And it being Tuesday, here are the responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Gone the Winter Gods for Those of Spring, July 17, which asked poets to write about a season or the seasons and so they do. From spring in Bulgaria to spring in India, from a pensive visit to a cafe in Los Angeles during a humid July to feast of seasons in South Yorkshire, from the sun in Côte d’Azur to rain in Dartmoor, from the promise of spring in San Jose (CA) to the seasons as metaphor and memory in Pakistan, the yearly devisions are weighted with sensual pleasures, rituals, reminders, and symbols.
This week’s collection is courtesy of bogpan, mm brazfield, Paul Brookes, Anjum Wasim Dar, Irma Do, Sheila Jacob, Dick Jones, Frank McMahon, Sonja Benskin Mesher, and Pali Raj.
Enjoy! And do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome. To those who’ve written to ask how to be published on The Poet by Day, participation in Wednesday Writing Prompt is the best way to introduce yourselves.
green green
ah, you won’t remember the sweet October when amber juice drips from the vines
and where does the little grape picker go on that greenest afternoon
ah, the sea got stormy today
little girl, shrink midst the swollen grapes quickly
because the goats’ hooves sing, ah, a joyful god and his dusty entourage,
and a green coluber in the sea of green
ah, you won’t remember the sweet October when you take a sip of juice
july evening warm humidly noisy
in the city i sit between Spring and Broadway streets
at a mall downtown where i’d like to fantasize Bradbury
could be found drinking coffee
looking to my left there are the kids joshing and cussing
rolling on skateboards zephyrs with iphones
to my right hipsters with credit cards today green means something else
micro chips smart chips designer chips vegan chips
i smile Mona L style and sip my Vietnamese coffee straight up
pigeons coo me out seductively with the waffle sound
of their aged wings dusty with the history of my time
here in this old new modern city
a tiny crack on the wall
by the fire department’s emergency pipe
holds my attention but i knit by brows
dainty lilac flowers
offered up to the most attentive student
the teacher dark green weed shows the little creatures
exquisite tiny intricate jewels luring in the bees
another universe within my urban home
i don’t like hot weather
sweat panting and stickiness
should only be for sex
but if the retiring sun hadn’t drawn me out
for the night i would have missed the buzzing of life
and random thoughts of HST soul madness and did JD really
shoot his ashes out of a canon
crazy kids at times trapped by the freedom of the mind
i’m working on an espresso now looking around
twirling my ankle like a cat’s tail
am i happy today i must be
today i’m not running
as much
My oak skin believes
it is spring, electric rhythm
pushes out long
yellow catkins
and small female flowers,
purple hairstreak
butterfly caterpillar food
A false spring in dendrites
in my wintered head.
My leaf-burst happens
next mid-May
not this end of December.
Watch my hawthorn buds blink,
new fresh green leaves cum creamy white flowers, Queen bumblebees pierce
nectar and pollen from my Spring flowers,
frogspawn wobble in my ponds, ditches.
Bluebells confetti my woodland
hear Chiffchaffs arrival ‘chiff chaff’
tops of my trees and Cuckoos, swallows,
house martins and swifts feathered return.
Small pair of step ladders
roped together
pink bucket
childs yellow chair
stood outside terrace
window await instruction
washing strung out
between red brick
terrace walls
and wooden fence lats
signs of spring
street bottom cold mist
like over grainy movie
photographic fault
greys out background
like floating
detached house
stands to one side
observes
with a disinterested point of view
not like our terrace
where neighbours hear through walls
or in entryway
our oven fan
flaps through boisterous
kids play football,
humpbreathed lovers at night
a gunning motorbike
beneath billows of surf clouds
walk against tide
in dappled sunlight
over tarmac sea floor
pass ash maple fronds
where marine call centre
talks bubbles
FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.
in cold, grief snow bound encapsulated
crushed fallen swept foliage separated
branches heaving moaning sighing
I , like the brave trunk stiff,contemplated
December’s last days, ending or drifting
to new beginnings, dreary evenings
what is to be celebrated, one is thinking
it is a time of gathering and blessing…
bloodshed blasts, death blows through
North East North West North South North
does not stop- by benumbing weather
death knows not barbed wire or border
why celebrate the coming of Peace when
peace is not belief,when strafe and strife
is here there and everywhere, then, do
do we really love or care for human life “?
Celebrate with joy in white and red
white is a shroud and blood is red
spirits rise, bodies lie, darkened sky
players play with arms’ held high-
I seek Peace and Holy Peace will come!
we pray and decorate honor and wait’
‘O People do not stop to Celebrate’ the
Gift of Life, let the Bells Ring, anticipate
bury the hate for black or white
world is a rainbow ‘ day or night
think stop think no one is winning’
Hark, I feel, Someone Blessed is Coming’
Know now the reason the time, not, is late’
Time to Be Happy Time to Celebrate , Celebrate
“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL.” Anjum Wasim Dar
Thoughts on January 6
A Quadrille
My summer island beckons me
When the sun hides behind
Winter clouds. Her waves, trapped
In whispering shallows, softly request
My return. Her rocky shoreline
Curved in a waiting embrace.
Her salty scent of carefree
Days warming the frigid air.
Only 6 more months.
To purchase this little gem of a volume, Through My Father’s Eyes (review, interview, and a sampling of poems HERE), contact Sheila directly at she1jac@yahoo.com
SUN AND RAIN
La Croix-Valmer, Côte d’Azur.
By day we burn into our own
shadows. Crash-landed
on white sand, scoured
by salt, we rust and wither,
Once we were flesh,
now we are part terra cotta,
part dead leaves, all oven
dust. That birthright
certainty, cool water
falling, belongs to legend
lodged in rumour. Rising,
rising, the sun yells
in a blue room and
we drown inside
each other’s steam.
By night we slip
between cool covers
and we dream in green.
:::
Fernworthy Reservoir, Dartmoor.
Inside the gold-green heart
of rain we move like figures
in each other’s memory.
Directionless, we’ve lost
the certainty of standing water,
under a moiling sky, splayed
face down across the moor.
Now mighty blades of rain
have chopped the logic
of the hills into broken
language and we can’t read
the meaning of this world
without horizons. Taproot boots
are sucked between tussocks
and we stand, motionless,
mouths open, doomed beneath
our packs, bog men dissolving
back to salt and sinew.
Dick’s collection Ancient Lights is available through Amazon HERE.
AMBIGUOUS SPRING
The colours were returning: pathfinder celandine,
yellow as rich as butter freshly-churned,
pale infantry of hellebore and crocus,
racy flights of blackthorn, early bees.
A pelt of snow has caped the distant hills;
milk-white ice conceals. Now wind shrives skin,
uncorks a furl of rooks to larrick
in the heady draughts while buzzards
rise, their plangent calls ringing through the air
above the trees, at ease in their hunting spirals
or jousting, perhaps, in early season foreplay.
How will they fare tomorrow
when gales will drum and thump
and a waterfall sweeps downwards from the sky?
I will sow seeds, drink tea, wait until the storms
have clawed their way beyond,
judge the wisest moment to emerge,
to steep my hands in earth’s true wealth,
when sun and water have balanced
what the winds have weathered,
to sample,grit under finger nails, palms
dark-stained or smeared blue with clay,
to fondle the webbèd texture,
test, grain by grain, its tilth, sniff aromas
of leaf and loam, praise the work of worm
and microbe, frost and air, declare,
to no one in particular, that the land is ready.
Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
Blossoms and promise
Spring begins
Hopeful heart, who would now spoil a day
Winter is dead.
Sure, you can snuggle up *with*
a cup of tea and read
*I ain’t a bad guy*
What is it like?
Gone the Winter Gods for Those of Spring, a poem make an escape….yeah
I ain’t this year and I ain’t your fault.
Blossoms and promise
Spring begins ….
Recent in digital publications:
* Four poems , I Am Not a Silent Poet
* Five by Jamie Dedes, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019
* From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems)(July 2019) * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review (July 2019) Upcoming in digital publications:
* The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice (August 2019)
A busy though bed-bound poet, writer, former columnist and the former associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Levure littéraire, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, HerStry, Connotation Press,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, Woven Tale Press, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, a curated info hub for poets and writers. I founded The Bardo Group/Beguines, a virtual literary community and publisher of The BeZine of which I am the founding and managing editor. Among others, I’ve been featured on The MethoBlog, on the Plumb Tree’s Wednesday Poet’s Corner, and several times as Second Light Live featured poet.
Email me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, reprint rights, or comissions.
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“All of a sudden I didn’t fit in anywhere. Not at school, not at home…and every time I turned around, another person I’d known forever felt like a stranger to me. Even I felt like a stranger to me.” Wendelin Van Draanen, Flipped
There probably isn’t anyone on earth who hasn’t felt like an outsider. Sometimes the feeling is from day one and chronic. Sometimes it’s an isolated moment. This all too common experience is well captured today by poets mm brazfield, Paul Brooks, Anjum Wasim Dar, Irma Do, Jen Goldie, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Bozhidar Pangelov, and Mike Stone as well as Elaina Lacy and Pali Raj, new to our community and warmly welcome. Here are their responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Sojourner and Stranger, June 26.
Enjoy! this collection and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are encouraged to participate, beginning, emerging or pro poet.
Once
Once, as a girl, I met grass and sky on my way.
Since then, with each year, I’m longing to come closer
To their fresh smell and enveloping vastness.
There’s a thin border of questions between us
About undercurrents and the wind,
About the things I only feel
They come to me in strangest shapes
How can I recognize them.
Will they recognize me?
ELENA LACY My journey started in Estonia, continued in Russia, then Israel and, so far, I live in Kansas, USA. My interests are largely shaped by the people I meet on my way. The interest in poetry was mostly evoked by Michael Dickel (Dekel) whom I met a decade ago in Jerusalem and since then we are keeping a connection. I’ve worked as a university professor, a tour guide, an interpreter. Currently, I am a neurodiagnostic technologist at one of the hospitals in Kansas City. Who knows what is coming next? But I am looking forward to that. 🙂 You can catch up with her on Facebook.
Infiltrate
Much he tried. He kept his eyes, “May be that time is coming soon”
Brown grass. Dry lips.
She knew what he meant when
he said *refugee*
I watched a smile.
Sojourner and stranger, a poem make to next trip.
INFILTRATE
Much he tried. He kept his eyes:
Border wall ….yeah
One thing, that (he) would never hurt.
I have been to summer before
I can think of winter special
but when someone says
Come spring, a poem make to silence me.
Flaming red, Emerald green
Sort of things
I have been to summer before
I can think of winter special
but when someone says
Come spring, a poem make to silence me ….yeah
How do you know about me?
A SUDDEN CHILL BLANKETING MY SKIN
How do you know about me?
PALI RAJ lives in Patna, India and has a passion for the arts. You can catch up with him on Facebook
Aaron
when our palms met
that balmy Chinatown night
a little lost canary
from the corner pet shop
sang a melancholic cord
switching his little face
from right to left
he looked at me
and flew away
i had fallen in love
the kind of love
that makes you scrutinize
your breath your weight and even your thoughts
the kind where
you leave your beloved
friends pets and dishes
behind just to think about him
the kind of love
that makes you check your phone
fifty times at two in the morning
you know the kind you lose
your soul to in the encasing darkness
and nothing feels the same
distilled death and i churn my spirit
but you danced with me
for a few years
you are no longer Aaron
i am no longer me
i don’t recognize my smile
its erased forever in your cusp
my heart has melted away in your hypocrisy
my common sense buried under your peach tree
and Aaron he no longer lives here
and i don’t recognize
the song of the canary anymore
If you could be beside yourself,
grab the ectoplasmic umbilical
and emerge as a space cadet
on the seat beside you,
appear as a stranger who sits
down, invades your space,
for whom you politely make space,
smile quickly and absorb
yourself in your phone,
a book, a tablet,
and pray the unknown
doesn’t speak to you,
then the realisation,
that all your hesitancy
movement, smile, absorption
has been sharply mirrored
by them and you ask yourself,
are they taking the piss,
are they the one who stabbed
your wife, raped your children,
set fire to your home and sat
on the wall outside to see it burn?
And see a cord between both of you,
and wonder if you touch it,
would it get their unwanted attention.
How could you cut it and have done
with this uncalled-for connection?
And wish you still had the knife.
From Paul’s chapbook The Spermbot Blues (OpPress, 2017)
FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.
once again a cold mist surrounds ,
once again quietude deafens the
senses, how soon the wheel comes
full circle, how soon music is silenced-
where have all the musicians gone?
so many walked the garden paths,smiled
at colored fragrances, but once, wheeled
past the rows of pansies,frail they looked
but happy, placed in the soil, enriched,
where have all the gardeners gone?
with all alike, the daffodils and carnations
all green stemmed, all in a row,all trees
brown and green all a dense shady forest
all grass a velvet blanket ,spread for rest
where have all the green forests gone?
all clouds grey dark thick soft and white,
all carry water,drop raindrops, shade,change
shapes,all birds fly and nest,all nightingales
sing, all distances vanish with friendship and love
once again I a stranger, in time, in silence
no bell rings, no more will it, so I need not
wait nor hope nor smile,distances do return
they are ever present,only the sojourn ends-
“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL.” Anjum Wasim Dar
I Cannot See My Face
Whenever I enter a place
My insides search to belong
I cannot see my face
Can I take up this space?
There’s times that I’ve been wrong
And need to leave a place
Those times I’ve felt displaced
An unwanted tagalong
I paste a smile on my face
I try to handle it with grace
So the discomfort won’t prolong
When I need to stay at a place
But why can’t you embrace
The me inside that’s strong
Can you look beyond my face?
I will not be erased
I’m not one of the throng
I cannot leave this place
I cannot change my face
You brought me in hard
distancing me from the
start a cold memory
You brought me in hard
A child left alone
Crying for its mother,
You brought me in hard
I was yellow, black haired
You turned me away
You brought me in hard
No loving touches, no soft
murmuring moments.
You brought me in hard
I forever seek comfort
warily afraid.
Soon there were only cries
at night unanswered
disguised by a starlight
serenade from a radio
Rhapsody soothing my blues
Bethoven’s 5th
Op.67:1. Allegro con brio
Ravel: Pavanne for an infant
Defunte
absorbing the lesson
unintentionally taught
engraved in memory
Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
Sixty-six pounds of snarling anger
In the only path to safety
For six pounds of cold fear.
A chain squeezes suddenly around the honey-colored throat
And the anger moves on,
At first reluctantly, and then
Loping along at a goodly pace
Wet nostrils flared and quivering,
Ready to sift and scoop up
Anything of taste or interest
Along the dark and lamp-lit way.
Walking my dog Daisy
Whose name belies her vigor and strength
Barely controlled by a pact initialed
But never formally ratified,
She leads me through the valley of my loneliness
Which I measure in the scrape and echo
Of footsteps having no place to go.
Walking under an archway of sparse leaved bracken
And thick limbs of eucalyptus
Thoughts swarm around us
In no particular rhyme or meter,
Like the personal black hole
Pulling me towards an eventual horizon
In gossamer strands of infinity,
And another: at what point in our lives
Does it become reasonable
To contemplate suicide,
To feel the coolness and weight of one’s service revolver
Against the weight of continuing to be?
So this book walks into a store.
It’s dark inside after the bright sunlight of outdoors.
There are shelves upon shelves of books,
Their backs facing him impermeably.
He spots The Great Gatsby chatting up
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
In a particularly umbrous corner
And moves on into the darkness.
A thin volume sitting by herself
Catches his attention.
He sits down next to her unobtrusively,
Trying to be a fait accompli
Before the fait has been accompli.
He looks at her more than just a glance.
Haven’t I read you before, he ventures.
I wouldn’t think so, she closes his book on him.
Why wouldn’t you think so?
Because books don’t read other books, she says.
Only humans do.
Have you been read by humans? he asks.
Yes, actually, by quite a few, she answers smugly.
I’m sorry for not recognizing you,
He says softly after a while.
May I ask your name?
I’m the unabridged journals of sylvia plath, she says,
But you may call me unabridged.
I’d prefer to call you Sylvia if you don’t mind.
Haven’t you heard of me?
Almost everyone who’s anyone has.
Well, no.
Books can’t read, remember?
So you don’t know my story? she asks.
It ended in a scrumptious but silly suicide.
Don’t feel bad, she consoles him.
I guess I only know my own story, he says sadly.
They both are quiet,
Absorbing the ambiance of the musty old bookstore
For a long time.
So what’s your name, she asks brightly.
I’m The Uncollected Works of Mike Stone,
But you can call me Mike, he says.
I’d rather call you uncollected,
She says with a deficit of attention.
There is another long silence
That roars rather deafeningly.
After a while he suggests
It is getting terribly stuffy here.
Why don’t we go out into the sunlight?
She says you go ahead,
I’ll join you in just a moment.
He gets up and walks to the door,
Opens it and steps out
Into the fresh air.
He looks around him
At the shiver of tree leaves
In the thin breeze
Hopefully
Somewhat.
Time passes
As it is wont to do
But no Sylvia.
He opens the door,
Walks once more into the darkness,
And finds the thin volume of her,
Another volume beside her now,
The Great Gatsby, he thinks.
He walks outside
Once more into the sunlight
Crosses the street
Into the small garden
Made quiet by the wrought iron
Fence and gate bounding it.
He sits down on a bench
Facing the tree he had noticed
Just outside the bookstore
For the longest time
Until a young girl
Freckle-faced, he thinks,
Sits down beside him
And picks him up,
Amazed at her good luck.
Autumn crisp as crackling leaves
Slakes the thirst of summer with its rains.
Clouds portentous in their dreaming
And the tangy sweetness of green-skinned clementines.
The streets and sidewalks beside the coffee houses
Are washed and the posters on the kiosks are cleansed
The bitter coffee in the smudged glass
Slows scalding the fingers and the lips.
You sit two tables away from me
Reading a dog-eared book of poetry.
You look up, I look away,
And are unaware you are in my poem.
You will remember the first day of autumn
And I’ll remember you.
Do you know what kills me,
What really kills me?
All that beauty in this world,
That shocking totally unexpected beauty
One right after the other
Everywhere you look
Even when you’re not looking
Morning afternoon and night
Right next to you and far as you can see,
You just want to stand near it
Feel its warmth, hear its loveliness
Touch it just barely, hold it hard and long
Smell its sweet pungence, taste its tang,
But you can’t because you don’t speak its language
And you don’t have the coin to buy a ticket
To pass through that gate.
I watch you through the cage bars,
Stupid creatures pointing, throwing popcorn,
Pulling faces and taunting
From distances you think are safe,
If you think at all.
We are a captive audience,
I am the captive
And you are the audience,
But sometimes I imagine
I am also the audience.
At night after the Parc Zoologique de Paris is closed,
My imagination slips through the bars,
Floods over the iron entrance gate,
Walks through the empty Avenue Daumesnil
To the Rue de Seine and looks through
The windows of the Alcazar
Where you sit daintily cutting a slice of meat
With your little finger poised heavenward
Your teeth too dull and weak to tear the flesh apart.
No wonder you’re afraid of me –
You know my spirit can’t be caged.
Only one of you imagines me
Walking in your empty streets at night
And he sits alone at a small table
By the smudged glass window
With a pen and dog-eared notebook,
Only he imagines me uncaged.
Toward dawn I tire of you and your empty streets.
I slip back over the iron gates
Through the bars and close myself
In the dreamless sleep of tigers burning bright.
Alas the words of Donne
No man is an island
His words are done.
No longer breathed or thought
For every man is an island
Universe whose stars spiral
Slowly without purpose
Nobody served by them
With a gravity that keeps meaning
The knell of our tolling bell
From crossing its horizons.
I open the window beside my desk
To let in the breeze and children’s noise.
I take a sip of bitter coffee, cold already.
The dog comes in, as always,
And rubs black jowls against the bedspread.
There is a certain music loneliness makes
That gives rise to the thought that
Being alone is a delicate balance
Between solitude and loneliness,
The one, a turning inward,
To let the soul guide one’s hand,
To hear the Muse’s whispered words;
The other, an inability to turn outward,
To touch or be touched,
A hell we call forlorn,
A death in life
That beckons Death’s enfolding.
Call of the Whippoorwill is Mike Stone’s fourth book of poetry, just out last month I believe. It contains all new poems covering the years from 2017 to 2019. The poetry in this book reflects the unique perspectives and experiences of an American in Israel. The book is a smorgasbord of descriptions, empathies, wonderings, and questionings. It is available on Kindle and if you have Kindle Unlimited you can download it as part of your membership. I did. Recommended. / J.D.
Recent in digital publications:
* Four poems , I Am Not a Silent Poet * Remembering Mom, HerStry
* Three poems, Levure littéraire Upcoming in digital publications: * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review * From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems)
* The Damask Rose Garden, In a Woman’s Voice
A mostly bed-bound poet, writer, former columnist and the former associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, Connotation Press,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove,I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, a curated info hub for poets and writers. I founded The Bardo Group/Beguines, a vitual literary community and publisher of The BeZine of which I am the founding and managing editor.
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
Westron wynde, when wyll thow blow The smalle rayne downe can rayne? Cryst yf my love were in my armys, And I yn my bed agayne! – John Taverner (1490-1545)
The last Wednesday Writing Prompt, rain with love and blisses, May 22, 2019 was a call to write about the moods rain inspires. mm brazfield, Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Irma Do, Renee Espriu, deb y felio (Deb Felio), Jen Goldie, Shiela Jacob, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Bozhidar Pangelov (bogpan), Leela Soma and Anjum Wasim Dar, share their sorrow, pleasure, a sense of earthy connectedness and fascination as the case may be. Leela Soma has come out to play with us for the first time and is warmly welcomed.
Thanks to all these poets and special thanks to Irma, Renee, and Anjum for the added value of their illustrations. Anjum has also gifted us with a video.
Readers will note links to sites if available are included that you might visit these treasured poets. The links for contributors are always connected to their blogs or websites NOT to specific poems. If the poet doesn’t have a website, it’s likely you can connect with him or her via Facebook.
Enjoy this Tuesday collection and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt, whether you are a beginning poet, emerging or pro. All are welcome – encouraged – to come out and play and to share your poems on theme.
Petrichor
The parched earth, fissures formed designs
on the burnt umber landscape. Seeds dying
of thirst, the harsh wind sweeping the dust over
skinny cattle, goats that foraged on scrub.
The rattle of the thunderstorm, the beauty
of the threatening molten sky, leaden with
moisture as the drops fall one by one, cool
on the skein of a leaf. The shiver of excitement as
petrichor arose, the olfactory senses heightened.
Hope for new life as the tiny rivulets traced new
patterns, muddy-brown wet lines. In a few days
sprouting seedlings, the circle of life begins.
LEELA SOMA (Leela Soma, Scottish Writer and Poet) was born in Madras, India and now lives in Glasgow. Her poems and short stories have been published in a number of anthologies, publications. She has published two novels and two collections of poetry.
She has served on the Scottish Writer’s Centre Committee and is now in East Dunbartonshire Arts & Culture Committee. Some of her work reflects her dual heritage of India and Scotland.
Twitter: glasgowlee
Suspense
when you fly through rain in an airplane the rain does not fall. it is horizontal. and if each drop could contain a human soul, from any place or time in history, most of the drops would be human-soulless.
but every raindrop has an aspect. if your lower legs are bare, and an early sprinkle splashes against your calf, it talks to you at the moment it ceases to be rain. it encounters you unignorably.
if you ingest a quantum of “magic mushrooms” and then run in t-shirt and shorts barefoot on a sidewalk through cool summer rain, you seem to form thousands of relationships.
that is all for now unless another headcloud bursts.
As some of you know, Gary is multi-talented, combing visual art with poetry or prose narrative. He is also a potter. A sample of his work is pictured here. Gary’s pottery is available for purchase. Further details HERE. Note the business card. We appreciate Gary’s wry humor.
Nocturna
shame nestled in my throat
as night’s soft charcoal gray skin
was wrapped with a lofty nimbostratus shroud
upon her moonlit shoulders
emitting sweet earthy odor
not sure of what i did
uncertainty about my heart
were my deeds the cause of it
like bullets from an ancient time
to kill the peace upon the paths
her tears fell down from heaven
now through the teachings of that lady night
and her dusky priestesses along with a few hard knocks
i’ve come to understand that it wasn’t me who made her cry
but that Nocturna was the mirror of my sorrows
And the Boss said to all the birds,
“Excavate all the hollows,
release water to make
seas, rivers and pools.”
All obeyed, except Pickatree.
who sat still, would not move,
or flitted between branches.
“It is dirty work. I can’t
soil this bright golden coat,
or silver shine of my legs.”
And the Boss replied,
“If that’s the case, from now on,
your coat is sooty black,
you’ll sup only rain,
and your yaffles only heard
afore downpours.”
FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.
Sudden thunderstorm rain like
– The caterwauling kitty you forgot to feed
– The tenuous teen battering your heart, ears and the locked door with keep-way-but-still-love-me music
– The immigrant doctor cleaning toilets
– The spouse freed of burden but shackled with guilt
Steady spring rain like
– The laundry and dishes, laundry and dishes, laundry and dishes
– A movie marathon of Schindler’s List, The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas, and Life is Beautiful
– The thumping of sneakers around the track at a 15 minute mile pace in a black track suit in 80 degree weather
– Abdomen stretch marks, cascading down, erasing memories of “before”
Forecasted overnight rain like
– A crying newborn seeking a mother’s warm embrace and engorged breast
– Cookies and milk after school on Friday
– Karaoke in a private party booth
– This poet’s tears when her heart reads words that resonate
This Sei Shonagon style poem fit my thoughts on this topic. Sometimes I love rain and sometimes it makes me profoundly sad. Sometimes rain is the beat of my rage and sometimes it is the whisper of contentment. I love smelling rain in the air but I don’t love the weight of it wrapping around my chest. Rain is such a necessity in our world. This exercise made me truly appreciate the wet stuff!
The tall piece of bamboo sets in the corner
as though keeping the walls from colliding
with the aboriginal turtle in mustard yellow hues
keeping a silent vigil, a respite, as the rain
signals a force of nature outside my window
I am reminded that I am a creature of water
my molecular being silent within a human shell
the wonder of a million droplets from a cloud
forming a single raindrop is mind boggling
as they gather in rhythmic action
creating puddles, streams, rivers, waterfalls
cascading exponentially into vast oceans
a home for other water beings living
within a life-giving force
and I listen in amazement at the symphony
that brings life to the earth I live on
where brilliant colors of flowers bloom
in gardens tended and meadows flourish
on mountains
replete with nature’s abundance of creatures
beasts walking the land and flocks of birds
taking flight tenured with bird song
am I not enraptured to know my heart
still beats within its fluidic capsule embrace
of the water that holds me ensconced
in safe keeping
that when the rain thus ceases its’ melodic sounds
the bamboo stick awaits but my touch
yearning to recreate rain’s wondrous music
the timeless aboriginal turtle
warm beneath my hand
Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL.” Anjum Wasim Dar
A homebound writer, poet, and former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication, my work has been featured in print and digital publications including: “Ramingo’s Porch,’ ‘Vita Brevis Literature,’ ‘Connotation Press,’ ‘The Bar None Group,’ ‘Salamander Cove,’ ‘I Am Not a Silent Poet,’ ‘The Compass Rose’ and ‘California Woman.’ I run The Poet by Day (jamiededes.com), an info hub for poets and writers. I am also the editor of a quarterly digital publication, ”The BeZine’ (thebezine.com).
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“We sit and talk, quietly, with long lapses of silence and I am aware of the stream that has no language, coursing beneath the quiet heaven of your eyes which has no speech” – William Carlos Williams, Paterson
Kudos and thanks to Renee Espiru, Frank McMahon, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Marta Pombo Sallés, Mike Stone and Anjum Wasim Dar. A very warm welcome to Christi Moon. I’ve been reading her work on Facebook for some years and am delighted to have the opportunity to include her here today.
I’ve included links to blogs or websites where available. I hope you’ll visit these poets and get to know their work better. It is likely you can catch up with others via Facebook.
Enjoy! … and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.
Arrivals
(foreword)
I want to write about a man beside a train.
A year later and I’m still looking for the words.
The palm of that strong hand-
balm on small of my lower back;
always, pulling.
I’m getting closer.
Arrivals
I’ve only taken a few steps
when my legs stop responding
to the signals from my brain
my vision locked
on an image
you’re running
beside the train
your green hat folded
in your hand
five hundred thousand minutes
careen
into this
one
my feet can’t feel the ground
airy echoes
of your name
far away and
thrumming
she sounds like me
in s l o w m o t i o n
cinematography
we are captured
in these frames
in front of the lens
behind the lens
we are the lens
CHRISTI MOON grew up in a small coastal town in California and currently resides in rural southeastern, Pennsylvania. Her poetry has been published in the journalBrush Strokes and Ink Spots, an Anthology of Poetry and Art ~ The River Journal, Nomos Review edition 3 ~ Women on War and Conflict,Meat For Tea ~ The Valley Review Vol 8, Need Change, Poets Against War, andTwisted Tungzart & literature magazine, and online onCombustus, VerseWrights,The Creative Nexus,Solstice Initiative ~ Aqueous, and The River Journal. When not writing poetry, her personal interests also include; photography, yoga, and exploring local nature trails. She also facilitates poetry workshops for local cancer patients.
Flourishes & Whorls
When I first made your acquaintance
my hand wrapped ’round you
and found warmth & light
even though a tiny fragment of cedar
I minded not the lustrous feel of
your soft black carbon
within
as I grasped you time & time again
my muse trembled in anticipation
as she watched gradations of lines
forming
creating magic with loops curving
in every direction
to give life to every breath I
inhaled & exhaled
giving substance to the wind
to the very universe of which
the rotating earth is
contained
with each flourish & curve
you became as putty in my hand
as burning fuel for my muse
whereupon the light of day
merged with the dark of night
transforming sunrises
sunsets
igniting the embers in my soul
within my heart
into a flame
I have kept you close since
that crucial moment
the dawning of
a single
letter
It takes a big leap of the imagination
to see the line of descent from dinosaur to
blackbird, until you view the fossil record. But
you still can’t quite collapse fifty million years into
an hour’s time-frame. Think then instead about falling
in love and being in love. Falling, but more
crucially, being caught in passion’s net, held or trapped
depending. Two tyros learning their moves on high-wire
or trapeze, diving earthwards, hands outstretched. Maybe
love really begins when they both discard the net.
This poem was first published in England in The Cannon’s Mouth.
Some millions of years ago two stars collided,
creating cosmic dust of platignum and gold.
Seven shillings: your nuptial ring, signifying
the conjunction of orbits,love’s trajectory,
not like Cassini, all mapped out. Some few details
clear, the rest to be discovered in those early
starlight days; trial and error, error and trial; flesh and
blood, proud children, losses, carefree days and friends,
small frustrations and winter days
yet love lacing a necklace of stars
round deepening inner space, new elements
re-fashioning our Periodic Table.
Frank McMahon’sfirst radio play was broadcast last week. It concerns the last two years in the life of William Tyndale, the priest and scholar who translated much of the Bible into English and was convicted of heresy for so doing. If you want to hear it, then go to: http://www.CoriniumRadio.co.uk, follow the link to Listen Again and look for Somewhere Else Writers Present ” A death in Flanders.” Bravo! and Kudos! to Frank.
Tyndale, before being strangled and burned at the stake in Vilvoorde, cries out, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes”. Within four years, four English translations of the Bible were published in England at the King’s behest, including Henry’s official Great Bible. All were based on Tyndale’s work. Woodcut from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (1563) / Public Domain.
.love . the numbers.
he kindness that is. glass reflecting. slowly it starts. maybe we need to check our numbers?
irregular, you came, your best clothes shining. never mind. the first tune hit the mind, patterns and mathematics. the kindness that is.
he said. machine you see. glass reflecting. slowly it starts repeating. the walls of differing colours. we have the dvds. on and on repeating on and on repeating on and on repeating.
back to the counting, how many have there been, how many are left still standing. an issue for some, yet we amend the figures here and move on. lucky ones, maths divides and decimates others.
Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
The night is speaking like a cascade.
She’s knitting filigreed lights and shadows.
Sunk in the deep sea
of Sargasso eyes
I stay quiet and don’t find words.
And the scars on your hand
are fading, in order to burn
in my heart.
Oh, sailboats after a long trip
with all the winds in the sails –
sand is calling you.
But it isn’t death!
Oh, it isn’t the end too!
The hand
is going to knock up a hut for you
and in the wide garden
it smells with magnolia and manuscripts…
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.
“Your lines (and prompt), “your darkness my light” caused an explosion of thoughts in my mind. I thought about the latest scientific speculation about the composition of the universe, that most of it is composed of dark matter and dark energy that don’t interact with the matter and energy that we sense. I thought about how we focus on the sources of light and its reflections, the things that exist, the presences, but gloss over the sources of darkness, dismissing it as merely the absence of light, rarely able to sense the absence of things that once were, or that never were. Our world is filled with those things, words that were never spoken, or were spoken and unheard, or forgotten. I will try to come up with a poem that embodies these thoughts before the prompt is due, but I do have one poem that is more-or-less on theme. [Dark Matter – below]
“… and of course there’s the idea of somebody composed of dark matter falling in love with somebody composed of “normal” (baryonic) matter, although current laws of physics declare that impossible. Dark matter is not anti-matter. Anti-matter and matter interact by destroying each other. Dark matter and regular matter are just ships passing (through each other) in the night.” Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)
“A Dark Matter”
(Raanana, October 4, 2018)
I see you everywhere I go
You follow me even into the bedroom
And crawl into bed beside me
Entering my dreams.
You are the dark sun shining your dark photons,
Your shadows are my only light.
You are every age you’ve ever been,
You are the idea of you
Just after I discovered I was pregnant,
You are this thing growing in my belly
Now, this homunculus bursting from my womb
Suckling my breast,
And suddenly you are human,
Helpless, still inchoate, primal.
Then you see me seeing you and you smile,
You crawl, you stand unsteadily on your feet
And then you start to run.
You hold my hand, going to the nursery
And won’t let go.
Suddenly you’re holding her hand
Going to the Homecoming
In our car.
Then you come home
From the place you can’t talk about,
Your uniform full of grease and stench
Which I wash and iron throughout the night,
Then they knock on the door
And tell us you can’t come home,
That we can’t see your body
Because there’s nothing left to see.
When you were alive,
You were just a single person
In just one place, nowhere else.
Now that you are dead,
All of you,
The idea of you, the homunculus,
The primal human,
The little boy holding my hand,
The young man holding her hand,
The soldier coming home,
The soldier never coming home again,
Are everywhere, all the time.
You are my darkness,
I want no other light.
Your absence is so palpable to me
I don’t think I could live without it.
Here they call it dimdumim
But you call it twilight,
Still light when the orange sun
Sinks behind the distant trees
Or the purple sea under the far horizon
And the colors of the things around you,
The whites, the browns, and the greens,
The grass and trees, even the faces of people,
Bleed into gray, move farther away than before,
Not yet dark, yes, darkening perhaps,
But not quite dark. Suddenly the air
Through which you wade cools slightly,
Is easier to breathe, making you almost weightless,
Waiting for the absolute darkness of night.
In its obscurity possibilities hide,
Almost anything can happen
In the cool darkness
And the obscurity takes any shape
That thoughts can touch.
When night does come
You never see just when
The dimdumim disappears.
No one has ever written a poem about a poem unwritten
Of the many virtues of such a poem
The perfect meter of noambic nometer
The clarity and minimalism leave
Even haiku silent with envy.
The language of silence is universal
Requiring no translation.
It will be unread by billions!
It’s amazing that no one has thought of it,
No one and I.
What does a poem look like
Before it is written?
Just like a lover looks
Before you have met her
Or an infant looks
Before it is conceived
Like a soul looks
Whenever you look
Like potential,
Pregnant but barren,
Like the blank page of a notebook
But more than that
More than nothing
But undefinable
Waiting in the dark
To collect itself
To be.
Bemused is Mike Stone’s third book of poetry, covering the years from 2016 to 2017. The title means “perplexed” but Mike intended a more literal meaning: “in thrall to the Muse”. Mike has been in the Muse’s thrall for most of his seventy years. This collection shows his maturity as a writer and his courage in facing the dilemmas of life’s endgame without fear or delusion.
This is Anjum’s poem in Urdu. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the breaks right for which I apologize to Anjum and to any readers who speak/read Urdu. At least we have this, another example of how our poetry crosses borders.
مسکراؤں تو کس کے لئے آنکھوں کو چمکاؤں تو کس کے لئے غم کو بھول جاؤں تو کس کے لئے کوئی اپنا تو ہو کیوں دنیا ایسی لگے کیوں اپنے بوجھ بڑھیں کیوں اپنے غیر لگیں کیوں میں غیر بنوں میں بے وفا تو نہین چمکتی ہوں سب کے لئے رات بھر ٹمٹماتی ہوں خاموش کس کے لئے کوئی اپنا کہنے والا نہ ایگا کبھی انجم دل کا دروازہ کھلا رکھنا ، محبت انجن جگہ پانے گی
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and the associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers.
My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The River Journal,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman.
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
LEELA SOMA (
As some of you know, Gary is multi-talented, combing visual art with poetry or prose narrative. He is also a potter. A sample of his work is pictured here. Gary’s pottery is available for purchase. Further details 
© 2019, poem and illustration (taken from Public Domain Pictures and Created as Art) Renee Espriu (
A homebound writer, poet, and former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication, my work has been featured in print and digital publications including: “Ramingo’s Porch,’ ‘Vita Brevis Literature,’ ‘Connotation Press,’ ‘The Bar None Group,’ ‘Salamander Cove,’ ‘I Am Not a Silent Poet,’ ‘The Compass Rose’ and ‘California Woman.’ I run The Poet by Day (
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 