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the lesser being of a lesser god, a poem … and your Wednesday Writing Prompt

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I waged His wars, and now I pass and die.
O me! for why is all around us here
As if some lesser god had made the world …
Alfred Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King

i always come back to the sea ~
in the winter when gardens lay waste
and the contemplative time is upon us
and in summer, languid and color crazy

no matter the season, she shines

self-confident
decked-out in sunlighted spray
tossing her waves into wild arabesque
roaring her traveling chants

no reluctant tourist, the sea

the eternal sea,
in the power of her isness
she mocks me
marks me as the lesser being
of a lesser god

© 2016, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved; Photo courtesy of morgueFile

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

Sometimes in the face of nature’s magnificence, I really do feel as though I might be the child of a lesser god, though goodness knows we humans are as much beauty and miracle as any other manifestation of that creative energy, called by many “God.”  When, how, where have you felt like a lesser being … in the face of what? Tell us in your own poem/s and share them or a link to it/them in the comments section below.

All poems shared on theme will be published next Tuesday. Please do NOT email your poem to me or leave it on Facebook.

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

Deadline:  Monday, June 18 at 8 p.m. PDT.

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, sharing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning nonjudgemental place to connect.

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

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Feeding Our Creativity, not just for poets

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare? —
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.”

– W.H. Davies, The Collected Poems of William H. Davies

I recently encountered an article that listed over thirty activities – hobbies – with which one might fill leisure time. All well and good, but I find my real leisure joys, the joys that heal me and feed my creativity, are quiet and of the more or less passive variety that involve connecting to Sacred Space:

  • listening (meditation);
  • creative visualization (as in Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization), a cognitive process involving mental imagery; and
  • channeling poetry and art, in other words letting poems and drawings come through from the Ineffable without my frail linear interventions.

Hobbist activities are good. They certainly have their place and can certainly be exercised mindfully and often as a kind of meditation, but they are largely about doing and we humans are essentially creative creatures. We need time to simply be.  Perhaps it’s good to remember the root of the word leisure: from Old French leisir, based on Latin licere ‘be allowed.’ We might spin that – “TO allow” … to allow the Sacred a voice in our lives, in our poetry, art and music, through tranquil leisure-time BEing.

– Jamie Dedes

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

 

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awakening on our rocky rebel road, a poem … and your Wednesday Writing Prompt

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“I had been experiencing brief flashes of disassociation, or shallow states of non-ordinary reality.” Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

                                      Sometimes …

We love living in the shadowlands that ride our backs,
pregnant with dream demons and rhinestone illusions ~
On such days we come crashing at the abrading edges
of narrow channels and wide-open oceans

………………………………..’till we are

caught between moon-sight and sun-gold distortions
Easy then to precipitate bursts of chaos in the
hoary hibernation of our soul’s winter, denying the truth
in our own voices, the god-awful transience of our bodies

……………………….Yet here we are …
………………………………Yes! Here we are

awakening on our rocky, rebel road …
serving up our spiny poetry
like Don Juan his peyote buttons

© 2011 poem and photo, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

WEDNESDAY WRTING PROMPT

Share with us the poet in non-ordinary reality, the doorways that lead from the physical to the spiritual. Leave your poem/s in the comments section below … or, you may leave a link to it/them instead. All poems shared on theme will be published next Tuesday. Please do NOT email your poem to me or leave it on Facebook.

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

Deadline:  Monday, June 11 at 8 p.m. PDT.

Anyone may participate, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro.  It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, sharing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning nonjudgemental place to connect.

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

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Some Woman’s Child, a poem

“I have seen him climbing a tree while she stood beneath him in unutterable anguish; she had to let him climb, for boys must be brave, but I am sure that, as she watched him, she fell from every branch.”  J.M. Barrie, The Little White Bird

they say it was the year that changed a generation
the year they met at Nedick’s ordering orange drinks and hot dogs
fomenting righteous anger and rallying the women:
black, white, asian, and assorted berry-browns like me,
hetero and lesbian and some still trying to figure it out

Hey woman, they said to a worker clearing the counter
but they ignored the young man standing ready to serve,
mouths foaming, do you see, do you see one woman yelled,
but they didn’t, they didn’t see him, some woman’s child,
as he filled orders, poker-faced amid the cacophony

© 2018, Jamie Dedes

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY