This morning death was on
my doorstep, no one died
no one particularly,
Someone’s cat, someone’s
Dog, a birdie possibly,
Sadness overwhelmed me
So, I had my morning tea
As all those old memories
Flooded over me, my heart
began to ache and the new
days sun washed over me.
With pleasant memories.
I still can’t draw a cat.
© 2019, poem and drawing, Jen E. Goldie (Starlight and Moon Beams, And the Occasional Cat)
On the day of……….
as we prepared for….
as I prepared for.
You looked at me inquisitivly
I had no answer….
for you this time.
what are
the tears for?
Where are
we going?
So many questions
Keep going
I took the day
so we
could
spend
time
together……………….
One
……….
Last
……….
Moment
………….
in
time………..
together.
In loving memory of Simon. Devoted, loving, steadfast, trusting and true. I’ll never forget you. ❤😔
© 2019, Jen E. Goldie (Starlight and Moon Beams, And the Occasional
This is a story as told by me, that no fat
or otherwise cool Cat could deny. The
Day the Cat Stood Still was a catastrophe,
she made a cat’s paw of me, decidedly
deciding I’d not cat’ch on to her curiosity,
Where could the cat be, a cat’ch phrase
we all know constantly. She was playing cat
and mouse with me, no caterwauling, no
hell Cat catapulting, no cat nabbing at hand,
I calmly considered, there’s more than one way
to skin a cat, we’ll see which way the cat jumps.
And So, I with ears perked
roamed the room stealthily, when suddenly
I hear a meow, and there she was Kitty
cornered in a drawer, looking like the cat
that got the cream, cool cat on my cat pajamas,
kitty whiskers teasing me.
Cat got your tongue?
© 2019, Jen E. Goldie (Starlight and Moon Beams, And the Occasional Cat)
As always dedicated to my dearly departed friends of the four legged feline kind. 💗💕
.little dog gone.
oh you were so very small
hash tag
not a proper dog
was said.
oh you were good company
hash tag
not like a human
was said.
oh boy on a good day how you
would run.
hash tag.
more like scampering
was said and overheard.
little dog gone.
© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher
- sonja-benskin-mesher.net
- sonja-benskin-mesher.net
- Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
- Sonja on Twitter
- sonja-benskin-mesher.co.uk
- Sonja’s daily blog (WordPress) is HERE.
West Wind
Raanana, August 3, 2013
Her spirit rushes over the waving grasses
And the jittery tree leaves
Like the West Wind
Racing to fetch the stick
I’ve thrown so high and far
But the stick lies still
Where it has fallen.
© 2013, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works, Yes Another Book of Poetry and Stories)
Tears and Toys
Raanana, January 31, 2013
A poem is sometimes like a joke
Except instead of being funny
It’s so sad your heart leaps out of your chest
And you look around to see whether anyone else saw that
But they never do.
I once read a poem about my dead dog Chewy
How I buried her with my tears and her toys
Only I didn’t say her name or that she was a dog.
Some people came up to me afterward, a man and a woman,
And she told me how they appreciated my poem
Because they had buried their daughter too
With their tears and her toys.
Then I told them the punch-line
That my poem was about my dog Chewy
(I loved her so)
Because honesty’s the best policy.
The woman winced once, I think,
And then a curtain came down
Hiding their faces from me.
Now and then I hear laughter
And I look around
But don’t see any joke being told.
He seems to slap his knees at our sorrows.
Sometimes I get all mixed up about
Who’s God
And who’s the poet
And who’s burying their dead love
With their tears and her toys.
© 2013, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works, Yes Another Book of Poetry and Stories)
Worry
Raanana, June 21, 2013
What if they don’t come home?
I’ve been standing on the couch
I don’t know how long
Looking out the window …
What if they don’t come home?
Their cars aren’t there,
The black one or the brown one,
What if they don’t …?
It’s quiet and I’m so lonely –
What if …?
Nobody will give me water
And nobody will give me food
And nobody will love me
And nobody will come.
Don’t they know what could happen
When they say goodbye to me?
What if they don’t come home?
I’ll lie down to sleep
I don’t know how long.
