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A Long Day’s Journey Into Montana . . . and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Photograph courtesy of Zoltan Tasi, Unsplash

“if i knew what the artist knows,
i would surely respond soul and body
to the echo of the Ineffable in rough earthy things

i would not fear decay or work left undone
i would travel like the river through its rugged, irregular channels
comfortable with this life; imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”
Wabi Sabi, Jamie Dedes (inspired by Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren

And this being Tuesday, here are the wonderful, inspired, and through-provoking poems from the poets who came out to play in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt and poem, The Art of Reinvention, April 29. I have no doubt that you will enjoy these poems by Anjum Wasim Dar, Irma Do, Frank McMahon, Sandra Benskin Mesher, Ben Naga, Nancy Ndeke, Eric Nicholson, Adrian Slonaker, and Mike Stone.

Do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome: beginning, emerging, and pro poets.

She said…
My birth was a reinvention, nature’s just intervention,
against worldly desirous selfish, the spirits conspired.

Ever since I opened my eyes and saw Land Ahoy’
my caretaker’s faces fell, Oh it’s a girl, not a boy’

O boy, O boy, how I lost all attention, in the newly
found dimension, and to adapt to the Earthly code

I was reinvented from a ‘star’ to the human mode,
Life was all peaceful joy, lots of frolic and fun

Books pens and colors, my best teacher was a nun,
all good till I grew a bit, life then pointed a loaded gun

Not a golden buttercup, nor a bed of red roses, life was
a journey with hypertension and little comprehension

Flashes of love, commands, reprimands, and countless
demands, as ‘you girl, stop romping like a tomboy, restless’

Reinvention began early in skin and bone , a change enforced
had to leave and move away from the personal comfort zone.

Repeated bouts of illness drenched me in sweat and pain
I came under the surgeon’s knife again and again and again.

So she said

Destined to shine in a constellation up high, for a purpose,
sacredly pure, nature tested experimented me for sure

Called ‘short’ in height and low on the scales, actively smart
at home with three sisters I became ‘The prince of Wales.’

The young carefree part was over too soon, reinvention
returned to transform me into a bride, wife and mother.

What people saw was a lucky lady, sari clad laden with gold
what my inner self felt was a commodity invented, and sold.

Reinvention did not stop, as roles and health kept changing
from bride to wife, to mother cook , a total maid in the making.

‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on’, all revels will end,
Earth’s surface is emptied, humanity to isolated lock down, sent.

People are reinventing a whole new digital life, a fresh slice,
but this time a tube a mask a cane or wheelchair may not suffice.

So she said

Reinvention is the art, part of life, it is in nature from the start
For all in this world, a role to play, a duty, before we depart.

© 2020, Anjum Wasim Dar

Some Lines

I am but a label in a category
of diverse species, of humanity
surrounded by crows, chicken
and cats,visited by cows, in
company with a grey African parrot,

Sun’s changed position gives light
moon sometimes peeps through the
window at night,silence distorted by
barking dogs, wonder they are angry
or happy at humans locked down.

Unseen ecosystems decaying or
surviving, green or brown,one moment
wood, the next misunderstood, sprayed
netted drowned in fathoms bottomless,
nature changes forms, reinvents, recreates
all terrestrial on Earthly plane, all celestial
in the Milky Way-

and I say
‘All life is forever to be-
O Lord Thou hast made me-
shall thy work decay?’

© 2020, Anjum Wasim Dar

Anjum ji’s sites are:

“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

Red Cup Revisited

The red cup – a fixture in pictures
My focus yet blurred in my mind
Strong and sweet – the fake message
Scared and silenced – the truth
It matched everything
Or so I thought
Remember?
I can
Not
Stop
Drinking
Toss the cup
Where can I drown
This fear of living
Who can I reinvent?
Lost for so long in the mix
I need to climb out of the rocks
Where is the hand holding the red cup?

© 2020, Irma Do

Irma’s site is: I Do Run / And I do a few other things too . . . 

Schrodinger’s Cat

Desperate to avoid reality’s sharp spears,
the walls of his world closing in,
he thought he’d apply for the role
of Schrodinger’s cat. He’d read a bit
about it, liked the idea of being at the same time
somewhere and nowhere.

He thought he’d seen an advert inviting
applications, in a paper or on-line,
he wasn’t sure. He dug around
on the world-wide web, learned that Schrodinger
had died. Or so it said. But how could they be sure?

To be a cat, sure of its identity,
pampered master of the household!
To have nine lives! He’d need those, or one
at least if they sealed him in the steel-
walled chamber, give him for company
an atom, which might decay or then
again might not. And if it did go off, triggering
the deadly charge of cyanide or bomb,
then his other self would be elsewhere
outside the chamber, observing the scientists
or safely ensconced in Harrogate.

