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Fatwood … and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

“A Word is Dead

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.

I say it just
Begins to live
That day.”

Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

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.

© 2019, Maribeth Parot Juraska

Maribeth Parot Juraska

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

© 2019, Gary W. Bowers (One With Clay. Image and Text)

Born Top

of the heap, King of the hill.
Ambition when retire is pushing broom,

at the valley bottom where the river flows.
Work your way steadily down slippery slope,

responsibilities and job titles roll away scree
downhill, watch ground underfoot, see silver

of the river, get bigger, find the bristles
and whittle the handle, nail together.

From “A World Where”, Nixes Mate Press, 2017

© 2019, Paul Brookes, (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

Be Complacent.

Take all for granted.
Be blasé. Let it all happen.

Smile sweetly as that car kills
that bystander. There’s nothing

you or I can do. We are not
in the car to stop the driver.

We are not by the pedestrian’s side.
We can only witness it all.

Don’t get involved. It will take up
all your life. Valuable time you cannot give.

You have work and family commitments.
Must strive to better yourself.

© 2019, Paul Brookes, (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

Be Vague.

Recognition follows your
strive to be vague.
Lose sharp edges. Fade
A little at the corners.

This will define you.
Nothing must be prominent.
If it stands out make it sit down.
Don’t make an exhibition of yourself,

blend into background.
Urban camouflage expert.
Stealth worker. No loud clothes.

Self efface, deface your selfies,
if you must. Annunciate in whispers.
Mumble. Stay off the interweb.

It is only self publicity and aggrandisement.
Aver bright colours keep
to the colour of shadows.

© 2019, Paul Brookes, (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

Achievement

“It’s a hobby.” he says
as he buys the latest adventure.

Level One: a half eaten pizza
goes cold as he outwits the foe.
Only 35 levels to go.

Levels Two-Ten: unopened bills
amass behind the front door.
He strives for a better score.

Levels Eleven-Twenty: The bath has
a black ring. Mice skitter dustclouds.
Over halfway and he is proud.

Levels Twenty-One-Thirty: He orders food
in on his mobile. His girlfriend left at level
Eighteen. If only he can reach the next level.

Level Thirty-One: He doesn’t hear or see the bailiffs
as they take his other tellies, cooker,
microwave and sundry furniture.

© 2019, Paul Brookes, (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

Paul Brookes

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

The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jamie Dedes

Ambition – A Haibun

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.

©️ 2019, words and photographs, Irma Do (I Do Run, And I do a few other things too …)

Be the 1

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.

© 2019, Deb y Felio (Writer’s Journey)

If You Do Not Stop

If you do not stop
on the way to the top,
to brace your footing,
on the way to the bottom
there will be no ledges.

© 2019, Jen E. Goldie (Jen Goldie)

Ambition

ambition

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

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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 by Northern 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.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“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

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I’M NOT DONE YET … AND OTHER RESPONSES TO THE LAST WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

“When I was young and miserable and pretty
And poor, I’d wish
What all girls wish: to have a husband,
A house and children. Now that I’m old, my wish
Is womanish:
That the boy putting groceries in my car

See me. ”
Randall Jarrell, Selected Poems

What a generous and engaging response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, I Am Beautiful Now, February 6, 2019. I guess we all have something to say about aging: poignant, wry, wise, well considered. You’ll find a lot to munch on here today.

Thanks to Julie Standig (and a warm welcome), Paul Brookes, Irma Do, Jen Goldie, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Marta Pombo Sallés (welcome back), Mike Stone, and Anjum Wasim Dar.  Well done, poets, and thank you!

Enjoy this stellar collection and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.

I’m Not Done Yet

I lost my ovaries a week ago:
no, they were not misplaced,
like my keys, cell phone and eye
glasses. They were unruly
so, like that bad student years ago,
they were removed. Don’t miss ‘em.
Don’t need ‘em.

Heads no longer turn when I walk
down the street,and when I meet
my daughter on Columbus, the waiter
barely takes my order, but quickly
knows to hand me the cheque.
I expect it.

I’m the oldest woman at work.
My earrings don’t hang as long,
my heels are not too high,
and my hair is quite short.
I wear pants, and if they’re tight
is more around the waist.

But I love nights filled with music,
wine and friends. Amber necklaces
and oversized rings that still slide
over my knuckles.
Words are comrades, still, and so far
they have not deserted me.

The lines around my mouth and
creases at my eyes, I wear like medals.
Not for bravery, or a war that was won.
I can’t win this war and I know it.
I have lost, I miss, yet I have no regrets.
Beware.
I’m not done yet.

© 2019, Julie Standig

JULIE STANDIG was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Queens, lived on Long Island. She now splits time between New York City and Doylestown.PA. She has studied at the Unterberg Poetry Center,participated in Writer’s Voice and is an active member of a private workshop in NYC.  Published in Alehouse Press, Arsenic Lobster and Covenant of the Generations, Then and Now Issue of Sadie Girl Press, as well as the online journal, Rats Ass Review. Her first chapbook, Memsahib Memoir  has just been released by Plan B Press and is currently working on her next project.

Poetry is her voice and it has taken a long time to find it. She works her way through loss and dementia and her love of life. She writes on trains, in cars, Central Park walks, late at night and always somewhere between New York City and Doylestown.

Old Are Young

My wrinkles disappear,
No more crow’s feet.

Knees lack pain when I get up,
or walk stairs. Mind so pin sharp

it hurts. Touch my toes,
cartwheel, run marathons.

I’ve had to throw away my false teeth,
As I’ve grown new ones.

Age means less struggle.
Life should be struggle.

Age means less pain .
Everything should hurt.

