Grow high. The devil can’t find you. Grow deep. Buddha can’t find you. Build a house and live there. Gourd creepers will climb over it, their flowers dazzling at midnight. Ko Un, What?: 108 Zen Poems, forward by Thich Nhat Hanh
I’ve been trying to lighten things up a bit with the last few prompts and this collection is in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, The Contours of Joy, March 20. I would say today, that these poems make me smile, even when they report sadness or anger or questioning. It’s a wonderful thing – a healing and hope-filled thing – to read these poems. They’re not consistently full of joys, but always full of life, of cognizance. The latter is the hallmark of good poets and old souls.. Living in a world gone mad is serious business. With all the spheres of joy here today, there’s also an awareness of suffering, past, present and to come. Well done by poets: Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Irma Do, Jen E. Goldie, Sheila Jacob, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Taman Tracy Moncur and Anjum Wasim Dar. Thank you! and special thanks to Irma and Anjum for their illustrations.
Readers will note links to sites are included that you might visit these stellar poets.
Enjoy this collection. It just might inspire some more of your own poetry; and, do join us tomorrow for the another Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are invited to come out to play, beginning, emerging or pro poet.
moon and eye
“Well, I must go–pardon–I cannot stay: My moonbeam comes to carry me away…”
The dying Cyrano in Edmond Rostand’s CYRANO DE BERGERAC, translated by Brian Hooker)
moon
and eye
interact
in an act
didactic:
sight.
swoon
and sigh,
artifact.
re-enact
galactic
light.
It isn’t the wonder of the wheels turn
As my feet press the plastic pedals,
But the big curved metal boot at the back
Where there is room to store my wonders:
Elastic bands, cotton reels, a shiny sixpence,
Grandad’s hat badge from when he went to war,
A bus ticket saved from my first trip last week
On two busses to Nanna’s new home. Must have been
Thousands of miles away but Mam says
It’s only three miles. I bet I could bike
to Nannas but Dad says its too far
And I’d get tired with all the hills to go up,
But I can wheely down them dad, I told him.
He nods and goes back to his pencil scribbles
On bits of paper in Mam and Dads bedroom.
I take my brilliant bike down our drive.
It sparkles like our gold fish did we won at fair
On The Stray when mam brought it back
And put it in a glass bowl where it swims round
In circles and I told mam it would get dizzy
So I try to ride round in circles but Dad
Says I must go on the road or onto the other
Road out of our sack I think dad said but
We don’t live in a sack, we live in a house
I tell my daft Dad, I can only ride half way round,
Turn and ride half way round again,
Then I hears it. Ice cream van dinging and singing
It must be close so I run to Mam and shout,
Can I have a Ninety-Nine, Mam. Can I? Can I?
And Mam rummages in her bag and pulls out
Her purse and am telling mesen come on,
Mam cos I can hear the dinging singing
Outside and know he only stays a bit
Less he’s got a queue. Come on Mam.
She puts coins in me hand and I almost
Don’t close it when I run like the clappers
And see there’s a queue and look up
At all the bright colours of what you can get
On side of his van and lads and lasses walk
Past with ice-cream dribble down their fingers
As they try to catch the sweet melt.
Then I see my bike in the road
With a lass I don’t know on it. Stolen
It. And I’m in the queue and just at end
I run to get my bike back cos its mine
Not hers, and she cries when I push her off
Onto the road. “My dad says not to ride in
The road I tell her., and she sobs and I see
The ice-cream van go out the sack,
And I almost cry but I’ve got my bike back,
And I check my boot to see its all there
My elastic bands, bus ticket, shiny sixpence,
And hear mam calling me in to tea
When she’ll ask Where’s me ice-cream.
From Paul’s forthcoming collaboration with Iranian artist, Hiva Moazed, called Fish Strawberries, to be published by Alien Buddha Press
Al tell thee best dream av ad
in any midneet while folk were fast on
a sees a reet cross tree,
a ghoast in plated gold
ringed by shiny moon fascinator,
jewels like worth summat glow worms
rahnd base, five more ont cross beam.