He dreamed of this happy feline state.
To be and not to be, that indeed
was the question, inside reality
and outside. It might lead on, perhaps,
to a part in Cats: Eric, the quantum cat.

He fell asleep, humming the Great Escape,
replete with dreams. Until a worm
of doubt began to slither and ruffle
his grey, drowsing cells, led him, nearly,
to the edge of a fundamental question.

© 2020, Frank McMahon

At the Storm’s Edge, Frank’s debut collection, is available through Amazon US HERE and Amazon UK HERE.

.reinvention, day one.

so we have no internet, the

tv went off, we slept lovely.

woke to pouring rain and i

am still in pyjamas,

not a bit angry.

was hoping to write grevious

and nasy, yet without the spell

check i am as nothing.

it is later now, a slight

reinvention.

© 2020, Sonja Benskin Mesher

…reinvention, another day…

seems i have reinvented

everything quieter than before.

wet autumn days or is it winter,

the change comes

gradually.

i dreamed a cloud of

falling leaves, awake to find it is so.

it is so very quiet here today.

© 2020, Sonja Benskin Mesher

Sonja’s sites are:

Unconventional Gambit

Shall I compare thee to a pile of dung
Left, still warm and steaming, by my horse?
So graceful, so well groomed, so well hung.
I describe the creature not myself of course
And pray my words may not, my darling, cause dismay.
Oh forgive a fool whose ardour outruns his tongue.
Should my simple similes offend thee what can I say
But that ’tis from untrimm’d spontaneity they’ve sprung.
If thou wrinkle thy nose at the smell, even sight
Of manure let my lips bid you reconsider the conceit.
Coming upon such ordure to the gardener is a delight
To be shovelled up and carried away tout de suite
For forking it into a bed is surely only but meet.
Without such sustenance would a rose smell so sweet?

© 2020, Ben Naga

Ben’s site is Ben Naga, Gifts from the Musey Lady and Me. “Laissez-moi vous recanter ma vraie histoire.”

Past This Corner.

Names define, like locales and culinary delights,
Faith’s too and the practices demanded,
Routines set, manners and etiquettes,
Arriving at ports of who the outside says we are,
See how the tides disagree,
With the silent wind howling and sweeping,
Knocking sense of old forts down,
Hear the rhythm of anxiety drive leaders to tears,
See the rise of questions over old biases,
Notice the flattening of hills of divisions,
Depths are shallowing with new eyes,
Everywhere a new dawn speaks,
Deference is no longer business as usual,
Indifference is learning a new thing,
Every truism is called for re-evaluation,
Hearts are matching with a light lense,
One not trained to pay allegiance to differentiate,
Reprograming the senses to acknowledge more,
We are back at the drawing board of humanity,
And shocking results bear witness,
That all we held prestigious is hollow,
And those we thought minions are angels,
And that material can be so valueless in times of need,
And that humanity needs a higher power to pull it out of it’s own mess,
Leading fact being,
It’s taken a tempest to teach us to be human again,
Harshness has sent us to observe,
Ever so carefully,
That either,
We reinvent our collective treatment of Earth and earthlings,
Or, tragically,
Man walks the dinosaur road.
Everything teaches.
Let agony teach us repentance ,
Forgiveness and fair play.
Respecting life and it’s sustainer.

© 2020, Nancy Ndeke

Nancy’s Amazon Page is HERE.

In the Shadow of Covid 19

In the garden
daffodils wilt; blossom falls.
Some may see today repeating
like a wind-up toy, while
what may seem hum drum,
the hum of the fridge,
a ticking clock,
the science fiction silence outside,
is the world renewing itself
in each dying moment.
And we too, while honouring
the bitter taste of each
remembered mistake
can fall apart again and again.

© 2020, Eric Nicholson

Eric’s site is: https://erikleo.wordpress.com

Long Night’s Journey Into Montana

Barely cognizant of the college town
just clinging to the jagged western edge
of Big Sky Country
the way a hostage hangs on to hope,
I’d never been to Missoula.
But at three-thirty a.m. last Thursday,
inspired by filtered internet images
and a kind wrestler in a cowboy hat
raised in the region,
I bought a one-way ticket,
concluding that this
must be a place capable of
incubating a fugitive from
stultifying status quos
who’s ghosted
his foot-gazing gait
and pizza-packed paunch,
swapping them for tight-fitting togs
and a swagger that surfaced
once he split from
toxic sap staining a family tree
and a metropolitan apartment
polluted with the vibrations of
vicious self-vilification.