I tell my wrinkled grandkids.
Never grow old. Wish it on no one.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow. Inspiration / History / Imagination)

My Decrepit Is Good

Bring on grey hairs turn to silver.
Bring on sharp pain in the knees
as I hobble downstairs, deafness
is my body’s editor.

Bring on memory loss
as I know no different.
Bring me my stick,
my arrow of desire.

Bring it all on, fuzzy brain,
misty sight, zimmer frame,
adult nappy’s, oxygen through
plastic tubes, a knowing.

Bring on wrinkles, laugh lines,
tang of autumn, radical spice
of spring, footskate winter,
wild summer, all natural process.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow. Inspiration / History / Imagination)

Biddy To A Young God

Have you some anti aging cream
in your warm skin young god
for as you caress these ancient hands
this bent body wintered
the wrinkles smooth out?

You have planted fresh
delight in these eyes
that sprout visions again
as when I was a young girl.

You have breathed
through my cold embers
and stroked warmth
into this thin skin.

My face has plumpness
and reddens
as your hands find flesh
for my angled skull.

My limbs no longer bare
begin to dress themselves
with buds and colour
for your lustful eyes.

Perhaps these changes
are only in your eyes,
and this puddle reflection
may be false, a false Spring.

From forthcoming book “Stubborn Sod”, Alien Buddha Press, 2019

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow. Inspiration / History / Imagination)

Bairns Are Old Codgers

Before I get taken to play at my soft playcentre,
my one year granddaughter toddles with her zimmer frame.
Later we will take her to the memory cafe
where she’ll remember her past lives.
“Hard”, of before dawn and midnight hours:
A welder in the Clyde shipyard, 1942.
“Stinks that,” she says of the steel shavings, and Swarfega.
“Heavy”, of the hammer…
A kitchen servant in a big house.
“Hurts”, of calloused pestle and mortared deferment…
I’m all giddy at tumble down
slides, scramble nets and ballpools.

From “A World Where”, Nixes Mate Press, 2017

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow. Inspiration / History / Imagination)

Prolific Yorkshire Poet, Paul Brookes

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

The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jamie Dedes

Chive On – A Limerick

There once was woman, aged forty five

Who felt her life was somewhat contrived

Despite her face being full of lines

She still wrote some pretty good rhymes

So she just stayed calm and continued to chive.

If you haven’t heard the phrase, “Keep calm and Chive on,” there is a link in the limerick explaining this saying. The last line was originally going to say “So she said “F#%& that” and continued to thrive” but I thought the modern reference was a “cooler” ending.

I’m turning a significant age this year (five years until half a century!), and like Jamie, I too feel quite comfortable at this age. Maybe it’s because despite my advanced age (thank you for that phrase, medical community!), I actually don’t feel “old”. I feel more secure in myself, more confident, more daring – all characteristics that are related to gaining experience and self knowledge, which can only come with age.

So this fun poem reflects the fun that I’m having now – being a mom, a runner, a partner, a friend, a writer – despite of or probably, because of, my advanced age!

© 2019, poem and photo, Irma Do (I Do Run … And I Do a Few Other Things Too)

Fighting Age

Combing through darkness

Five stand, admitting defeat

Plucked out – victory!

I’ve written a lot of poetry lately, but I’ve also done a fair share of running this past week. Thursday’s short 4 mile run was so hot that I couldn’t even even run the last two miles of it. My head was pounding and I was starting to feel dizzy. I felt defeated and annoyed at my inability to do these minimal miles.

Saturday, I ran 11 miles in cool weather with a slight drizzle and I felt great! I felt like I could have finished another 2 miles for an impromptu half marathon (I didn’t though, as coffee and a bagel was calling my name). I felt elated and victorious, ready to conquer the rest of the day.

Poetry and running keep my soul from getting old and stagnant. I never know what to expect but the range of feelings I experience before, during and after every run is similar to my writing experience. What a blessing to have both in my life and to also have a community of wonderful people to share it with!

© 2019, Irma Do (I Do Run … And I Do a Few Other Things Too)

Details

I zero in

On the cracks in the walls

The spaces between the tile and grout

The layer of dust on the grand piano

The peeling Formica under 80’s sought after giveaway cups

The places where your innovative nature took precedence over getting the job done right.

I zero in

On the grays in your hair

And the spots on your hands

The slowness in your cane aided walk

Your mouth agape during your afternoon nap

The hand me up shirt you’ve been wearing for decades because it still fits

I zoom out

And see the humor and kindness in your eyes

The hands that lovingly prepare my favorite meal

The 20 year old bed that fits generations

The clock where time has stopped but happiness lives on

The struggle of remembering and honoring and forgetting and accepting.

I zoom out

And notice what you do without

What you’ve sacrificed

What you’ve preserved

What you’ve done with love

What you’ve done for love.

I zero in on that detail.

© 2019, Irma Do (I Do Run … And I Do a Few Other Things Too)

Come,
see me now.

I am, the wind in your sails
when storms cause you fear,
I am, the love on your skin
when complexion gives in,
I am strength in your bones
as your bones become thin,
You will know me by sight
when your sight isn’t clear,
When darkness is near,
You will deny any fear.
I am the warmth
of your Sun.
and the light
of your Moon.
I am everything
you know,
I am everything
you knew
Who am I?

I am you.

© 2019, Jen E. Goldie (Jen Goldie, Poetry and Short Stories)

Scorched Bones

Gathering thoughts
of remembrance
Time stood still.

My kind eyes
Muddied by a world
Full of hate,
We see everyday.

This is not
Where I want to be
This is not
What I want to see.

My gentle, trusting
Nature being worn
Away by the news
The confusion I see.

This is not
Where I want to be
This is not
What I want to see.

Beauty dying In front
of me not naturally
But gradually, and
strategically on course.

This is not
Where I want to be
This is not
What I want to see.