Throngs o’ God’s angels tacked on it. This were no scam artists cross but every heaven spirit and earth folk had peepers on it: a see universe agog
And me, aware of wrong doing,
that native wood-beetle, eyed it too
felt a shiver of glory
from that cross barkskin beaten gold
wi jewels suited a cross a Jesus
and tha knows through all that gold barkskin
rattled folks bloodless yammering
how bleeding as stained crosses rightside.
Harrard an horrored
a that sullied wi leaked blood.
a lay there yonks
in agog sorrow fort Saviourcross
till me lug oyles heard glimmering cross pipe up:
“Ages since, I fetch back I were hacked
dahn at holt-edge, lugged off, hauled
shoulder heaved, squared top on a hill
adsed to a cross to carry wrong doers.
Then I see Christ, his balls ready fort hoisting. For us there’s no flitting, no shirking on God’s mind to: I might a fell on these folks. Then
God himsen, med himsen naked, to naked balls,
laid on us afore throngs of eyes
when saving on folks flitted in his bonce.
A shuddered at his touch, afeard splintering,
A had hold, I were raised as a cross,
hold heaven king high, afeard cracking. They tapped dark iron in us: scars tha still can see,
A cannot bear ’em stroked. They jeered at both on us. A felt his blood seep from his side
as he sighed himsen upards.
Av seen pain on this hill
saw Christ as on vicious rack
then roilin’ storm clouds, death to sunblaze,
covered o’er that blaze on God: a glowering gloom creation’s sorta: Christ on cross tree.
A see folk come forard, a felt splintered
as if added, but gev ne sen.
I were in their dannies, gore-wet, nail gashed.
They laid him art, a dead-weight atter ordeal,
final knackeredness. Then afore
murderers peepers, those folk med
a stone oyle and set Christ inside it.
Then late int day flitted knackered : left
Christ by himsen.
Long atter soldier’s lottery natter and cold rigor on Christ’s limbs,
us kept our places, drahned wi blood.
Then they sets to
felling us,
bury us in delved grahned, but disciples, friends fahned us…
put on us barkskin o’ gold an silver.
so nar tha knows, how sorra warped
me flesh, how malice worked with spintering iron. Now it’s time for earth foak and whole marvel on creation to cow eye this sign.
God-son were racked on us, so now ma glimmerin’ haunts heavens, can heal
all who afeard for us. Am honoured
by Christ above all forest trees as God favoured Mary above all women folk.’
Then by mesen, thrilled, me spirit high, let mesen rave that I can seek what a av seen,
saviour-cross: a peace with mesen that yearns a help on earth. Few mates still livin’ nar : most are int manor on heaven, av fetched upards. Now, daily, I listen art
fort cross-tree in my earthly nappin’,
to lead us from this flitting life
into great manor of heaven
where God has set a right feast.
May God-Son and Ghost be mates,
who were nailed to death for folk ages since :
a saviour as gin us life,
that we may put wood int oyle in heaven.
A Yorkshire dialect version of the Anglo Saxon poem The Dream Of The Rood, which appears in Paul’s collection The Headpoke And Firewedding, Alien Buddha Press, 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.
Don’t you dare turn those unicorn eyes toward me
And keep your sparkly sparkles to yourself
That field was truly not meant for running or singing or dancing or jumping for joy.
Just stop with the rainbows and the technicolor sunsets
No need for close ups of baby chubby thighs
Or even your thighs sunning on white sand beaches.
Enough of the Sunday mornings watching your lover breathe
And definitely no more spontaneous water fights with the kids
Even those first moments that bring tears of joy are not the moments for me
No, not for me, wondering, how you can enjoy when
…..Children are kept in cages, sold to the highest bidder
…..Women are forced into dangerous back alleys, not owning their bodies
…..Veterans sleep on cardboard boxes, crazy instead of courageous
…..People still being judged by the back of their hand or the hand they’re holding
Unicorns and rainbows, white sand beaches and Sunday mornings
…..If you’re privileged to know Joy, don’t give her my number.
(Photo credit: Mine taken from the St James Social Justice Network póster created by Jeannette L.)
I started several poems about experiences, people, even things that bring me joy but I couldn’t finish them. The poems weren’t bringing me joy! And then I realized that I was actually not in a joyful mood thinking of the state of our current world. I failed to write about joy. I could not embrace the light. I could not forgo the mundane. The frailty of my human condition is on full display this week. Enjoy!
March miracles are afoot, new
beginnings are catching our breath
from every corner, as nature spreads
her wings sprouting new life, there
is a renewed lightness of spirit.
Yet in this month of miracles we
hear of tragedy and the dichotomy
of this duality, reminds us of, our
responsibility. Our mother, earth,
is taking a beating from her children.
Her children are killing each other.
In this month of miracles may we find
a renewed lightness of spirit and hope
that love will universally prevail,
taking joy in the love we create in
this season of rebirth
and new awakenings.
I’m sitting in a blue armchair
in a Ward called Acute Assessment.
A folded blanket covers my legs
and potassium chloride
is dripping into my veins.
I’m waiting in my own rootless place
between fear and the absence
of fear; between pain and the absence
of pain. I close my eyes
and see a narrow gravel path
crawling to the edge of the world.
This will pass, he whispers,
locking his fingers into mine.
This won’t last forever.
He’s going home to fetch my nighties,
toothpaste, toothbrush, towels, soap.
He’ll break the journey
into signposted miles, turn car wheels
towards the warm dark of dusk
and a capella of birdsong.
I think of morning’s hospital window-
an oblong of light
that showed a young tree
catching pin-drops of rain
on early pink blossom.
The rain grew heavier, hurried
through the tree’s torn umbrella
of branches and leaves
and grass shone like polished glass.
I cling to the memory of spring rain
anointing the dry earth.
I breathe the good air around my chair
and drip-stand and purse of healing salt.
I taste the moment and let it melt
on my tongue: this moment
now. The present. The gift.
these are the shorter days, darker days, wood smoke, apple wood, colours of joy. believe in the world, that you can spell first time. be proud as you point out where you live…..
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.)
Joy is…
Joy is the hue of a sunrise triumphantly spreading shades of blue pink purple orange across the galaxy declaring goodbye to yesterday’s sorrow, heartache, and misery.
Joy is swimming through the river of time butter-flying through waves of oppression dolphin kicking out of gloom and darkness into exhilaration…into a new day of expectation.
Joy is a baby’s wide eyed smile radiating innocence gurgling short outburst of “wat dat” in anticipation of exploring the newness of existence.
Joy is a four-year old’s discovery of a candy galore store with dinosaurs and many more gizmos and gadgets along with rows of amazing displays of sugary sweets…any child’s fantasy.
Joy is jazz piano tones cascading from fingers moving at an allegro pace filling the emptiness of space with messages of hope.
Joy is riding the harmonic emotional high church choir singing connecting with celestial sounds evoking the Holy Spirit to fill all hearts and minds with a love and peace that will never cease.
At a time when the world is in shock and grief, mourning in black and burying in white, this week’s prompt turns the heart and mind towards the profound joy prevalent in nature.Sympathy comfort and support leads to a state of serenity, and acceptance of the harsh realities. Just as the endless sky meets the ocean line, grief slowly drowns deep, and wave after wave touches the shore to confirm eternal love and hope of more coming joy.
As the striking poem moves on the reader finds it replete with vivid imagery from the contours of the berries to the universal curves of celestial creation and can surely visualize the countless constellations beyond the moon and the solar system. The imaginative mind will leave the mundane, perhaps may not rest, but taking joy along will fly high to seek the ultimate bliss. Sharing some lines
O Joy’ I find thee rising from the merging colors of the horizon
In holy silence, encircled by the Kunlun Mountains of mystical Shangri-la
where beauty holds the breath, and poetry fills the spirit with ecstasy.
“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
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
What do you say, Percy? I am thinking of sitting out on the sand to watch the moon rise. Full tonight. So we go
and the moon rises, so beautiful it makes me shudder, makes me think about time and space, makes me take measure of myself: one iota pondering heaven. Thus we sit,
I thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s perfect beauty and also, oh! How rich it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile, leans against me and gazes up into my face. As though I were his perfect moon.” ― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems[Recommended]
Thanks to Paul Brookes, Irma Do, Irene Emanuel, Jen Goldie, Mike Stone, and Anjum Wasim Dar for this touching collection. Special thanks also to Irma, Jen, and Anujum Ji for sharing their delightful illustrations. Grab a tissue and enjoy another stellar collection from our intrepid reader-poets … and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome to participate.