So I spend the plane’s descent
placing a faded denim jacket
over broad, bony kneecaps,
extracting a pocket spiral notebook
adorned with the address of a
hotel-turned-home,
and noting down a new name
that spontaneously becomes
my own.

© 2020, Adrian Slonaker

Use the search feature on this site and on The BeZine to read more of Adrian’s poetry. Worth your time.

Body and Soul

All things physical were once naught,
Became, changed, continued changing,
And will be naught once more,
Whether it is a living breathing thing,
A skyscraper or a star,
And if it was once beautiful
That will also change,
But Plato spoke of ideals,
Perfect and so unchanging,
Untouched by the experience of time,
So impossible in the world of physicality
Yet so real as only souls can be
Where time never was nor will be
And if a soul is beautiful
Then beautiful it will always be.

Except from The Hoopoe’s Call

©2020, Mike Stone

Hope and Despair

There are but two futures to portend:
Hope is one, despair the other.
Despair comes to you from the western horizon
Bearing a large sack on his hunched back
And kerplatzes his fat tuches on your chest,
Plucking reasons why you can’t or shouldn’t
From his heavy sack.
Hope is not a safety net to catch you if you fall
Unless first you put one under you.
Hope comes to you from the east
Bearing nothing but her thin light
To dispel the western darkness.
Hope softly persuades you to change
What you can and must.
She gently pushes you over your nest’s edge
Impossibly high off the ground
So that you may fly
Or die.

Except from The Hoopoe’s Call

© 2020, Mike Stone

Creating a Language

I had a thought one day:
Why not create a special language?
After all, it has been said that
Languages shape the way we think
And likely what we think,
And since we can do whatever we do want,
I would like to change our language.

I would start by getting rid of certain words,
The hateful, hurtful, shameful ones,
The ones we wish we’d never said or heard:
Killing, hurting, raping, stealing,
Cheating, lying, disrespecting,
Boasting, pointing fingers,
Singing na-na na-na,
Warfare, torture, threats, and frightening,
Anger and self-righteousness.
There’s probably more, I’ll let you know
When I think of them.

I wouldn’t get rid of sad words
Since sadness is the other side of happiness
And nothing has just one side.

Then I’d add some brand-new words,
Some words we wished we had but didn’t:
Words that tell you how I really feel,
Rainbow words with all the gradients of feeling,
Like different grades of love,
Powerful words that can do what they say,
Single words that say everything,
Words that make you lift your head to hear them,
Different lengths of silence, like rests in music;
These are words I’d like to add.

Except from The Hoopoe’s Call

© 2019, Mike Stone

I Am What I Am

I’m not what I once was
Neither am I what I will be.
I am what I am
Until death do me part.

Except from The Hoopoe’s Call

© 2019, Mike Stone

To Survive in a Haphazard World

To survive in a haphazard world
In which good and evil are meaningless words
To understand what is happening all around
What has happened and what might happen or not
To feel what is good or evil to oneself and others
To think of what one’s done and not done
What one might do and what one must
To believe what one can’t think through
And to doubt those beliefs when doubts arise
To act when there’s no more time to think
But to stop that action when there’s time to think
Or it’s no longer needed,
These are what a mind is for.

Except from The Hoopoe’s Call

© 2019, Mike Stone

Mike’s website is HERE.

Call of the Whippoorwill is Mike Stone’s fourth book of poetry, 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

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

Maintain the movement.

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

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If We Lived in a Just World (or Country) . . . and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Courtesy of Annette Batista Day, Unsplash


“If we lived in a just world (or country)
We wouldn’t raise hopes where there were none to raise
We’d just roll up our sleeves and do the best we could
We’d know the difference between right and wrong
And forget the difference between right and left
We wouldn’t have to choose between our past and our future
Because nobody can take away our past
And nobody should try to take away our future.

– Mike Stone

Well, the computer is finally up and running and I’ve spend a good part of the day catching up on things. Still Tuesday here, but dinner time and at last I can deliver the poems in response to Wednesday Writing Prompt, Beyond Yearning to Hope, April 1, 2020.  That prompt asked poets to focus on right versus wrong, life versus death, on living wages, guaranteed health-care for all, unemployment and labor rights. Dare we move beyond yearning to hope? I think for the most part the answer is equivocal. There’s certainly a sense of moral agreement with regard to the ideals and the abuses but whether or not we can spur compassionate and sensible change remains the question in the air.

This collection – I think an important one in its way –  is courtesy of Paul Brookes, Anjum Wasim Dar, Irma Do, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Nancy Ndeke, Miroslava Panayotova, Adrian Slonaker and Mike Stone.

Do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are encouraged: beginning, emerging, and pro poets.

RSPH OldMoor

From our skies small figures
In camouflage plumage, laden with binoculars
and scopes wend between hides.

We record them as they record us.
We are Royal Society For Protection
of Humans.

Nothing worse than for humans
to sense they have no control
over their landscape

so we make it seem they care
for us, design this site, build the hides,
nurture our nature.

They must feel valued and necessary,
and make their own decisions.
Sometimes the females carry all the equipment.

Stats: 3 Widowers, 2 female single parents
And 3 young, 4 unemployed males, 7 volunteers.

© 2020, Paul Brookes

Paul’s site is The Wombwell Rainbow
Paul’s Amazon Page U.S. HERE
Paul’s Amazon Page U.K. HERE

More poems by Paul at Michael Dickel’s Meta/ Phore(e) /Play

One Day when I had the time and freedom to go for a walk I met Life on the way–

I went for a walk, to nowhere have I been
my eyes are painful at what they have seen

have stepped on trash rough paper and stones
have bent down to peer at what was ‘real bones’

stray cats dogs cows and goats seemed to wink,
as I wandered near many a strange company

Walking to a book center was heavy on the feet
if school were good I would’ve stayed on the beat

question me not please, for I have no answers
have no words, for humans, living as campers

fumbling empty tins bags bottles and cans
living often without food water, pots and pans

kids roamed, hair disheveled scratching away
hungry, hopeful beyond hope, ignorantly at play

what people are these, are they refugees ?
do they need passports and passes, please

I wanted to be at ease, but restless I felt
there is more than eye can see, the ears

can hear, figures grow, the world thickens
unkempt more, like a place of Charles Dickens

question me not for what more I see
people hit, shot, killed, a girls bleeding body–

Oh now I question myself, about right and wrong
a world for all, a world just, equal, fair and strong

am I awake is this real I ask myself, as I turned back
why can’t I reach for the answers, in- The Book on The Sh

One Day when I had the time and freedom to go for a walk I met Life on the way–

I went for a walk, to nowhere have I been
my eyes are painful at what they have seen

have stepped on trash rough paper and stones
have bent down to peer at what was ‘real bones’

stray cats dogs cows and goats seemed to wink,
as I wandered near many a strange company

Walking to a book center was heavy on the feet
if school were good I would’ve stayed on the beat

question me not please, for I have no answers
have no words, for humans, living as campers

fumbling empty tins bags bottles and cans
living often without food water, pots and pans

kids roamed, hair disheveled scratching away
hungry, hopeful beyond hope, ignorantly at play

what people are these, are they refugees ?
do they need passports and passes, please

I wanted to be at ease, but restless I felt
there is more than eye can see, the ears

can hear, figures grow, the world thickens
unkempt more, like a place of Charles Dickens

question me not for what more I see
people hit, shot, killed, a girls bleeding body–

Oh now I question myself, about right and wrong
a world for all, a world just, equal, fair and strong

am I awake is this real I ask myself, as I turned back
why can’t I reach for the answers, in- The Book on The Shelf?

me not for what more I see
people hit, shot, killed, a girls bleeding body–

Oh now I question myself, about right and wrong
a world for all, a world just, equal, fair and strong

am I awake is this real I ask myself, as I turned back
why can’t I reach for the answers, in- The Book on The Shelf?

© 2020, Anjum Wasim Dar

Not long ago I was not in a lock down situation
though I felt like being in one, restricted in ways
unreasonable- socially distanced for unknown fears
‘women of the house should stay in the house’
someone said bluntly at a combined family picnic,
‘so why are you lazing on the mat after a hearty
meal, a hot mug of tea with brownies sweet?’
No one dare say that to the man of the house-
Today, I see the whole world ‘locked down’,
in isolation, in full covering of body, fighting for
life’ –

‘Stay Home Stay Safe’ is the glaring call
For All rich or poor,white or black,short or tall-
It is not ‘come closer’ it is ‘stay away’- Ha! Life
is at war,terror fills the air, humans caged inside
as animals roam free, shattered is the economy,
roads parks markets streets silent and empty

Covid-19 is the deadly enemy,
restricting those who restricted others
isolating those who isolated others
forcing obedience on disobedient
forcing cleanliness on the unclean
exposing cowards against the brave
forcing charity on the possessive-
Creating Fear? but wait, perhaps a far cry’
hunger poverty suffering need for medical
care, threat and danger everywhere,