I and my friends
losing Grace, misplaced
Days dwindling by
Shortening time.

This is not where
I want to be
This is not what
I want to see.

Gone is the wonder
Gone is the trace of
Smiles erupting
on this aging face.

This is not where
I want to be
This is not what
I want to see.

God give me grace.
When the loving warmth
Of the final fire
scorches my bones.

This is not where
I want to be
This is not what
I want to see.

© 2019, Jen E. Goldie (Jen Goldie, Poetry and Short Stories)

The Tallest Tree

Graying hairs, and
Weakened bones
Could snap as the fragile
Aging branches
Of the tallest tree.
I am now as tall
As I’ll ever be.
Time is mine to keep.
My eyes have opened
Though I can hardly see,
my limbs have
taken me the distance
and no longer carry me.
I am wind and I am sea,
The heavens tenderly
Beckon me,
My arms are open.
Please
look
at
me.

© 2019, Jen E. Goldie (Jen Goldie, Poetry and Short Stories)

.the rain came suddenly.

sun, was done and dusted.

by the slate they talked, shining.
faces older now, friendship retained.

learned a little more on life, the small
things, wisdom rings
the generations.

i did not need all the mange tout.

how beautiful

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.angel.

sit with me, talk to me
about yourself and things
surrounding.

i am older now, look
like this, and will harm,
no living thing.

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.these days these days.

are longer now, i feel younger now,

i am older. we do so many things.

we are no longer afraid.

make the best of summer days,

winter follows.

he remarked that it was

good enough

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher

Girl, my little pearl

Girl, my little pearl
you swirl in golden waters
when you wear the highest heels
when you show your slim body
when you put on that lovely dress
when you wear that perfect make-up
when you exhibit those expensive earrings
when your fingers and toe nails are so carefully painted
when you completely remove all your hairs
(except those on your head)
when your hair is dyed accordingly
(never forget to dye it when you grow older,
you should always look younger)

Girl, my little pearl
you still want to swirl in goldern waters
when you exhibit those piercings and tattoos
though they are not still enough,
so you will want to have some more, perhaps
some botox and breast size operations too.

And girl little pearl says:

I do not want to wear high heels,
they’ll ruin my feet and back forever.
I was not born with a slim body so
why should I want to have it?

I do not want to wear that lovely dress,
it’s terribly uncomfortable, unpractical,
has no pockets and it’s too cold now,
so why should I wear it?

I do not want that make-up made of chemicals affecting my health.

They always want to sell
and so they never tell.

The same with nail polish. I do not want it
unless I buy these things at the organic shop
just in case I changed my mind.
I do not have earholes for earrings.

Why does almost every girl have them
to mark their gender as soon as they’re born?

My mum has those earholes and wore once
some unexpensive pair of earrings, bad metal,
and ended up with red skin, red spots and allergy.

No, I do not want earholes to mark my gender differentiation.
I want to choose if I want them or not when I grow up.
As for my hair and its natural color,
I am perfectly satisfied, well, perhaps
some streaks to highlight a bit of color
together with shades of greys and whites.
I want to look my age, why younger?
I am getting older and have grey hairs.
So what? Will I be less of a woman
if I don’t dye my hair anymore?

I refuse irreversible things
like piercings and tattoos.
Some other women and men
may like them very much.
Perhaps they’ve been the luckiest ones
who had no health problems so far
after piercings and tattoos
marked their bodies
forever.

I do not want this on my body
I do not want to be obsessed by esthetics
I do not want to do something just because
it’s fashion, everyone does it.
I do not want to be who I am not
I want to be myself
I want to be appreciated for who I am.
And if somebody wants to love me
I’ll say, please, look first at my inside
and then you’ll be able to decide.

I am no girl, little pearl
to swirl in golden waters
I am simply who I want to be
now you just take me or leave.

© 2019, Marta Pombo Sallés (Moments)

A Dying Light

Raanana, July 14, 2017

Once when your light was at its zenith
We could see the possibilities of poetry
And now, and now,
Your light is swollen and bloodred
As it sinks below the crags of the far horizon
We would not venture to explore,
But even in the dying of your light
And the cold night that it portends,
You show us the way we all must tread
Through dreaded mindscape
That leads us lemminglike to fall free
Through the nothingness of nonexistence.
Though you would bid me follow you
Showing me the beauty here
Or the danger there,
You can only point at them
For words have deserted you,
Adjectives no longer describe
Nouns no longer are
Verbs no longer act,
And time itself was ever only deceit.

© 2017, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

Retirement

Raanana, April 30, 2017

We sat at the kitchen table
The two of us as we did most evenings
Her eyes tear-brimmed.
I reached over and touched her arm
Why? I asked although I knew.
She had retired just a few months back
But I had kept on working
Til now.
We’ll turn into a couple of old people
It’s the last chapter of our lives, she said.
Both of us turned around and looked at Daisy
Snoring softly from her mattress
As she does most days now.
Neither of us could imagine life without her
But I sensed my wife’s sadness
Spilling and spreading out towards me
And I promised her
Wherever we’d go
We’d go together hand in hand
Til time’s far-flung end.

© 2017, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

Wisdom

Raanana, April 4, 2017

And in the end
They’re right, you know,
The Hindus and the Buddhists:
All life is illusion
Cut adrift from the shores of reality
With a logic of its own
Like the shells on the beach
That my mother remembering
When she was a little girl
Picked up and put to her ear
And heard the sea in them.
This was the wisdom they talked about
Sitting around the fires
Toothless grins under a full moon,
A wisdom that is not a wisdom,
At all.

