“And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, ‘I have been a stranger in a strange land.'” King James Bible, Exodus 2:22

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something foreign, today’s rain
rat-tat-tating the roof and windows,
ping-ponging the sidewalk below
in rhythms oddly dissonant

the trees seem foreign too in their
huddles against the wind and damp,
abandoned by birds and squirrels
and even by the children at play

in a moment dark will fall with its
ghostly and pockmarked moon,
i’ll see its face without a smile and
sad, yet i won’t frown in this rain,
in this alien and hollow place,
though sojurner and stranger am i

© 2019, poem, Jamie Dedes; Photo credit ~ George Hogan, Public Domain Pictures.net

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

I think everyone has had those moments when they feel like “a stranger in a strange land.” The triggers for that perseption are probably varied. Maybe weird weather, a new landscape, a relocation, or a new house or apartment. I have a friend who says he thinks that after his birth he was sent home from the hospital with the wrong parents, so out-of-place does he feel in the context of family. Has that happened to you, that sense of being a sojurner in an alien environment?  What precipitated the experience?  How did it feel?  Was it a passing thing or does the sensation remain with you still?

Please share your thoughts and experiences in your own poetry on this theme, stranger in a strange land.

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NEW RULES

• please submit your poem/s by pasting them into the comments section and not by sharing a link
• please submit poems only, no photos, illustrations, essays, stories, or other prose

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Poems submitted through email or Facebook will not be published.

IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.

PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.  

Deadline:  Monday, July 1 by 8 pm Pacific Daylight Time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, checkThe Time Zone Converter.

Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro.  It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you.

You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.

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A mostly bed-bound poet, writer, former columnist and the former associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, a curated info hub for poets and writers. I founded The Bardo Group/Beguines, a vitual literary community and publisher of The BeZineof which I am the founding and managing editor.

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

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“Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.” Friedrich Nietzsche

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She is older now – no! – not elderly yet,
but getting there, enough so the face
staring at her from the hall mirror
is her mother’s or her grandmother’s
The plump little sparrow of a body
she’s living in, slow, matronly, aching
Well, certainly it’s not hers . . .

The place where she lives is a bit alien,
balmy weather, more-or-less one season
The street is not unappealing having
trees, birch and magnolia positioned
among aging oak and reliable evergreen
At daybreak, birds nesting there make
harsh and urgent conversation, pitching
their morning news against the endless
rumble and whoosh of a nearby freeway

Dressed in her mother’s face looking down
at her mother’s hands, she sits and listens,
no longer a juicy green story unfolding, just
a crisp brown sidebar to other lives, she’s
set in a place with rare moments of quiet
They drop like the cool spun-silver of dusk
after the unrelenting heat of a summer day
The hush, sudden and infrequent, shocks
her mind into musing, memory, nostalgia

She wonders what it would be like to
lie awake listening to the quiet of a place
where snowflakes sometimes drift to
earth, powdering the landscape with
tranquility, or what it would feel like to
walk outside and press her naked face
to a winter sky, to feel icy crystals against
warm skin, to see their shapes reflected by
the stars, to know eveyone she loves is
dreaming under the same alabaster moon

She wonders what it would be like to walk
along 93rd Street in new Easter shoes,
to make her way to Mass past spring flowers
dancing above the last of the snow-pack,
to buy a colorfully-mixed bouquet after church,
to make the requisite call to her distant father,
to hear her name on his lips just once more,
to ask him the questions she never dared ask,
to roast lamb scented with garlic and rosemary,
serving an overflowing household at a table set
with roses and damask and best tableware

She wonders how it would feel to live
once more in a land with distinct seasons,
to dance with her high school sweetheart
and to retrieve all the loved and lost souls,
to welcome back the nights pillowed in silence,
to awaken on crisp cosseting Regina Pacis morns,
to say good-bye to the numbing consistency
of endless balmy days and highway drone and
strolling strange streets in soft stoic solitude
seeking new rituals, new traditions, new friends
to replace the irreplaceable, knowing those
spring days are gone and gone, never to live again

© 2019, Jamie Dedes

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

Part of the process of growing older is loss. That’s not to say there aren’t compensations and rewards, but that would be a theme for another day.  Aging is rich in learning the spiritual lesson of nonattachment, especially as physical abilities wane and funerals are more frequent than weddings and birth celebrations.  In my circle, we’re no longer living in the houses in which we raised our childen. We’ve all downsized to studio apartments or small cottages or homes. These lessons of loss, acceptance (not to imply resignation), and reinventing life, are part of the human condition. Please share your thoughts and experiences in your own poetry.

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NEW RULES

• please submit your poem/s by pasting them into the comments section and not by sharing a link
• please submit poems only, no photos, illustrations, essays, stories, or other prose

---

---

Poems submitted through email or Facebook will not be published.

IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.

PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.  

Deadline:  Monday, June 24 by 8 pm Pacific Daylight Time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, check ​The Time Zone Converter.

Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro.  It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you.

You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.

---

A homebound writer, poet, and former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, an info hub for poets and writers and am the founding/managing editor of The BeZine.

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

“Coach said. “the quality of a man’s life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor”.” Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian [Young Adult Book/recommended]

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at sunrise with its shmears of
cream cheese clouds against
the quince-colored morning light,
Mrs. Goldberg is out of bed ~
a military tactician in war-time
no dust-bunny is safe, every
grease spot enzyme-bombed,
her wash thrashed by machine,
then hung or folded, put in place,
her windows wiped, her floors scrubbed,
and woe betide wee crawling creatures,
so intent is Mrs. G on genocide

© 2014, Jamie Dedes

Note: I have shared this poem as part of a prompt before, but the theme was to write about a neighbor. Here it is again – slightly revised – and the theme this time is “excellence.”

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

There are people you know  – perhaps a grandparent or parent or a teacher or coworker – who do their chosen work with such grace, finesse, and precision that they simply captivate you. Tell us how they work, why that makes them admirable; or tell us about your struggles to do something well, perhaps your writing, a sport, cooking, gardening, or teaching.

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NEW RULES

• please submit your poem/s by pasting them into the comments section and not by sharing a link
• please submit poems only, no essays, stories, or other prose

---

---

No poems submitted through email or Facebook will be published. 

IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.

PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.  

Deadline:  Monday, June 17 by 8 pm Pacific Daylight Time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, check ​The Time Zone Converter.

Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro.  It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning non-judgemental place to connect.

You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.

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A homebound writer, poet, and former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, an info hub for poets and writers and am the founding/managing editor of The BeZine.

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

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