Apologies for the lateness of this post. Big tech issues. Sigh!
The Gift
A small dark shape on kitchen tile
stared over by our cat,
Move closer. it is a sparrow bairn,
whose chest balloons out as my sigh releases.
Scooped up, as I take it out to the garden.
It stands on the plastic lip.
Over the fence our neighbour stands in hunched
dark tears “My mam won’t be coming out of hospital”
My breath caught.
The sparrow flies away.
From Paul’s second forthcoming pamphlet to be published in England probably later this year
You hear a blackbird trill,
stroked by a gentle wisp.
You inhale seeds and grass
and suddenly know why
your Grandad spent time
out of the house in the garden
away from the barrage,
snipes and aggro of his wife.
And as you weed the bricked path
to the front door your black cat complains
to be let in and you quietly advise
that he has a perfectly serviceable
cat flap at the back, until
your wife opens the front door
and let’s him in and scowls at you
as she shuts it.
black kitten lobbed out of joyrider’s car window
top of our street, always had bare patch
on her upper thigh, could not get enough
strokes, hugs, Daddy’s girl.
in her moving owner’s back garden for months,
new owner could not keep her
due to his chickens and dog, always her small
paws catch your clothes as you pass.
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.
Plump
Meow
Lick lick purrrr
Rumble grumble
Lazy eyes open
Head languidly turning
Anything interesting?
Oh no – just you – scratch my head now
The sun makes me sleepy. Time to eat?
This nonet was written for Jamie’s Wednesday Writing Prompt to write a poem about an animal companion. The original title for this poem was “Fat Cat in the Sun”, for indeed, Kassidy was a chubby wubby kitty cat, but she was also ruler of our home. My parents would do anything for Kassidy – come home early to feed her, go to a different grocery store to buy her special food, made sure she had several special beds to lie around the house. In return, she always greeted you at the door so you could scratch her head the minute you came in before you even got a chance to put down your keys. Kassidy died about 3 years ago yet she always will hold a place in our hearts.
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.)
Her spirit rushes over the waving grasses
And the jittery tree leaves
Like the West Wind
Racing to fetch the stick
I’ve thrown so high and far
But the stick lies still
Where it has fallen.
A poem is sometimes like a joke
Except instead of being funny
It’s so sad your heart leaps out of your chest
And you look around to see whether anyone else saw that
But they never do.
I once read a poem about my dead dog Chewy
How I buried her with my tears and her toys
Only I didn’t say her name or that she was a dog.
Some people came up to me afterward, a man and a woman,
And she told me how they appreciated my poem
Because they had buried their daughter too
With their tears and her toys.
Then I told them the punch-line
That my poem was about my dog Chewy
(I loved her so)
Because honesty’s the best policy.
The woman winced once, I think,
And then a curtain came down
Hiding their faces from me.
Now and then I hear laughter
And I look around
But don’t see any joke being told.
He seems to slap his knees at our sorrows.
Sometimes I get all mixed up about
Who’s God
And who’s the poet
And who’s burying their dead love
With their tears and her toys.
What if they don’t come home?
I’ve been standing on the couch
I don’t know how long
Looking out the window …
What if they don’t come home?
Their cars aren’t there,
The black one or the brown one,
What if they don’t …?
It’s quiet and I’m so lonely –
What if …?
Nobody will give me water
And nobody will give me food
And nobody will love me
And nobody will come.
Don’t they know what could happen
When they say goodbye to me?
What if they don’t come home?
I’ll lie down to sleep
I don’t know how long.
At least I won’t think about
What if they don’t come home,
But I can’t sleep because
What if they don’t come home?
Don’t they know what I think?
Don’t they care?
If they only knew
How impossible it is to think like this
They’d never leave me.
What if they don’t come home?
Please come back … now.
What if they don’t come home?
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?
I have a riddle for you:
‘When is a house empty, even though it’s full of people?’
She had more names than God Himself.
We should have called her Uhuru—
Freedom was the one thing she loved more than us
And finally she’s escaped the soft clutches of our love.
In our eagerness and innocence
We brought her home too soon
To be weaned from her mother,
A frightened little thing
No bigger than my fist.
She grew to love us though,
As fiercely as we loved her.
Some people were scared of her
But we’d give anything
For her to warm herself against us.
Last night her little heart burst its bounds
And she escaped her life
Running free at last through open fields
Photographed by death.
This morning when we buried her,
It rained cats and dogs.
More grey than white she was,
sensuously stirring,
if otherwise
sleeping or pretending
to sleep,
what attracted her, to peep
through the glass
then back down and pass
to the side to laze as if
in a drunken daze
daily visit , a long quiet look
then off to the nook,
satisfied with one ,
deep open eyed glance,
set her in the love trance,
no desire to roll or prance,
contentment replete, in form n fur,
silent breath, silent purr,
guarding the door, on barren floor,
profound faith, defying death_
my love have seen , no desire for more
to heaven I’ve been.
now oblivious of dogfights,rat races
she sleeps or pretends to sleep
snuggled cozily on the metallic bonnet
musing warmly on composing a sonnet
perhaps dreaming of a beloved felidae.
سفیدی مایل ،رنگ ھلکے کیزیادہ وہ لگتی تھی ،
جھوٹ موٹ دکھاوے کے لیؑے سویؑ ھویؑ بلی رانی
کس کی کشش کھینچ لایؑ اسے کھڑکی تلے
نظر بھر کے دیکھا ، مسکرایؑ نشے میں ڈوبی ھویؑ
وہ روز روز آنا دوڑتے ھوےؑ آنا، اک نظر کی تسلی
وہ دوستی نبھایؑ، سب پا لیا تو کرنے آرام وہ لیٹی
انوکھا پیار انوکھا کھیل قدرت کا میل کویؑ میاوؑن نہیں
محبت میں بھیگی خر خراتی ھویؑ ، ھے چوکیدار بنی
پرواہ نہیں موت کی نہ چوھوں کی چاہت و خواھش
دنیا کرے جنگ یہ خوابوں میں کھویؑ سوچے اپنی شاعری
“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
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently 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 Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“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.
“Alas! a woman that attempts the pen, Such an intruder on the rights of men, Sucha presuptuouos Creature, is esteem’d, The fault can by no virtue be redeem’d … How are we fallen, fallen by mistaken rules? Ad Education’s , more than Nature’s foods, Debarr’d from all improve-meats of the mind, And to be dull, expected and designed … -Anne Finch, The Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilesea, ed. by Myra Reynolds as quoted by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Shakespeare’s Sisters, Feminist Essays on Women Poets
Thanks Gary W. Bowers, Irma Do, Jan Goldie, and Anjum Wasim Dar. Thanks also to Cubby (Sonya Annita Song) for her contribution. Please welcome her warmly. She is new to Wednesday Writing Prompt. Special thanks to Irma Do and Anjum Wasim Dar for the added value of the photographs and to Anjum for her artwork as well. Appreciation to Clarissa Simmens for sharing her Shakespeare homage. They’ll be shared in a separate post.
I’m tickled to see that folks are commenting on one another’s poems and visiting one another’s sites. That what it’s really all about. Bravo! Readers will note that links to sites are included when they are available so that you can visit. If there’s no site, it’s likely you can catch up with the poet on Facebook.
Enjoy this unique collection and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.
To Scratch or Not to Scratch
To scratch, or not to scratch, that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The itch and burn of abusive mosquito bites
Or to take arms against a sea of irritation
And by opposing end them:
To scratch, to rub, no more;
And by a rub to say we end
The frustration and the maddening,
Relentless shocks that flesh is heir to?
‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
To scratch, to rub – to rub, perchance to slake:
Aye, there’s the bub,
For in that rub of satiation
What doubts may come
When we have abandoned
This self-restraint must give us pause.
There’s the inanity that creates confusion
Of such simplicity:
For who would bear the jolts and pangs of bites,
The insatiable lust,
The sleepless nights,
The pangs of irate skin,
The obsessive thoughts,
The insolence of the unbitten,
And the spurns that impatient scratchers
By the self-righteous take,
When he himself might his liberation make
With a sole finger?
Who would itchiness bear,
To shake and tremble
Under a tortured skin,
But that the dread of something
After the scratch,
The possibility of greater itch to come,
From whose scratch no human can deny,
Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear the itch we have
Than scratch to others that we know not of?
SONYA ANNITA SONG is a poet whose rhymes are loved by both adults and children. Her writing style for children is delightfully whimsical with a natural flow meant for reading out loud. Sonya’s goal as a children’s author is to create engaging rhyming picture books that children and parents will have fun reading together. One of her favorite memories as a child is going to the local library in the summer and bringing back shopping bags full of books to read. Books were, and still are, passports to incredible destinations full of joy and wonder, and Sonya hopes all children will discover the marvels of reading just like she did. Children’s site: http://www.sonyaannitasong.com; Poemhunter: http://www.poemhunter.com/sonya-annita-song/ . Clipped from Cubby’s Amazon page.
dj b.ill.e shex
how sharper n a SERPENT’S tooth
n one bare bodkin
[Dies.]
4sooth
singe my white head
4 b n old
2 b r naught
poor tom’s acold
ah words words words
r’t naught th point
o band o bruhs
time out
a joint
Recycling Shakespeare for a Better World – A Haiku Sonnet
In this brave new world
Plant a heart of gold, harvest
A bouquet of friends
Faint-hearted farming
Doesn’t yield food for the soul
Cold comfort hunger
Break the ice – Be brave
Be fancy free with warm words
Of love and welcome
All our yesterdays
Are meant to be composted
Nutrient wisdom
Silence can kill with kindness
But regretful words do not.
This was a fun and challenging prompt initiated by Jamie for The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt. She writes, “Fe, foh,and fun… Take a spin with Shakespeare and write us a poem using phrases of his that have come into common usage.” I honestly didn’t realize that all these phrases came from Shakespeare’s work! I’ve really only read “Romeo and Juliet” and some sonnets so seeing all these common phrases attributed to his work was quite a surprise. Check out this link if you want to see what Shakespearean works the phrase I used came from.
And of course, I had to do a sonnet to further honor The Bard. To give it a bit of my own flavor, I chose the Haiku Sonnet form. Again, I never new there was such a thing until I saw it in this website here.
Learning new things and new ways of looking at the world is one of the best gifts I’ve gotten from writing and reading poetry. What do you think of this recycled Shakespearean piece?
Neither a borrower nor a lender be!
As luck would have it, in this brave new
world I managed to break the ice,
discovering that brevity is the soul of wit.
The fellow refused to budge an inch, this
was cold comfort as conscience does
make cowards of us all. I, with bated breath,
In one fell swoop, decided to play it fast
and loose, set my teeth on edge
and with a heart of gold, proclaimed,
ill wind blows no man to good!
You have eaten me out of house and home,
For goodness sake! Good riddance!
I am more sinned against than sinning!
In my heart of hearts, I had to conclude
the game is on. Love, is blind filled with
forgotten yesterdays. I gave the devil
his due, for much ado about nothing.
“O God, O God, how weary, stale,
flat, and unprofitable seem
to me all the uses of this world.”
“My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,
Or else my heart, concealing it, will break.
And rather than it shall, I will be free
Even to the uttermost, as I please,
in words.”
Who’s there? unfold yourself ‘ Oh ’tis the road, out of frame, once in grace, wore an inky metaled cloak …
With memories sweet- on it trotted Arabian horses, held by leather
reins, with mirth in riding, jingling bells Would lift the learning loads and stay on the beat- but
something is rotten, makes me sick
at heart- behold in silence it lies So defiant in dilapidated defeat! it seems to be there, still serving in retreat- Though gone is the tar crush and concrete;
Ah Old Harley Road, I speak with reason, You have the best on you, treading You are replete with learning homes
words words and words, But، Ah there’s the rub- The craters humps and dilapidation- Oh Lord, what are we learning in this precarious condition? That is the question-
While yet the memory of good times be green ,me thinketh, Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer, the slings and jumps of outrageous travel- The heart aches, thousand natural shocks that the flesh is heir to-or to take up arms against oceans of ditchy trouble, Or by opposing, clean sweep them…?
Who would bear the whips and scorns of time immemorial, the laws delay, the repairs astray, the rains decay ; all is not well, tis an unweeded garden- do we continue to grunt and sweat on a weary road? tis but my fantasy, as foul deeds will rise’, beware the
Ides of March…
Oh Fair Poetess, soft you now , Ah there’s the bump..OUCH…! Angels and ministers of grace defend us’
ارے یہ تو اکھڑی ھویؑ سڑک ھے زخمی کبھی گہری شاھانہ پوشاک پہنے ھوتی تھی
میتٹھے سہانے سفروں کی یادیں سمیٹے ، گھنٹی بجاتے تانگوں پہ بچوں کو سکول پہنچاتی تھی
اب خاموشی میں لپٹی اطاعت سے بچھی ھے گر چہ اڑ چکا ھے تار کول ، غایب ھے بجری ساری
دلاؑیل سے بات ھو تو سوال اٹھے ، جھٹکے دھکے کھا کر گزریں، کیا حاصل علم ھو ، روحانی یا کتابی
جب تک اس پہ گزرے وقت کی اچھی یادیں باکی ھیں دل تھام کہ اٹھایں غلیل ،مرہم پٹی سب کرواین سرکاری
کون کرے انتیظار،قانون پہ انہسار، ھو بارشوں میں خوار ملک مشکل میں ،کھرپا درانتی نا مالی، پھر خزانہ بھی خالی
اے شاعر معصوم انجم مہینہ مارچ کا سخت ھے بچنا زرا یہ لو ، کھایؑ اک اور ظرب کاری speed breaker آیا آیا او
“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
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently 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 Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“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.
Thanks today to Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brooks, Irma Do, Deb Felio (Deb y Felio), Jen Goldie, Anjum Wasim Dar, and new to our community, Maribeth Parot Juraska for responding with such well-considered and diverse perspectives to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, On the Way to the Top, February 13, 2019. A warm welcome to Maribeth. And, for value added, a special thanks to Irma Do for her stunning butterfly photographs and to Anjum Ji for her lovely illustration. Together they have enriched our day. Well done!
Enjoy this unique and thought-provoking collection and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome, no matter the stage of career – beginning, emerging or pro.
Fatwood
Buried by salt of dead sea;
one red maple perched atop patchy earth
grows narrowly
straight upside-down:
Roots in place of canopy,
poking upwards into sky’s electricity
like bed-head hair of old men,
fingers tangled in strands,
yanking, frantically, for just a few more
hours, floating somewhere with genies in bottles
of clouds risen from moisture
leaked out of their piss,
brown paper wrapper bags.
Branches budding into tunnels of earth,
burrowing like kangaroo rats into ground.
One whippoorwill singing,
“You’re doing it wrong.”
While chubby wind pummels, sound funnel of storm
rocking mud-tinged roots, taking two sapling capillaries,
every note of her song.
Even with renewed forms of ambition,
doubt, judgement,
trespass
never take long.
(Leaves, neither, never enough to cover
eggshells of empaths, mottled misunderstandings,
pioneering mistakes, despairing last breaths.)
And hence one red maple, topped by electrified scalp,
salty with sea brine, dives
where darkness becomes expectation,
not breach,
bringing what grains might help it adapt; and
sometimes, exhaling out impatience,
whispering wisdom to wriggly worms,
bites blindly, deeper into ground, misconceived as
growing its own matches, just another grave
mistake.
MARIBETH JURASKA, Ed.D. debuted in the world of ISBN numbers with selected poetry pieces in American Poetry Anthology (Vol. VIII) published by the American Poetry Association. Dr. Juraska has earned an Ed.D., M.S.Ed., and B.A. in English, and is a former Training & Development Director and Professor/Director of teacher-candidate preparation. She has conducted research on multiple themes in T&D/Education, writing and presenting in areas of andragogy, performance assessment, candidate training, diversity, inclusion and social justice. She’s now a professional researcher/writer, dabbling in creative writing and spending other free time scoffing at cold winters and decaf coffe
cramberry sauce
crammed into the arena
are mostly men stunned
by the woeful reversals
bequeathed them
by the recession
they attend this
FREE!!!! motivational seminar
to get some steam back
and will hear a former first lady
and a former astronaut
several former ceos
and a silvertongued real-estator
and will be bucked up
and will fall for new schemes
and will spend
an average of $107.28
and will still not learn
the meaning
of FREE!!!dom
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 t
Does the caterpillar look in the sky and seeing a bird strive to soar upon rainbow hues wings? Does she eat and eat out of envy and frustration? Does she hide away in her chrysalis, depressed that she hasn’t reached her full potential?
No, the ambition of a caterpillar lies in her ability to become her true self. The hard work is being satisfied and doing her best with each stage of life, so that when metamorphosis happens, she is ready in mind, body and soul.
Ambition becomes
Wings unfurled, colors revealed
The truth of hard work
Jamie, The Poet by Day, challenged us to write a poem about ambition. I had many thoughts about this but was inspired by a visit to a butterfly garden yesterday. Humans ambition has both positive and negative aspects of it but for animals, ambition or that strive to be the best seems to be ingrained. Maybe this is another aspect that sets humans apart from other animals.
Since I myself am not a very ambitious person, writing about it was somewhat of a difficult task. True, I have hopes and wants but I am content with whatever comes my way. It’s not so much that I don’t strive or that I don’t work hard (because I do!) but that drive towards a goal is not a focus in my life. While this drives my partner nuts (not to mention my parents when I was growing up), my ambitious drive is just not that strong. And I’m ok with that!
Thus, this totally not ambitious Haibun about ambition.
And everyone threw away whatever was an inconvenience
that challenged themselves to something more than themselves
God was first – not because of who he was but because
others’ misrepresentations, misbeliefs and misunderstandings
better he was wrong than they were
what they chose to keep and what they emulated —
writings by others who would abuse and misuse
weak science based in opinion
backed by big money
colleagues strung out on substitute
mini gods – manageable at least
an all for one and one for all mentality
each believing they were the one and the all.
a human thing good or bad,holocaust,
moon landing, power, kingdom in hell,
to be king is to be but born a king,
beauty by itself cannot royalty be,
or chance may crown a commoner
so kill on , you may commit error
and gain the throne, the game is on,
bullets may rain at any cross roads
you may be martyred, but that risk
must be taken, for fame or notoriety~
11
in man’s first disobedience, lies supreme ambition,
in delusions of grandeur, in deceitful revenge ~
man lives with countless desires, the heart may
rule mislead but mind must think, be smart,
a struggle between choices,of wishes noble and base.
of reason, courageous honor, of lust greed and anger
ambition self centered is Daedalus, in dead darkness,
ambition worthy, ‘inordinate desire, with no spurs’
شدت خواہش نے کی چاند تک رسایؑ، انسانی اچھایؑ یا برایؑ گر برایؑ تو ، بادشاھت جھنم ، شیتانی طاقت یا عالمی تباہی
چاھت کی سزا سخت ھے انارکلی ایک مژال ھے اللاہ کو یہ شکواہ نہ ھو کسی اور کو دل میں بٹھا لیا
خوبصورتی سے تاج شاہی نھیں، خاندانی پیدایش چاھیے یا قسمت ھو تو عام شخص بھی ھاصل کر لے تخت شاھی
جنوں خبط کی کویؑ حد نہیں ، کتنے قتل کروگے جبری طاقت ،موت پا کر جلد نظر ھوتی ھے گولیوں کی
خواھشات عظیم کے دھوکے میں جنت سے ھم نکلے
بڑے بے اؑ برو ھو ےؑ ، لالچ میں باغ ازل سے عزت گنوایؑ
اللاہ نے عطا کی جب عقل تو اسے استعمال کرنا سوچ کر چاھت کرنا ، سیکھنا مگر پہلے، اداب باغے شاھی
،امنگ سورج کی طرف؟, جلا ڈالے گی ، مٹ جایںؑگی لاکھوں
،خواہشیں سب ، مستیؑ ہوس دنیا کی لزتیں ہیں ، عارظی
نفس متمعنہ کی سعی جاری رھے انجم دنیا ےؑ فانی میں
آرزو ھو محبت، اللاہ کے لیے،رھے بیچ میانہروی میں زندگی
“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
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently 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 Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“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.
A Thing of Beauty Is A Joy Forever
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