpsters
our bumpers full bumptious.

© 2017, Gary Bowers (One With Clay)

This Psychonaturalist Notes

reedflare flamereed flickerflicker emberkernels lap air, conflagration without heat

in the lap of the grain as it breaks against gust
wild rumpus
amongst reedsway, cootcall, waveruffle, barkgangsign, trunksundials

amongst Geese and Seagull echoes perfect reflections under a halfmoon and quiet blue

evensong of last bell before eyeshorizon darkens and thought
sinks into eyes well to fetch waters reverie into light.

winter colours layered weather bittercoldflares inside skin, cloudsputter sharpcinder ice crackles faces.

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow)