“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

These responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, your darkness, my light – how is it that love transforms us, October 3, 2018, delight, intrigue, thrill your mind and touch the heart. I know you will enjoy them and the two “value-added” sections (Frank’s lastest victory and Mike’s comment) as much as I have.

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

we are

standing still
and spinning

as the clocks vanish beneath

we are

heaved beyond
the gates

of this brief ceiling

© 2018, cs moon

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 journal Brush 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, and Twisted Tungz art & literature magazine, and online on Combustus, 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

© 2018, Renee Espriu (Renee Just Turtle Flight)

EVOLUTION

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.

© 2018, Frank McMahon

COSMOLOGY

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.

© 2018, Frank McMahon

Frank McMahon’s first 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.Corinium Radio.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?

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

. mathematics .

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.

1.2

repeating.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher

• sonja-benskin-mesher.net
• sonja-benskin-mesher.net
• 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.)
• Sonja on Twitter
• sonja-benskin-mesher.co.uk
• Sonja’s daily blog (WordPress) is HERE.

The night is speaking like a cascade

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…

And I am a sign.

© 2018, bogpan [Bozhidar Pangelov]  (bogpan – блог за авторска поезия блог за авторска поезия)

When Silent Love Met with Boasting Vanity

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, Marta Pombo Sallés (Moments)

“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.

© 2018, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works/Call of the Whippoorwill) 

“Dimdumim”

(Raanana, September 14, 2018)

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.

© 2018, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works/ Call of the Whippoorwill )

“A Poem Unwritten”

(Raanana, March 9, 2012)

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.

© 2012, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works/Yet Another Book of Poetry)

“Waiting to Be”

(Raanana, December 4, 2015)

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.

© 2015, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works/Yet Another Book of Poetry)

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.

Kindle (digital): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0786JQJHQ/ ($2.99)

Amazon (paperback): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1981543775/ ($19.95)

Mike is one of The BeZine’s nominees for Best of the Net 2018.

Does Age Matter

And I believed in you because

I loved you

as a charming human being

Knowledgeable attractive witty and quick

And I tried to bear with your weaknesses

Because we all have them and impress

And I believed in you because

I wanted to

For I could see the tremendous potential

In you as a creative enthusiastic loveable

Charming personality that

The Almighty

Had made you.

And I believed you

That you knew so much more

than me

You could drive the car so perfectly

And examine the patients

so expertly

as your learning taught you.

And I believed you that you would share

With me all

That I wanted to tell you

That I wanted you to learn

You could do so much more

In your profession

And I believed you when you said

I always say’ Help yourself’

And you planned your time

And tried to read every book

that came your way

and after meeting you I had hopes of

reviving my shattered faith and trust

In relationships

And I loved you because

I believed we could make it together

I gave you all the chance

And I am still hopeful

That despite our age difference

We can still be happy with each other

And share care and learning and achievements

And I am sure it will be so

Because I believe in You.

CER © 2018, Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans)

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

ABOUT

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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.