The last Wednesday Writing Prompt, May 10: Words have power to hurt, heal, fool, free or nourish. They have weight. Sometimes a word – worthy in its way – is just not right for an occasion or circumstance … or for your latest poem or story. It doesn’t meet the test of your vision; but you believe the right word will come to you. You work at it, play with it and sometimes wait quietly, as an invitation of sorts, until the perfect word arrives and speaks to you, the word that you know will speak to others as well.
What are the stale words – the inadequate words – you hear used to describe something you value? What words are better or best? Tell us in prose or poem.
of inevitable progress –
the present the highpoint
of cultural and personal development –
the ancestors treated with condescension
the thinkers ignored unread
(those who told it how it really is) –
the present (so they say – the powerful ones
in their powerful ignorance) is
the threshold to a Golden Age –
provided you accept our
version of events…
tissues of false imagery
& abstraction
progress is the ghost
of a big black dog
cocking its leg against the lamp-posts
of infinite dark streets –
a convenient construct;
an unsubtle trick of the imagination;
a laying of eggs
in a basket that does not exist
“This comes from my collection The Recovery of Wonder (2013)
I focused on ‘words that fool’ and remembered this one. There are many words that fool, especially abstractions. The way to recognise an abstraction is to wonder whether you could put whatever the word is supposed to represent into a wheelbarrow. You could put a pound of apples in a wheelbarrow but what about ‘justice’, ‘beauty’, ‘love’, ‘democracy’, and in this case ‘progress’?” Colin
Being Unpolished and Knowing
Like strands of pearls uncultured, unconnected
they lie strewn at your feet tantamount to words
discarded and useless unable to be linked as one
until something more refined comes along
she knows this every moment of every day speaking
is broken by hesitation, pauses and frustration
like diamonds rough from nature not yet expertly cut
by the jeweler’s hand in minuscule sharp detail
something like disparate but not really the same
just as peculiar is not exactly being self-serving
for who can say she is not the bowels of that same venue
as she compiles opinions based on incomplete knowing
she ultimately sees herself on the fringe of everything
and anything but peculiar touting her uniqueness as
that of shrewdly knowing but like that of the pearls
as that of the diamond she too can be unpolished
“I’m reading an excellent book, “To the End of the Land” by Israeli author David Grossman. I just came across a review of the book that does good justice to Grossman’s latest novel (http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/a-wayward-eulogy), but I wanted to mention just one of the many pearls in his book: “… Do you mean these paths speak Hebrew? Are you saying language springeth out of the earth? …” I loved the idea that our languages spring from the land that our forefathers and descendants live and die in, that Hebrew and Arabic have exactly the right sounds to onomatopoeicly express the realities of the Middle East. Of course the English poems I write about Israel can never really capture the essence of this land, unfortunately for me. My ears were formed by the backwoods of Ohio and Indiana. I feel like Moses standing on Nebo Peak seeing Israel from afar, but unable to enter it. I am in Israel, but in some other dimension of it.”
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT April 26, 2017 ~ Climate change is on our minds these days – perhaps more than in the past given the regime – and we are feeling one with Mother Earth and all her creatures and gratitude for the people who marched on Saturday. What pictures come to mind when you think of our home? How do they make you feel or respond? Tell us in prose or poem . . . and several readers took the challange creating work that rewards your time spent. Enjoy! … and do visit their sites. Get to them better and let them get to know you.
Costa Rican boat tour by Isadora DeLaVega
Wonderlust Rain Forest
Approaching fading blue skies, we wandered silently through the
Costa Rican Rainforest on our private boat tour. Reaching peaceful estuaries
quietly seeking the wildlife that inhabits this forest.
Silently listening to nature at play, we soon reached the end of our destination.
Unspoiled waters filled with hope for natures future.
Isadora DeLa Vega is featured for the first time on The Poet by Day. Since I’ve enjoyed her creativity for years, I’m pleased to have her response to last Wednesday’s writing prompt.