Heartless humans had rendered many
homeless,hungry raped deprived deceived
life screamed for justice peace and equality –
Earth suffocated in soil and sea, pleas
fell on deaf ears,powerful showed no mercy’
So much wrong without a bit of right, how long
would torture bear the plight,as cries of innocent
took the flight and reached the Purest Point of Light
Covid-19 overnight awoke humanity to a painful sight

No more, no more, will be, the laws of might,forget -me
-not became ‘touch -me-not- if you love me hug me not
can’t hold your hands first wash them please, you may
kill me by this deadly viral disease, though I can’t see
but I know it is there, If only I had followed the law of
Care Share Beware and Be Fair—

And now Nature is taking its course as hope remains
for blessing and cure, a renaissance a cleansing a
reset for sure, a hope for faith pure-
There is hope there should be there is still some
honest just humanity-

© 2020, Anjum Wasim Dar

“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

Bananas

I sit on my overstuffed couch
Scrolling on my iPhone
Waiting
Impatiently for groceries
Annoyed
At not being able to get all the food
I ordered from that same couch
Two weeks ago

She sits in her second hand Honda
Giving her phone to her toddler
Popping the trunk
Opening her door in the rain
Gathering two bags at a time
Making five trips
Leaving them on the covered porch
After ringing the doorbell
And then swiftly getting back into her car

I open the door
Dismayed that two bags had fallen over
And the cereal had gotten wet
I see her drive off with the toddler in the back
Eating a banana
And I wonder if that’s why I didn’t get bananas in my groceries.

© 2020, Irma Do

Irma’s site is I Do Run, And I do a few other things too …

:: really, oh really ::

what some folk feel is right

others consider wrong, some

write with the music

a few fail, falter

without much to live on

no one to care for them

some say this is not fair, yet

i find that fair does not even figure

this life you gets what you gets

and feels how you choose to

after

dealing

however the dice fall

the cards come out

this may be your heaven

here on earth

if you like

if that is the way to think

really, oh really.

© 2020, Sonja Benskin Mesher

Sonja’s sites are:

THAT’S WHY,
I water this house bound potted plant for i now know it’s feeling,
I speak softly to my pet petting it to calm it’s days indoors,
I make an effort to check kin near and far to offer an assurance I have in short supply,
I sing songs that has my throats conscripted,
I reflect on yesterday’s and marvel at my assumed ignorance,
I read a good book and refuse to get frayed,
While I yearn for a hug and a kiss close,
While I year for a drive and the wind on my face,
I remain grateful knowing many are worse off,
I turn inward and offer a prayer in humility,
Not just for me and my household,
But for humanity whom I admit are me,
And as I stay in and about my space,
My heart aches for those lying on a rocky pillow,
I cry in prayer for one isolated unable to breath unassisted,
I forgive those who should have known better but chose to ignore,
And I send good vibes to the universe with this plea,
May we never again as a species with ability to chose,
Ever again divide and demonize the very essence of life in health.

© 2020, Nancy Ndeke

Nancy’s Amazon Page is HERE.

We haven’t had winter,
but we have spring,
with rain and even some snow.
We were locked home
and only the birds sing outside.

The cage can be cozy,
if we go back to ourselves again.
It is raining hard
and the birds are singing,
while someone is saving the world.

© 2020, Miroslava Panayotova

Miroslava’s blog is HERE.

Considerations

Shop doors and borders,
opportunities and certainties
slam with a bang
as millions of fingernails are
frayed and
billions of curses are
screamed,
yet among the maelstrom of
closures comes
the kindness of the
pharmacist finding a way to
dispense multiple months of
blood pressure pills to a
panic-ridden patient despite
restrictions against stockpiling or the
hotelier reducing rates
for self-isolators
in a strange city or the
project manager setting aside
special assignments for the freelancer
freaking out about rent.
Pandemics and presidential elections
linger as blips in textbooks, but
undying compassion is what secures
sustainable safety nets.

© 2020, Adrian Slonaker

If We Lived in a Just World (or Country)
— inspired by Jamie Dedes

If we lived in a just world (or country)
We would not deny a seat at our table to someone who came after us
And no one would be forced to choose between medicine and food
Between one child and another
Or between grandparents and younger people.

If we lived in a just world (or country)
We wouldn’t have to be generous because our government wasn’t
The government wouldn’t steal money from us to give to the rich
The rich wouldn’t choke us and cook us with their carbon dioxide
Our armies wouldn’t march into weaker countries just because they could
And we wouldn’t turn back immigrants because we were once them.

If we lived in a just world (or country)
We wouldn’t raise hopes where there were none to raise
We’d just roll up our sleeves and do the best we could
We’d know the difference between right and wrong
And forget the difference between right and left
We wouldn’t have to choose between our past and our future
Because nobody can take away our past
And nobody should try to take away our future.

 from The Hoopoe’s Call

(c) Mike Stone 2020 

And yet We Live

We don’t know why life leaps from nonliving things
And yet we live.
We don’t know why we see a bird or think a thought
And yet we see and think.
We don’t know why we die
And yet we die.
I don’t know why you love me
And yet you love me.
Aren’t these things enough for us?

© 2020, Mike Stone

The Two Colors of Wisdom

All things in the world
Are painted with two colors:
The color of good
And that of evil.
Those with wisdom
Can see both colors
But some only see one color
And not the other.
Don’t blame the blind
For being unable to see.

© 2020, Mike Stone

Making Peace With Ourselves

Most of the time I’m just me
And sometimes I’m we
But every once in a while, we are them
And they are us.
It seems to me that everyone
Who wants their story heard
Would want their own country
To tell it loud and clear
And the problem with countries
Is that nobody will give you one
Just because you asked for it nicely
And nobody wants to be occupied
So, if you still want a country
You’re going to have to make life
Pretty uncomfortable for the occupiers.
I mean when we were them
And they were us,
Why can’t we remember that?
Then maybe we could make peace with ourselves.

© 2020, Mike Stone

Mike’s website is HERE.

Call of the Whippoorwill is Mike Stone’s fourth book of poetry, 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

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

Let’s keep the movement going.

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

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S/Heroes . . . and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Courtesy of  Evgeni Tcherkasski, Unsplash

“They’re heroes, you know, real heroes
Not the ones in capes and caps, No!
The ones in scrubs, masks, nursing clogs”
Jamie Dedes, Latter-day Heroes

All over the world the heroes are stepping up. They are the first responders, the medical professionals and their support people, the police and firefighters, those who deliver essential services and supplies, the people in maintenance and transportation, the pharmacists and the pharmacy clerks, those who work in suicide prevention centers and services for victims of domestic violence, and the list goes on. The heroes of our day and every day. This week our poets present a small collection but one filled with gratitude in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Latter-day Heroes, March 25.  Thanks to Paul Brookes, Anjum Wasim Dar, and Nancy Ndeke. Be touched. Be inspired. And do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome: beginning, emerging, and pro poets.

These Heroes

Folk call me a hero
as am a keyworker in a food shop.

I am not.

NHS staff, folk in nursing homes,
those supplying food parcels

to those self isolated,
those entertaining online
children out of school.

These are my heroes.

© 2020, Paul Brookes

Cleaners

are unskilled

They wash away our dirt,

scrub our consciences,

cleanse the surfaces of what we do,

clean the remnants of our days,

polish the valuables of our streets.

Make the stains we make spotless,

unsoil the soiled

unstain the stained,

unsully the sullied,

unblemish the blemished,

make our world pristine, speckless,

dirt-free, hygienic, sanitary, disinfected,

sterilized, sterile,decontaminated, healthy

with the correct chemicals and appropriate tools,

deep clean the nooks and crannies of our lives.

Still we call these heroes unskilled.

© 2020, Paul Brookes

Paul’s site is The Wombwell Rainbow
Paul’s Amazon Page U.S. HERE
Paul’s Amazon Page U.K. HERE

More poems by Paul at Michael Dickel’s Meta/ Phore(e) /Play

My Doctor

When thoughts come, to a still.
When the heart is overfilled,
When the mind is not at ease,
When you do not feel well,
And you cannot tell,what is wrong with you?

When there is pain
And your head aches
When you lie down
With a very long face,
When you want someone to sit near you;

To hold your hand
And to smile at you;
To take away your pain,
To make you well again;
To bring happiness, then after, here comes, The Doctor!

Fear goes away, and there is hope
When you feel the stethoscope,
So there is nothing quite wrong
“But, here is a mixture.
To make you strong.”

Such politeness and care
Is a quality so rare,
But it is there. And I must say
Though not from a bank
But from the depths of my heart

I owe, my doctor many a million thanks.

© 2020, Anjum Wasim Dar

“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

S/HEROS.