© 2017, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

Trembling Hands

Raanana, October 8, 2016

My hands,
I look at them now
Trembling
As they are wont to do
And I wonder why
They do,
My hands.
My father’s hands trembled too,
More toward the end,
How I loved them,
His hands.
I think maybe they know something I don’t know,
My hands,
That starlight trembles in the night
From distance and the coldness of it,
That strings on violins tremble
From Sheherazade’s beauty,
Or remind me how my vulnerability
Lets me listen to your heartbeat.
O captain, my captain,
Perhaps your hand upon the wheel
Trembled before the port that was your destination.

© 2016, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

Little Things

Raanana, January 3, 2019

The desert hills behind me
The white-flecked sea in front of me
Clouds roiling on the horizon
A chill wind shivers old bones.
That’s when the clementines are best
And a steaming cup of mud-black coffee.
The sky is golden just before dusk,
What more could one ask for?
My hands age while I watch,
I suppose, like everything else here.
Slowly,
It’s hard to tell,
If you don’t pay much mind,
Little things
Get subtracted from your life
Until there’s not much left
But I guess it’s simpler
To keep track of
What’s important
And what’s dying.

© 2019, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

Mike Stone’s Amazon Page is HERE.

Age Is An Unknown Thing

img_20190210_162610.jpg                                                      Photo Credit  CER  ©  2019

age is an unknown thing
in silence  passes by
begins and ends with a cry
has honey and ‘a  sting’

Age is but a shadow dark-
why shadows are always
dark ? as night and day
– it’s all time, at play-

age is but a phase
called child,adult, old,
beauty grace wrinkled
body, bent slow and cold

age is but wisdom, 
in metallic sounds, a
a syzygy of time and life
a digital pattern

age is but a state of
mind, manner and matter
‘as old as one thinks’
a gauge of strength’

age is but ‘no age for love’
immune to all seasons
mobility gifted, a graceful cage 
 of  moments measured.

IMG_20190210_162504
Photo Credit  CER  ©  2019

Age is but beauty even in  
withered state, often ‘over
or under’ or right grade,yet 
praised or un praised,

all must fade…

© 2019, poem (English and Urdu) and illustrations, Anjum Wasim Dar  (Poetic Oceans)

 ءمر کیا ھے

اک انجان  ھقیقت  
اک خاموش راہ گزر 
اک آنسو اک مٹھاس
اک تیز چبھن اک ڈنگ       

،اک سایہ گہرا ،سایہ
 گہرا کیوں ھوتا ھے؟
جیسے رات اور دن
جیسے وقت کا کھیل

ءمر اک دور ھے 
بچپن جوانی بڑھاپا
خوبصورت جھریاں 
قمر  جھکی ھویؑ

عمر عقل کا نام ھے
عمر اک سوچ ھے
عمر اک وقت  ھے
عمر اک زندگی ھے 

اک  زہن  کا  تصور
اک  طاقت کا  اندازہ
عمر بس پیار کی عمر
اک وقت مقررہ عمر 

 عمر سب خوبصورت
عمر   سب  کی کہانی
عمر   بڑی  یا  چھوٹی
عمر     سب  کی   فانی

“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

ABOUT

Testimonials

Disclosure

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Twitter

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 by Northern 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.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“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

Posted on

“Global Harming” . . . and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

“This sweet virginal primitive land will metaphorically breathe a sigh of relief — like a whisper of wind–when we are all and finally gone and the place and its creations can return to their ancient procedures unobserved and undisturbed by the busy, anxious, brooding consciousness of man.”
Desert Solitaire, Edward Abby

BEFORE THE ENVIRONMENTAL POEMS, A THANK YOU

Thanks for waiting patiently and courteously for this post to go up. I have returned to the world of the living after health complications and another protracted stay at Stanford Hospital (also know in my family as The Stanford B & B).  I am grateful for your understanding and for the concern, intelligence, and perseverance of my cadre of doctors and other professionals at Stanford. Though there has been a precipitous decline in my lung function and I am completely homebound now, there is some potential for improvement and certainly my quality of life is now much improved over what it has been since last April.  I pray everyone everywhere might have access to such extraordinary care. Universal access to state-of-the-art medicine is compassionate and humane, a must and a right. It’s something for which it is worth fighting.

“The right to health is the economic, social, and cultural right to a universal minimum standard of health to which all individuals are entitled. The concept of a right to health has been enumerated in international agreements which include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. There is debate on the interpretation and application of the right to health due to considerations such as how health is defined, what minimum entitlements are encompassed in a right to health, and which institutions are responsible for ensuring a right to health.” MORE [Wikipedia]

You’ll be delighted with this passionate outpouring in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Monster’s Rose, January 16, 2019. This collection is courtesy of: Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Irma Do,  Irene Emanuel, Debbie Felio (Deb y Felio), Jen Goldie, Frank McMahan, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Gayle Walters Rose, and Anjum Wasim Dar. Be inspired, motivated, angry, filled with awe ….

suss stain

suss: perceive
stain: a blemish
rape: maliciously thieve
muck: a substance phlegmish

a nest befouled
unauked unowled
undodoed just a smidgen
unpassengered of pigeon

we suss the stain but soon make more
and drop the stools of detriment
and sculpt and knob the hellgate door
with manufactured excrement

© 2019, Gary W. Bowers (One With Clay. Image and Text)

A Mobile

is in the shape
of small graves
for children
who mine the precious
metal inside
that make it work
and I look
Into the screen
to stay connected
but do not see
their gritted lives
as they haul
the valuable
out of the hole
and the world
has never been
so connected
by the small grave
I carry in my pocket.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

This Brash and Burn

1. To Burn Brash

Sat back barked.
Small insects crawl
down tree stretched above
inhabit hair
worn gloves
bruised brashed branches

Breathe wet peat,
damp soil, leaf decay,
autumn dead leaf dance,
spring bluebell wend
summer sacred stainglass
canopy sunshaft play
winter heavesnow clear paths

Sat back barked
canopy leaf horizon
floats shimmers

Calm

2. Our Wombwell Boxed

Lift small boxes wooden lid smell
broadleaved woodland
before rail/road
Press plastic button hear
Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Woodpeckers,
before rail/road.

Press plastic button watch
Videowalk ancient Beech, Oak, Birch
before rail/road.

Electronic ringtone.

We would like to advise all visitors
The museum is closing soon.
Please exit through main door.
We hope you have enjoyed your visit.
Please come again.

© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

Plastic

“Do you want a carrier bag, sir?”
“I friggin don’t. Clog up the seas

with plastic all over. Even in fishes,
birds and what not. It’s all our fault.

Even down to microscopic. Seeps
Into food we eat I bet. Plastic folk

poisoning friggin world we live in.
No, I’ve got my own bags thankyou.

I won’t be one that kills the friggin world.
Here can you put them in here, lad?”

From Paul’s new collection”Please Take Change”, Cyberwit.net, 2018

© 2018, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

Prolific Yorkshire Poet, Paul Brookes

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

The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jamie Dedes

Prelude to Destruction

Bach’s Prelude in C Major is a well-known piano piece that is about two minutes long. Close your eyes while you listen to it and imagine a stream gently flowing over rocks as it meanders through green forest. Now imagine 130,000 barrels of oil being dumped in that stream. What will happen to the forest and the critters living there?

Now picture the wind whispering over a meadow blanketed with flowers still bright with color despite the new moon. And now a bulldozer comes to move 5000 tons of garbage onto the meadow including plastic that will take a millennia to decompose. How do the colors and aroma of landfill compete with that of wildflowers?

Or listen to the music and let your mind wander over the ocean, the warm sun highlighting the majesty of humpback whales breaching the surface. Now heat trapped by greenhouses causes 600,000 tons of ice to melt in Antarctica raising temperatures that could kill 400 plant and animal species in a year. Would seeing the dead carcasses of whales and other see creatures be as majestic?

Two minutes, the length of a prelude whose repetitious melody can remind us of the repeated wastefulness and mindless consumption we daily engage in that will lead to the destruction of this planet we call home.

Two minutes to kill

The only world that we know

Time to change the song

This (very loosely defined) Haibun was written for Jamie’s first Wednesday Writing Prompt of 2019 focused on the theme of the environment. I also included the last Tuesday Writing Prompt from Devereaux and Beth Amanda at the Go Dog Go Cafe. Their request was to include the words new moon, minutes and prelude in a poem. It definitely took me more than 10-15 minutes to write this Haibun!

The facts embedded in this poem come from this article about things that happen around the world in a minute. I doubled the numbers to match the two minutes of the prelude (I hope I did the math correct!). Conservation and protection of our environment is a cause my family and I are passionate about. We recycle and are trying to compost. We limit our plastic use – the kids have even given up straws! Just two minutes of a small change to your daily habits can make a difference! You can save the world with reusable bags as your cape!

©️2019, words and photo, Irma Do (I Do Run, And I do a few other things too …)

Tell the World

Let it be known

that the Rhinoceros is a magnificent beast;

a relic from an age of legends.

Let it be known

that this does not make them magical

but rather makes them precious.

Let it be known

that their horns are not medicinal

but a property that belongs only to the Rhino.

Let it be known

that horn powder is just powder

and does not provide a solution to the ills of man.

Let it be known

that horn contents do not hold the answers

to Mans’ immortality.

Let it be known

that some people are too stupid and vain

to know that their ignorance is wiping out a species.

Let it be known

that the horn is merely an adornment

of one of the most iconic animals in Africa,

PLEASE, LET IT BE.

© 2018, Irene Emanuel

Earth Walk

Earth walk to

hear Earth talk.

Listen to the birds

listen to the trees

listen to the fish

listen to the seas.

Listen to the hills

listen to the stones

listen to the grass

listen to the groans

of dying species

crying lands

hungry people

with bony hands

powered money

buying shame

removing nature

just for gain.

listen to the whispers

listen to the pain

listen to the wise ones

and don’t destroy again.

This Earth is all,

there is no more,

don’t kill its gifts

with blood and gore,

When Earth is dead,

so are we.

© 2019, Irene Emanuel

Global Harming

we’re crossing the desert in sandals
across new Antarctica
camels follow with our packs
it feels like southern Florida

before the ocean rose and drowned
the people near the shore
and then receded sixty miles
creating quite a lore

to be recited by old timers
beginning with remember when
there was water in these here parts
now there’s sand up to our shins

we’d swim and fish—those were the days
they’d tell the children listening
to magical times when people were wet
coming from deep water glistening

It’s just a fairy tale, we know
the children refuse to believe it
like so many of us long ago
hearing the global warning bit

slow but sure the changes came
spring slush replaced the snow
low temps in seventies everywhere
and gale winds would always blow

but we were brave and kept our cars
kept digging for petroleum
concern belonged to the next generation
never mind the panic symposium

so here we are just like they said
dry and hot as old Florida
in our sandals with our camels
crossing the new Antarctica.

© 2019, Deb y Felio (The Journey Begins)

A Lullaby of Fear

Oh, Mother Earth,
The children cried,
Please stay to hear
our lullaby.

Oh, Mother Earth
Think not
that they
decry your hopes,
Your loves
and dreams,
For they are
But a pawn
And die from
Greater things,

“like why the sea
Is boiling hot
And whether pigs
have wings”

The sky
is fraught with
other things,
guns are bought
And red would bring,
The joyless sound
Of endless things
To end our days
Of everything.

Oh My dear
It is quite clear,
Why you should hear
The child’s cry,

“a lullaby of fear”.

© 2018, Jen E. Goldie (Jen Goldie – Poetry and Short Stories)

False Light

The moon scatters the light it has stolen
out of vanity, cycling round us in
its futile effulgence. Earthworms harvest
the autumn’s leaves, enriching the crust, thin
below the dwindling branches where we sit
and watch the axes hew the trunk and slash.

© 2019, Frank McMahan

.this arid land.

water flows down this valley. wind blows

round our houses.i have said it before.yet

seems that those who should know better,

talk of gods, may judge the people .

live in remote places.

between mountain, sea. the land becomes

dry.

this arid land.

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher 

.seeds for the future.

have you collected seeds of many years packed labelled dated

do you have them now in boxes

a gift from those who love

they will bring work joy an independent air

profound gifts

for those who care

have you
leaned by the window cold

thought that if snow falls it may land

if trees grow it may be up

if we all plant seeds they may be food

kindness

deserves praise yet should come as natural

there may be too many additives these day

not enough honesty grown

she said i should have something new in the greenhouse.

i have

i said, and thought of you

who

planted the seeds

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.Earth 8211.

he asked me what i missed, i told him.

he suggests we look after the environment.

eat carefully, mind our ways.

i will.

these are the falling days.

© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher

Seaward

I hear your voices
calling from your home
in the aquatic depths,
where seas undulate
in constant motion
steered by the moon.

My soul dives and
spins within your
hearts. I merge
in your silence
and rejoice in
the gift
that is the ocean.

O Wise Whale
your tears mix
with countless
others as you
survey the
destruction of
your briny birthplace.

O Great Reef
dwelling place
and protector
for so many,
your quiet
decline has not
gone unnoticed.

Stars gaze with
compassion and
patience hoping
that something
will shift and turn
the tides.

Gales whip along
the waves, pick up
the disquiet and
carry it to shore.

The Trees shudder
and the news
ricochets off the
mountains and
circles the globe.

© 2019, Gayle Walters Rose (Bodhirose)

Come Create Anew

13920214_10154429662230747_6017019006167533630_o  Banni Gala   Islamabad.                         Photo Courtesy CER (Regd 2004)  © 2019

Thin grown ever green
lusciously fully nutritious
dancing away to soundless
sacred sweet symphonies،
swaying sideways in
obedience to invisible
conducting synchronized
companies,
offering soft cool
overtures to burning soles
of injured souls,enriching
meadows to the core,
resistingly  accepting, nibbling
advances of loving mammal
herbivores;

deserted desert dunes,
dream to possess, as
slithering snakes
undulatingly weave
their colors in the sand,
dreading the deadly, Peregrine.

Wave  of green expanses,
sight asking for journeys,as
pearly high peaks call – and
silvery streams flow to touch
the seas, on way caress
to nourish plants and trees.

Oh Gaea’ Listen Look’
Chaos has returned with
dark confusing void
gripping tearing ruining,
rivers  mountains and seas,
forests metamorphosed to
plains, painful is the spirit’

Changes in the Planet are
changing mosquito genes
malaria fills fear, Oh Gaea’
Hear Gaea can you again,

Come to Create anew  ?

یہ  کس   نے   

جھومتا   گیت   گاتا  لہلہاتا   ناچتا  ھوا  سبزا
پکرا   پکار  کر  سسک     کر فریاد  کرتا ھے

یہ سر سبز  لہلہاتے کھیت  روند  ڈالے   کس نے
یہ   چاندی  جیسے جھرنے  میلے کیے کس نے

   ان سنی دھنوں، ان  دیکھے موسیقاروں کے
اشاروں   پہ بجتے سروں کو خاموش کیا کس 

کون   بتاےؑ   گا اب  یہ  تباہی  مچایؑ   کس  نے
 آج      تک     سچی    گواہی   دی کس  نے

تپتی  ریت  مین   سانپ  رنگ   بدلتے چھپتے
چوٹیوں  پہ  شاہیں   کا بسیرا دیکھا  کس نے

یہ زمین  ہی پہاڑ ہی جھومتے کھیت ہی سمندر
ٓاؑواز  دیتے ھیں  چلو  سفر  پے دیکھو  پیاری قدرت

مگر   بدلتے    نظارے    یہ  کٹتے پہاڑ  خشک دریا
جلتے جنگل ، روح  کو  تکلیف    دی  ھے  کس نے  

ملیرےؑ کے مچھر   لوگون کہ ڈراتے پھر رھے ھیں
ملیریا اور مچھر   ملک  سے اب تک بھگاےؑ  کس نے

        اے قدرت نیؑ  زمین بنے  سنورے   گی  کیا پھر سے
تباہ ھو چکی ھے ،پھر سے بنانے کا وعدہ  کیا ، کس نے؟

© 2019, poem in English and Urdu, Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans)

“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

Testimonials

Disclosure

Facebook

Twitter

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 by Northern 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.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“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

Posted on

“Living on the Glebe”. . . and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

The Japanese Tea Garden, San Mateo, CA © Jamie Dedes

“What is this life so full of care,
We don’t have time to stand and stare.”
William Henry Davies, The Collected Poems of William H. Davies; With a Portrait

The last Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, to write about farms and farming (Conjuring Farmhouses), December 12, is covered quite broadly here with responses from Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Irma Do, Jen E. Goldie, Shiela Jacob, Frank McMahan, Mike Stone, and Anjum Wasim Dar. These will provoke some thought and much pleasure, spiked as they are with memoir, questions, humor, and insight.  Enjoy!

Wednesday Writing Prompt will return on January 16, 2019.  

three cow salute

walking to my high school meant walking past three cows
just as 61st avenue came to its
senses and straightened up
south of bethany home road
and what was then
a bobwire fence held back these bored cows
who stood and chewed or didn’t
and slowly turned
their
heads
in
unison
as
you
passed

they were the stolid
they were the stupefied
the stunned
the milkbaggy trio
the watchers of boys and girls

they needed a date with a frisky bull
or maybe they needed nothing
but daily relief from udder strain
grass
and me tweaking their monotony
into near monotony

couldn’t tell you
don’t know why those bored
and boring cows still lease space
in a pasture in my head
just know
the smell of horseshit does nothing for me
but
the smell of cowshit
has more than once filled
my stupid stolid eyes
with nostalgic tears

© 2018, Gary W. Bowers (One With Clay, Image and Text)

 

Purifying shepherds

Smoke from burning

droplets of blood from the tail
of last October’s sacrificed horse,
ashes of the stillborn calves,
the shells of beans.

We are sprinkled with water,
wash our hands
in spring-water,
drink milk mixed with must.

Towards evening after shepherds
fed their flocks,
laurel-branches
are used as brooms
to clean their stables,
water sprinkled through them,
then stables adorned
with laurel-boughs.

Shepherds burn sulphur,
rosemary, fir-wood, and incense,
usher the smoke through the stables
and the flocks to purify them.

cakes, millet, milk,
and other food
is offered.

Hay and straw bonfires lit
cymbals and flutes play
as sheep and shepherds
are run three times
through the fire.

At an open air feast
we sit or lay
on turf benches
and sup a lot.

© Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History . Imagination.)

A Burning Fox

A twelve year old lad in a valley
at the end of a willow copse
catches a vixen fox, snacker
on many a farmyard fowl.

He wraps it in straw and hay,
sets her alight, she escapes him
and in her fleeing sets fire to crops
in the fields, a breeze goads the flames.

Vital winter’s snap to feed
family destroyed.

So every festival of Grow,
a fox is burned.

© Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History . Imagination.)

White Lady

Crowned white lady with flowing hair,
and fiery shoes, carries a spindle
and a three-cornered mirror
that foretells the future.

For nine nights before May Day,
chased by Wild Hunt Winter,
hounded from place to place,
she seeks refuge among villagers.

Folk leave their windows open
so she can find safety
behind cross-shaped panes.

Implores a farmer she meets to hide her
in a shock of grain. He does.
next morning his rye crop
is sprinkled with grains of gold

© Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History . Imagination.)

Blessed Are These Sacred Folk

who plough
who prepare the earth
who plough with a wide furrow to bring water from the river
who plant seeds
who trace the first ploughing, reploughing as first did not work
who harrow
who dg
who weed
who reap
who carry the grain
who store the grain
who share the grain
who share their good fortune with us, the dead

© Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History . Imagination.)

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

Prolific Yorkshire Poet, Paul Brookes

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.

The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jamie Dedes

Bed and Breakfast – A Haibun

The blue sky smelled of manure. Even the allure of coffee and raw milk, homemade bread with rhubarb jam and omelets plucked from their mother just that morning couldn’t overcome the scent that distinctly said, “You’re on a working farm.”

The distinct sound of a tractor pulled up to the farmhouse door. The farmer offered us a hay ride around the farm and explained the difference between hay and straw, silo versus barn. The farmer named each machine and it’s purpose, but not the animals.

That night, I briefly wondered if the chicken that gave her life for our pot pie dinner also sacrificed her progeny for our breakfast. And if the rooster that would wake us in the morning, knew what happened to his family.

Plastic and foam trays

Deception and protection

Farmers eat the truth

Yes, that’s me on a tractor – picture courtesy of one of my sorority sisters who posted some “throwback pictures” of a reunion we had a bed and breakfast in the Pennsylvania countryside a few years after we graduated college. I don’t think the tractor was actually moving for the picture, but it was a first for this city girl!

Coincidentally, Jamie Dedes’ Wednesday Writing prompt requested: This week share poem/s out of your own nostalgia, experience, impressions, gratitude, concerns, or convictions about farms, farming, or farm policy. Despite now living in “farm country”, I still don’t know about farming although I do appreciate the numerous farmers markets in our area.

One thing I do know: I am very appreciative of the men and women who work on farms because I know I don’t have the constitution or inclination to grow things or kill things to eat. Maybe because living in cities, I was never exposed to that reality and thus my aversion to being close to the true source of what I/we eat. Food came in a package and didn’t have faces. Maybe if more people were aware of the reality of farming, there would be less food waste and a better understanding of the need to conserve and protect the environment/nature and animals as finite resources. But what do I know…I’m just a city girl…

© 2018, Irma Do (I Do Run, And I do a few other things too ….)

A Secret Place

When Dad barked
You hopped to it,
Let’s go! In the car!
He loved the country.
One day, he said,
I’m moving to some
Small town,
Somewhere,
Someday.
Got my love of trees,
Wide expanses
And the smell of grass
From him
I guess.
Let’s go pick strawberries.
Get some fresh picked apples,
Some corn, if it’s ready,
Right from the field.
He always took the
Side roads
On our way to
Where he wanted
To be.
I marvel,
Now,
Where he was
Coming from,
Some secret desire,
Some past life,
Taking him home….

© 2018, Jen E. Goldie

Living On The Glebe

A tithed farm had flourished
since Queen Victoria’s reign.
Then the council needed acres
of land, built a housing estate
in the 1930’s for families like
us who couldn’t afford to buy.

Small, airy houses with an inside
toilet and coal shed, no running
hot water but spacious gardens
front and back.We made our home
here in the ’50’s and I walked past
apple trees to my first school.

Elderly neighbours recalled
the redbrick farmhouse, told
how they were sent there
as children and exchanged
a few pence for pats of golden
butter and hay-warmed eggs.

They felt the land’s closeness
despite shops and post office
and bus routes to the city centre.
Road names were echoes.
Farmcote Swancote
Old Farm Glebe Farm

And during the War,they dug
over their long back gardens.
Potatoes and turnips grew again.
Carrots were shaken free of soil,
peeled, grated and added to cake
mix instead of rationed sugar.

© 2018, Shiela Jacob

Allotment

Hefting water out of the river to
feed the newly-planted.Long years since I
had to do the same on Uncle’s farm:enamel
white bucket hung from a windlass,sweet
water drawn from deep. I could lift but half
a pailful then. Brothers, neighbour’s girls,
rudimentary washes after endless
play; earth closet in the yard, potatoes,
their skins slowly curling in the cauldron
on the hearth.Somewhere a clock. Bored one day,
I stood beside the well and bawled for help.
Dad came running and rough chastisement
was love’s affirmation.

Brief check before I
swooshed down the hay bales in the barn, guiltless
until the straws in my hair betrayed me.
The years have added muscle, as I bend
and dip and lift from the grateful water,
remembering my boyhood’s guilty smile.

© 2018, Frank McMahan

.trail.

the sight is disgusting

to the last degree

blind horse

liver sauce on fish

they turn the hay

eighteen

times

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

. monday evening.

rain came, seeds will grow.

watered places i cannot reach,

butt half full.

noisy day, farmer making hay,

lambs moved from mothers.

they say the sun will come

later to dry .

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.growing potatoes.

the robin came down as he cleared the ground,
all red chest, pretty eyes.

we discussed the earth, rich now, without
the stones. we could grow potatoes as they
did here in the war. i have the photograph.

these are fortunate times, while have disliked
the tuber since the flu struck.

there has been a lot of it this year here.

we plan a pretty little greenhouse, all white
with embellishments, red geraniums.

the robin watched, i am told he will like mealworms.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.limousines and chevrolets.

it was quite a while

then while travelling she noticed

an interest in cattle.knowing little

noted their shapes and patterns.

mentioned the farmers yesterday

most in rugged vehicles

dogs barking

one in a saloon car, the passenger

kind

full of food stuff

for cattle.

she wondered at the white ones

on her way home.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

The Grand Scheme of Things

Raanana, April 11, 2016

The dark cloud squats heavily on the horizon
Undecided whether to drift slowly
Over our dusty fields with its fat bladder
Full of drought quenching rains
Or to drift up the coast a ways
To quench the thirst of our enemy’s fields.
O Lord, I know it makes no difference
In the grand scheme of things,
But I can’t help the fact
It would make all the difference in the world
To me.

(c) 2016, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works)

The Dead Don’t Envy the Living

Inspired by Wendell Berry’s “Testament

Raanana, August 17, 2018

The dead don’t envy the living
Any more than the living envy the dead.
Who’s to say what’s the best state
For matter to be in
In the long run?
I would think the best,
For one above ground,
Is to make the most of what you are
And, for those below,
To make the least.

(c) 2018, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works, Call of the Whipporwill)

Mike Stone’s Amazon Page is HERE.

Wheat Fields in Punjab, Pakastan courtesy of Ammarkh under CC BY-SA 3.0,

Farm and village
soul and spirit
a nation’s harvest  giver,
agri-armor of defense ,

lived in one,never,
but  loved  one where
Grand Dad lived
near the Jhelum River

A place, Sarai Alamgir
with tilled fields
lush green yields,
lands fulfilling needs

wells run by cattle
in circles, bound
pulling out water
round and round

and we so freely….
running in the fields
touching the trees
shouting and singing
with the breeze

But

When land is threatened
by famine ,when food is scarce
by waywardness and sins,
when fuel is short
and dry are the streams
the farmer with his horse
and plough
is back in the fields-

the backbone of the people
he is following his dreams
or so it seems-
going back in time

working coping hoping
amidst blasts and screams’
Farmer Farmer get some coal
if you want your crop
and reach your goal

Farmer farmer get your horse
for salvation of the loss
Farmer Farmer get your plough
Let us work and fulfill our vow’

© 2018, poems (English and Urdu/below), Anjum Wasim Dar

کسان اور گاوؑں

 کسان اور  گاوؑں
روح   رواں  زندگی
زرہ بکتر  زراع و دفاع

رہنا فارم پہ کبھی نا ھوا
دادا کے گھر سے پیار ھوا
سراےؑ  عالم گیر جھلم دریا

گاوؑں تھا  پیارا سا
لھلھاتے کھیت و باغ
ھر سو سبزا سبزا ھوا

کوؑیں سے جوتے بیل
کھیت میں پانی ڈالے
ڈبے پے ڈبا  ٓاتا  جاؑے

اور ھم  کھلے میدان میں
بھاگتے دوڑتے ھنستے
درختوں کہ چھوتے رہتے

مگر جب

 زمین خطرے میں پڑھنے لگے
قحت و قلت ھو جاےؑ زیادہ
ایندھن کم اور ندیاں خشک

پھر کساں اپنا سامان لیکر
کھیت میں  واپس  جاتا ھے
گھوڑا جوت کہ ہل چلاتا ھے

اپنی قوم کی فکر ھے لاحک
اپنے خواب  ادھورے پا کر
محنت کرنے لگتا ھے

بم دھماکے اور چیخوں میں
بھایو ٓاو آوؑ  کوؑلہ  نیکالو
اپنا اپنا کھیت  اپنا  ہل بچاوؑ

صلیب کو دیکھو مسجد  جاوؑ
اپنا وعدہ پورا،  خوب نبھاوؑ

شاید  نجات مل  جاےؑ شاید بخشے جاوؑ

“Let us all strive for peace on Earth for all. Let us make a better world. Write to make peace prevail.”  Anjum Wasim Dar, Pakistani poet, writer, artist, educator, and parent.