At least I won’t think about
What if they don’t come home,
But I can’t sleep because
What if they don’t come home?
Don’t they know what I think?
Don’t they care?
If they only knew
How impossible it is to think like this
They’d never leave me.
What if they don’t come home?
Please come back … now.
What if they don’t come home?
© 2013, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works, Yes Another Book of Poetry and Stories)
The Service Revolver
Raanana, May 22, 2009
Sixty-six pounds of snarling anger
In the only path to safety
For six pounds of cold fear.
A chain squeezes suddenly around the honey-colored throat
And the anger moves on,
At first reluctantly, and then
Loping along at a goodly pace
Wet nostrils flared and quivering,
Ready to sift and scoop up
Anything of taste or interest
Along the dark and lamp-lit way.
Walking my dog Daisy
Whose name belies her vigor and strength
Barely controlled by a pact initialed
But never formally ratified,
She leads me through the valley of my loneliness
Which I measure in the scrape and echo
Of footsteps having no place to go.
Walking under an archway of sparse leaved bracken
And thick limbs of eucalyptus
Thoughts swarm around us
In no particular rhyme or meter,
Like the personal black hole
Pulling me towards an eventual horizon
In gossamer strands of infinity,
And another: at what point in our lives
Does it become reasonable
To contemplate suicide,
To feel the coolness and weight of one’s service revolver
Against the weight of continuing to be?
(c) 2009, Mike Stone (The Uncollected Works of Mike Stone)
Chewy
Raanana, February 4, 2007
I have a riddle for you:
‘When is a house empty, even though it’s full of people?’
She had more names than God Himself.
We should have called her Uhuru—
Freedom was the one thing she loved more than us
And finally she’s escaped the soft clutches of our love.
In our eagerness and innocence
We brought her home too soon
To be weaned from her mother,
A frightened little thing
No bigger than my fist.
She grew to love us though,
As fiercely as we loved her.
Some people were scared of her
But we’d give anything
For her to warm herself against us.
Last night her little heart burst its bounds
And she escaped her life
Running free at last through open fields
Photographed by death.
This morning when we buried her,
It rained cats and dogs.
(c) 2009, Mike Stone (The Uncollected Works of Mike Stone)
Mike Stone’s Amazon Page is HERE.
Dreaming Guard
More grey than white she was,
sensuously stirring,
if otherwise
sleeping or pretending
to sleep,
what attracted her, to peep
through the glass
then back down and pass
to the side to laze as if
in a drunken daze
daily visit , a long quiet look
then off to the nook,
satisfied with one ,
deep open eyed glance,
set her in the love trance,
no desire to roll or prance,
contentment replete, in form n fur,
silent breath, silent purr,
guarding the door, on barren floor,
profound faith, defying death_
my love have seen , no desire for more
to heaven I’ve been.
now oblivious of dogfights,rat races
she sleeps or pretends to sleep
snuggled cozily on the metallic bonnet
musing warmly on composing a sonnet
perhaps dreaming of a beloved felidae.
© 2019, poem (English and Urdu, below) and Illustrations, Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans)
بلی کے امور
خوابوں میں ڈوبی یا سویؑ ھویؑ ،
سفیدی مایل ،رنگ ھلکے کی زیادہ وہ لگتی تھی ،
جھوٹ موٹ دکھاوے کے لیؑے سویؑ ھویؑ بلی رانی
کس کی کشش کھینچ لایؑ اسے کھڑکی تلے
نظر بھر کے دیکھا ، مسکرایؑ نشے میں ڈوبی ھویؑ
وہ روز روز آنا دوڑتے ھوےؑ آنا، اک نظر کی تسلی
وہ دوستی نبھایؑ، سب پا لیا تو کرنے آرام وہ لیٹی
انوکھا پیار انوکھا کھیل قدرت کا میل کویؑ میاوؑن نہیں
محبت میں بھیگی خر خراتی ھویؑ ، ھے چوکیدار بنی
پرواہ نہیں موت کی نہ چوھوں کی چاہت و خواھش
دنیا کرے جنگ یہ خوابوں میں کھویؑ سوچے اپنی شاعری
“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
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
Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul … and you answer.” 
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 