Isadora blogs at Isadora Art and Photography, A Place for Visual Creativity. She began her career in her late thirties after raising her children. For twenty-eight years, Isadora created award-winning silversmith art jewelry. When she retired due to failing health, she knew that she still needed to be creative. She decided to explore photography because she is inspired by and passionate about luscious colors. She says, “They’re the manna that feeds my soul.” Before long she realized that writing and poetry were good outlets as well for conveying her thoughts. Her long-term goal is to one day publish a book with her photography and quotes.
and
in the wobble & bulge
of the hurtling universe
I am the sound of blackbirds
and the flutter of a butterfly wing
the shifting shadow on the summer lawn
and the tall tree wind getting up;
all this fixes me for the moment
along with the ancient memory
of two maternal relatives we visited
in Wimbledon Park—it seemed quite often
though it might have been but once or twice…
their lawn turned into a pathway
round a herbaceous oblong
to follow which seemed a minor mystery—
one that transposed many mysteries
to lead to this moment now
darkening shadows and squawk of pheasant
and beeflies above the mouldering sundial
The fox follows her along the byway to reach untouched forests
those forests unfettered by time and pristine oceans devoid of human touch
and each time always she passes freeways littered with a garbage landscape
the fox glances at bottles and fast food wrappers collecting
on roads under construction on a continuum of future whys
where the smell of black tar invades with stinging and burning
she should be accustomed but wrinkles her nose in disgust
as does the fox now her shadow trusting she will reach a destination
not concrete and black asphalt now covering the richness of earth
and does she still hope windows rolled and closed will be enough
enough to keep her safe or will they be unable to block
out the constant drone of the noise of a civilized world
a world that is one built impinging on nature’s habitat
one adding insult to injury and becoming a macabre graveyard
to endangered species & the fox wonders if he will be next
but he cannot bring himself to let himself be absorbed
into track homes swallowing up citrus groves as the raccoons have done
stealing into the night to rob garbage cans of their next meal
this becoming an unnatural habitat as it has for bears and possum
and he feels oddly fortunate that tigers and lions do not live here
but he can still hear them all screaming in pain underpinned with sorrow
and the fox listens as he follows and always the level of noise increases
increases exponentially with every tree cut down and concrete poured
and the fox feels his shadow growing less as theirs becomes more
where claustrophobic habitats are multiplying housing for a rising populace
and the need to reach the forest to be able to stare in awe at the ocean
propels them down the road and she knows she is like the fox
and that no amount of polish will shine and bring it all back
to bring it back to a time delegated to past histories before her
before the fox became her shadow on a journey to find survival
the only solution being the ability of technology to merge with nature
to be a part of the answer in preserving the beauty here long before us
long before becoming tarnished goods in the midst of climate change
long before the fox became her shadow and she became the fox’s shade
we will not have blankets, if there are none, take the old rags, layer , stitch and stitch by hand till fingers bleed.
work is steady, absorbtion as if the outside world is ended. looking up find it has not. stitching can be rhythmic, and never mind the capitals. other words confound. birds beat the window.
the questions came that i cannot answer here or ever. did not count this time only the final one. noticed the first ones are now undone. the wrong knots.
maybe we need to check our numbers at the end to see if one or more are missing. ? we need to count them carefully, one side then the other?
work along the coast with thread and diligence. gather wools, layer carefully, we shall have warmth this winter.
eight thirty till five. it could have been easy, yet there were issues of the electronic kind meaning wasting time with wires and connections.
“We are as gods and might as well get good at it.”
O, your presumption did not account
for the delicacy of flesh and bone,
the death wish of the human soul.
You had an impact on my future,
I’m not sure I forgive you.
There is your clear signature
in the fossil record , an observable
sudden decline
in the abundance and diversity of plant
and animal life. Perhaps we should
define your time from here.
Did it start when we traced your pulse
at the start of the Industrial Revolution?
Your carbon-dioxide pulse that underlay
what you thought was global warming.
O, your dreams to guide mankind towards global, sustainable, environmental management. How could you see
the juggernaut was unstoppable?
LESSON THIRTEEN: Practice Corporeal Politics “Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and search with them. ” Prof. Snyder, On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT, April 12, 2017 (1) Vacations: Well, this one is akin to the first composition assignment on returning to school after summer vacation: Tell us about your most fondly remembered vacations. Perhaps you enjoyed it because it involved family and childhood. Perhaps it was a dream vacation come true. Or, maybe it was an unexpected adventure. Or, perhaps your best vacation is the one you are planning now.
To Italy
you never expected this
we touch Florentine great black hog’s ringed cold snout
a ritual au revoir
taste best bitter coffee on the TGV
see snowed peaks of lower Apennine mountains
out of warm train windows
enter massive
Milan train Station
nine days coach trip
poke me in the side
when coach pace nods me off
stroll spiral down to medieval streets and a tilted horse race square
walk Rome’s cobbles amphitheatre
marvel at Vatican mosaics
we thought paintings
want to stroke cordoned vast
marble muscles
lilt up Venetian canals
wonder why when renovating buildings at home
builders don’t have picture tarpaulins
of the building beneath
you never expected this
for my fortieth
expected Wales or Scotland
then I request you order
a passport,
and live nine days
out of a suitcase
and thank your late father
our invisible companion
who made this possible
when one bottle of wine
seemed as if it was going to last forever;
the one I’m thinking of (purchased
one dinnertime in summer at 7/6d)
occupied a space in my life
a mile high and spanned the gap
all the way to Tibet; as you drank a glass
that dinnertime it seemed to refill itself
from the dregs of love
when one kiss would last
as long as the Rachmaninov cello sonata
whenever you put the record
on the turntable and let the needle fall –
obliterated in the so well-known cadences
which I could have been whistling
had my lips not been squashed against hers
when a bicycle ride would construct a day
down to the sea and back
across the long valley and over the downs –
magic ride often repeated –
I fill it from these dregs of memory
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT, April 12, 2017 (2) Memories of those lost. Have there been people in your life that you don’t loose no matter what? Perhaps people like parents who are so much a part of you, you seem to sense their presence even after they have died. How good is that? Or, maybe you don’t think it is. Tell us about it in poem or prose.
One of My Tomorrows
for Celia
Our last goodbye was casual
as if I would see you again
on one of my tomorrows
I touched your arm
you flinched. In pain.
I felt persistent guilt
Born of carelessness
only nervous uncertainty
could freely demonstrate
Born of habitual presumption
that you were in charge
you weren’t. Not really.
You never were, save
your own sense of duty
to boss, nay care for everyone
Too much on small shoulders
that weren’t as strong as the
force of that inner being
the force that stopped being
that was someone once
whom I loved and miss
Some time after we’d helped you
to meet your God, one starlit night
I heard your voice as clear as the sky
O lamb of God, who takes away
the sins of the world, have mercy
and grant us peace. I swear
Lantern swinging down path —
I wonder if it is really there,
if that is you, or just some accident
of moonlight and wind.
How is it possible for the night
to be so black that no adjective
makes sense? Just black-black,
with shadows hovering and the wild phlox
lopped over reflecting greywhite back up.
No lantern, but there might as well be,
my heart lighting every moment,
bringing you back through memory
to stroll ahead telling me that story
I promised to never forget.
This is the first time Jennifer Cartland is featured on The Poet by Day. . She says of herself simply, “In between meetings, in between errands, seat cushions, and ‘oms’, I try to nab those little guys flying though my noggin’ and shake them up a bit, turn them into something humans can understand. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Sometimes they are happy I did, sometimes they aren’t.”
Lavender & Whippoorwills
nasturtiums growing
in hollyhock fields
smelling of lavender
& blue whippoorwills
whose song bids me
follow the spirit
of you
entwined as we are
in consummate truth
i see you dancing
beneath the elm tree
with boughs your
dance partner
forever & free
as you slip transparent
from my view
the music plays softly
as it is never adieu
from the lemon bush
filtering meringue
soft dreams
to the orange orchard
citrus scenes
i knew you loved me
before i became a whisper
& held me near
before the dance…
taste of cinnamon cinders
nasturtiums growing
in hollyhock fields
smelling of lavender
& blue whippoorwills
Well, such wonderful responses to Wednesday Writing Prompts. I think it makes rather a lovely collection, which I hope you enjoy. I hope you’ll also visit these poets at their blogs and get to know them better. Look for another Wednesday Writing Prompt tomorrow.
LESSON NINE: Be kind to our languge. “Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own ways of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the Internet. Read books.” Prof. Snyder, On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
LAST WEDNESDAYS WRITING PROMPT: What would be your fantasy about the moon? Tells us in poem or prose and share the link to the piece in the comments section below if you are comfortable doing so that we all might read it. This is light one. Enjoy!
Renee Espiru (Renee Just Turtle Flight) said this prompt was timeley for her. She’s now a great-grandmother. Congratulations, Renee and family. She writes about that experience with this poem.
I DREAMT OF THE MOON
I dreamt that I met you smiling
long before you were born
that I told you in sweet loving
to the moon and back we’ll go
that we held hands briefly soaring
seeking the beauteous moonscape
we traversed stars in the milky way
in meteorite showers of gold we played
we walked along dazzling moon beams
silken threads our carpets in space
too soon you left me in wonderment
life’s cord cut a spiraling empty place
& you sped quickly down to earth
faster even than Halley’s comet
that day I finally saw your birth
I remembered our dance among stars
marveled at so much of me in you
that your hands held stardust imbued
And from Paul Brooks (The Wombwell Rainbow). Among other things, Paul says he does the things he does because ” I want to make sense of who I am, where I came from and where I live. An impossible but engrossing job.” Poetry can certainly be self-revealing.
The Moon
in the man
is transgender.
born of a collision
of bodies revolves
about its mam
tied by gravity’s apron strings
though mam does not wear aprons
as they’re not hip
pulls at her tides,
waxes on and off
wanes off and on
stepped on in pools,
admires our longing
sickles into plumpness
slight to fat as if pregnant,
gives a cheesy smile.
From Sonja Benskin Mesher. Sonja tells us, “My studio is in a medieval longhouse in Llanelltyd, North Wales surrounded by mountains, lakes and rivers, and also very near to the sea. I moved here in 1993 to change the quality and direction of my life. This ancient place affects work profoundly, with its space, peace and sense of freedom.”
It was here that the work started, and I have worked full time as a visual artist since 1999, after an initial period of study of Art & Design.
dance under the moon
shall we place our heads together
and hum,
shall we twine our arms
and drift.
shall we lean together,
and hold each other up.
shall we slowly
dance under the moon
quivering in the frost
and starlight
shall we live the moment
forgetting time,
and opinions,
our choice, no reason.
Kudos Sonja, Paul and Renee, intrepid poets. Well done. Thanks for participating and sharing. ♥
The recommended read for this week is A Little Book on Form: An Exploration into Formal Imagination of Poetryby Robert Hass (b. 1941), an American poet who was our Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He won the 2007 National Book Awardand shared the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for the collection Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005. In 2014 he was awarded the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets.
In A Little Book on Form: An Exploration into Formal Imagination of Poetry Hass brings to bear the same senisbility that marks his poetry with force, clarity and eloquence. From Rome in the time of Caesar to the Renaissance and our own times, Hass breaks down poetry, examining its components from a postmodern perspective. The book is ranging and intense. It’s over four-hundred pages – informed, witty, erudite – something we can go back to again and again. Never a boring moment. It’s all about love.
By shopping at Amazon through The Word Play Shopandusing the book links embedded in posts, you help to support the maintenance of this site. Thank you! (Some book links will just lead to info about the book or poet/author and not to Amazon.)
The WordPlay Shop offers books and other tools especially selected for poets and writers.
Poetry Group, he published a collection, Petrichor Rising (eBook and paperback), the profits from which go to charity. You can read more about John and his projects at: Petrichor Rising and how the Twitterverse birthed friendships that in turn birthed a poetry collection.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 