Like swat teams, they sleep on the ready,
Never asking why or how,
Hearts worn on the giving hands,
The most unlikely of places you find them giving ,
The most precarious of spaces you find their hands extended,
Working beyond the call of duty and convenience,
Putting one tired foot ahead of another spasming in numbness,
Men and women life has got dependent on,
Even as few among us ‘ only look to the self’
Time of the double digit year that rose with a cold and runs with the heat,
Unsung saints have crashed from the weight of humanitys needs,
Undocumented stretches of giving and then some more,
Going the extra mile on fumes and the indomitable spirit of humanity,
Men and women beyond professional duties riding the waves of disastrous contacts to save a life,
Human angels filling the emptiness of commercial shelves with basics upon a cold night,
Medics walking on slippery quarrantine quarters to offer hope of a lone sufferer,
What of that ambulance man who last slept last week?
And the nurse whoses duty goes beyond administration’s of bandages into a listening and reassuring voice?
What of the old man who goes shopping on your behalf because you can’t?
The bedridden mum of three calling to cheer you up as your nose runs red,
What of that ‘highway man’ without a home and now down with flu,
His best shot would have been a blue look but for that lady berieved recently,
Times and seasons have a rhythm and a tune all it’s it’s own,
For the hurricane of worry that COVID 19 has thrust amidst humanity,
One thing has come up for sure,
Man is capable of being a human being for sure,
Discarding old habits and biases to stand and be counted,
To help within means and beyond those most in need,
And as the world sighs deeply with the burden of sick and dying,
Heros rise every day to perform tasks that make all proud,
It’s to such deeds and acts of kindly giving,
That tells earth is habitat of man,
A hard-work of a loving deity,
Once lost but now found,
At a time when such heroism is indeed needed.
Names may be forgotten but not the acts,
Time will pass and this monster conquered,
But let the lessons forever stay,
That with love, nothing is too hard to gain,
And that we are strongest,
When we are a brother’s keeper.
S/HEROS everywhere,
May you never lack a supporting hand while you live.
Yours too, shall be tended by the seeds you tend today.

© 2020, Nancy Ndeke

Nancy’s Amazon Page is HERE.

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

The Poet by Day officially endorses Bernie Sanders for President.

The New New Deal

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

Posted on

Speaking in Poetic Tongues: A Salute to Women Activist Poets from Womawords Literary Press

Courtesy of Levi Guzman, Unsplash

“The heart of a women is like an  ocean, thus she must be proffered a free platform to express concerns, to speak rights, to voice against wrongs, to sing experiences and more.” Mbizo Chirasha

Originally published in Cultural Weekly, this is Mbizo Chirasha’s acknowledgement of some of the activist poets featured by Womawords Literary Press, which is dedicated to giving space to the voices of women and girls. I am touched to be counted among them and to be included in Mbizo’s feature here. Womawords Literary Press is also the co-host of The BeZine‘s International Poetry Month April 2020 series of daily poetic offerings in celebration of the month beginning on April 1.  / J.D.

Speaking in poetic tongues is an homage to the evangelists of resistance and poetic prophetesses. The women poet wordslingers wielding their pen weaponry to unchain the world from the pressing yoke of stereotypes and the hard granite rock sufferance perpetuated by unrepentant moral morons.

as we stand the ground of one another’s battles
where peace would be evolutionary and
the unholy alliance of wealth and fear-mongering
might burn itself out, find its way into justice,
but here we are, once again, in thrall to the
sociopaths, they have us bloodied and bound ~
their eyes are the aged face of clockwork orange,
numb to the obscenities of maim and murder …

© Jamie Dedes

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The griot in JAMIE DEDES is dared–daring. The tone as accompanied with the hard- rock verbiage is sarcastic but riotous. Racists are jabbed by defiant swords of satire. Poetry Spaces are poetry washed into oxy-moronic fields of peace. Corrupt landlords, warlords and tyrants are roasted by flames of metaphor. Dedes irony exorcise political demons and rattles the grip of economic dare-devils. Jamie Dedes is a Lebanese-American writer and activist. In another lifetime, she was a columnist, a publicist, and an associate editor to a regional employment publication. She’s had to reinvent herself to accommodate chronic and catastrophic illness, which has her home-bound, often bed-bound. The gift in this is time for literature, her primary passion, and social justice advocacy, her primary mission.

America is a blessing; it is blessed with the gift of word evangelist. It is the land of abundant literary arts culture talent. TRACY YVONNE BREAZILE‘s double edged razor sharp cutting poesy scythes against weeds of earthly stereotypes of political barbarism. Unsparingly ,the razor sharp tip of her poetic machete slice through Africa in quest for the freedom of her earth mates “Zimbabweans,” writhing under the heavy yoke of unbridled corruption as they suffocate from toxic, choking and command politics.

I gather my confusion and stutter my truths,
As you unleash your lightning bolt into the thicket,
Crashing into the night with a raging fire,
I dance with the embers ‘till morning light,
While you devise an avalanche to extinguish the fire,
You dropped your mask and it tumbled to the ground,
In the dust of the avalanche, beneath the rubble of your pedestal,
I will leave you there to mind your mazes,

© Tracy Yvonne Breazile

TRACY YVONNE BREAZILE is a Mentor in Residence of the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign Projects–Brave Voices Poetry Journal, Word Guerrillas Café and WOMAWORDS Literary Press.

I hear the poetic giggles echoing from beyond century hills reverberating foothills of Kirinyaga Mountains. Nancy Ndeke is an African prophetess, her to poetic tongues echo the foothills of Kirinyaga mountain, her writings are pregnant with African emotion and spiritual resonance. She writes of her kindred, WOMEN with a bold spirit and an aura of sisterly stubbornness. Her pen jives on page leaves like a rock rabbit dancing to earthly acoustics of wind, tree branches and discordant village songs. Ndeke’s poetry is the tenor of deep but soft flowing river, the rhythm abound is undeniably scintillating. You need a calabash of fresh spring water to wash down the poetry dinner of realism, metaphor and satire.

……………Is less of the individual, and
More of the community, meeting as equals,
At the intersection of connectedness
The hubris,
That rules empires with iron tanks and nuclear weapons
The feel good notion,
That sets colors apart in racism,
Are months that blow evil dust on the arena of life’s rainbow
There is no joy whatsoever
In fear, in anger
With greed, with bigotry,
Peace flees,

© Nancy Ndeke

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NANCY NDEKE is a Poet of international acclaim. Her writings and poetry are featured in several collections, anthologies and publications around the globe including the American magazine Wild Fire, Save Africa Anthology, world Federation of Poets in MEXICO.

 

 

The Armenian spirit HOKIS returns the echo with indomitable metaphoric incantations. Here poetry walks confidently in the spirit land. Hokis is the Founder and Senior Editor of Headline Poetry and Art Magazine. She believes in supporting a range of voices at various stages of their craft for this is the most impactful design of grassroots revolutions. She envisions Headline as a platform that exemplifies the beliefs that all poetry is political and reflection is essential to effectively reshape conversations and culture—for writers and readers alike.

the let loose moments
of garbled wrappers and stenched bottles
drizzled over our bedside table
like syrup on empty caloried
memories.

© Hokis

hokis-main-photo

Again, We walk through the holy sands of Cape Verde to harvest voices of souls dead and walking. GLORIA SOPHIA is a deep, versatile and powerful Cape Verde-an poet with three published books and some more contributions in a number of anthologies. The poet is a creative began. She cultivates her creativity with determination and the required zeal. It is very critical to give poets, like Sofia creative spaces suitable platforms for purposes of growing them into literary stardom.

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Sun explodes in the sky
Burning the moon
Destroying the eternal blue
Germinates in my womb
Star packed with music It hurts everything
Swollen mother
Wrapped stomach
Blushing breasts
My undulating body

© Gloria Sophia

Nordic Europe have its on share of poetic prophets. Wisdom is not sold but served in cafes, restaurants, galleries and bookshops. DOLORES MEDEN is a versatile and a genius poet who mastered the power of art and the versatility that is found languages. She writes her poetry and translates them herself. She infuses her writings with visual artist’s drawings to bring about to the reader historical references of art, humanity and just life. ALLUSION is one great element of literature and most reader respect reference, history and currency

To read is resistance
to stupidity
to ignorance
to the unhealthy
relationships
you once
escaped from.

© Dolores Menden

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Meden was born in Sweden by Croatian parents and have lived there all her life. A graduate of Bachelor of Arts in History of Religion. She also studied some languages, mostly Slovene and Chinese.

MIRO60

The sun rises from the East and its rays bathe the world. The earth becomes beautiful and creative abundance is gathered to heal the world. MIROSLAVA PANAYOTIVA is one great poet of national and international repute in Bulgaria .Her themes are diverse from nature to confessional poetry, her style unique and her diction versatile. Her verses carry scintillating rhythm.

In the grass of the night,
in the sleeping mystery,
in the expiring pencil
to the blue notebook,
I outline the sunset

© Miroslava Panyotova

MIROSLAVA PANAYOTOVA graduated from the Plovdiv University majoring in Bulgarian philology. Her whole lot of poems, stories, tales, aphorisms, essays, criticisms, translations, articles and interviews in periodicals and collections.

© 2020, introductory text, Mbizo Chirasha; poets poems and photographs are under their own copyright.

Womawords Literary Press is a complex of efforts, the heart-child initiated and curated by Zimbabwean poet activist in exile Mbizo Chirasha (Mbizo, The Black Poet).  You can read an interview of Mbizo on Womawords and the opportunities offered there to women HERE.

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

The Poet by Day officially endorses Bernie Sanders for President.

The New New Deal

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton