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
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LAST WEDNESDAY’S WRITING PROMPT: When people can’t speak-up and speak-out, they can give “voice” to their frustrations in odd ways. What kinds of strange rebellions have you observed? Tell us about that experience in poem or prose.
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT, March 22: 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!
Invitation to Daring
Flimsy silver ladder
Dropping across the velvet black
Invitation to daring.
Climb to the silvery sand
Dazzling dunes
Dark gorges.
No moon shines above
The light shines from within.
In that gentle light
Fair beings dwell
Runaways from earth.
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT, March 29: How do you generally receive the night? With joy, reluctance or fear? Do you sleep well or not? Tell us in poem or prose.
This is the first time we’re featuring a poem by Colin Blundell so an introduction is in order. Colin has what is probably the most eclectic blog I’ve encountered over the years. A former teacher, Colin says he escaped the daily humdrum of employment in 1999. I believe he was a teacher and quite a devoted one at that, but self-employment does offer its own special joy.
Colin now facilitates workshops on Neurolinguistic Programing, change management, problem-solving, time management in addition to Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. He also gardens, writes, paints, and composes music. He makes hand-bound books and goes on long solo motorcycle trips. Colin Blundell doesn’t give in to the sound-bite world of the blogospher and entertainment news. His posts are long, luxurious reads with marvelous detail that betrays an acute mind and sense of irony.
Two haiku…
full moon
through a slatted blind
cuts me into white strips
Juli says, “We are as cosmic prisms, reflecting, connecting, with infinite vibrations that shake the physical and consume the spiritual. Intense awareness is ours – experience is sharp. We are our teachers and our pupils: scholars of the wisdom well; plunging into Truth and emerging as fountains, sprinkling little drops of consequence and potential.
“Thought, made manifest…
Spoons
When I wake to the day
And straight away
Feel bereft for the theft
Of my spoons in the night,
I must reset my pace
For the hours I face
And the fact I don’t keep
All my spoons in one place,
Is what lessens my plight
Though the day’s still a fight
And I grieve at the waste
Unless I stop pretending,
Surrender to fate and
Just focus on mending
And wait.
When I wake up renewed,
With all spoons am imbued,
I feel hope that I’ll cope
With the basics, at least –
Unless there’s a treat
Or appointment to keep.
I will try for an even keel
Mostly, unless I feel
Daring – spoons sparing.
And, if I succeed –
Which means no extra need –
I retire to bed with
A positive head.
Thanks and kudos to these adventurous souls who participated in Wednesday Writing Prompt challenges. They are not only devoted artists. They’re fine people with good values. I do hope you’ll visit their blogs, explore their work, and get to know them better. The next writing prompt will post tomorrow and responses will be featured here next Tuesday.
LESSON SIX Be wary of paramilitaries. “When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.” Prof. Snyder, On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Your heart is smarter, my Baruch,
then your head,
which is smart indeed –
and your hands and gnarly fingers
are smarter still.
They fashion bread from
cream-colored flours,
silky to the touch.
Kneading the dough
patiently, patiently
letting it rise
while I sleep – safe, in my bed.
Up at six a.m. we walk sleepily
down a lavender-gray street,
an apricot sun peeking at us
and, rising higher in the sky,
it seemingly follows us to you.
Cheer-filled arrival with greetings
and smiles from dear Baruch and
warm sugar smells, yeasty scents
and the sight of golden loaves,
some voluptuous rounds and
others, sturdy rectangulars.
You have baked cinnamon rolls,
a child’s delight, pies and
sticky buns too…and cookies!
“We’ll take a French bread” my Mom says
pointing to a crispy brown baguette.
“And a raisin bread.”
She adds …
“We’ll need that sliced.”
I watch your hands flit gracefully
like butterflies in a green valley
stopping here and then there
to pull fragrant loaves from display
and slicing them, neatly packaging,
then reaching down over the counter
you hand me a little bag of rugelach.
As I look up, reaching for your gift
I stop breathing, arrested by
a wisp of blue on your forearm.
I am studious, a reader, dear Baruch,
I know what that tattoo means …
Looking down, with a whisper I choke
“Thank you, Baruch!”
swallowing that lump of sadness,
trying not to show my tears. What right have I to tears?
But then you, dear Baruch, come
bounding round the counter
with warm hugs and soft tissues,
as though I was the one hurt.
From that day forever more,
I saw you only in long sleeves.
At lunchtime, I demanded –
“Mom, tell me about Baruch.”
And she does.
I am pensive over our meal,
canned marinara and slices of
of your baguette.
Dear Baruch, with each salty bite
I eat your tears and
the blood of your daughter.
Nights she stares at me from that
sepia photo by your register.
Baruch, did she, like me, assume
a grown-up life
of school and jobs,
marriage and children? And you! You must have assumed
the tender comfort of
her love in your old age.
Do you hold the vision of her
young and happy in your
brave, kindly old heart?
Does your ear still play back
her childish laughter,
the sound of her voice
begging for a story?
Do your warm brown eyes still hold
her smile in remembrance?
When you see little girls like me,
does your anguish grow?
Dear Baruch, our dear Baruch –
how will you set your child free
from that faraway land and
cold, unmarked mass grave?
“The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms”
The Hollow Men, T.S. Elliot
Some mothers’ children stare unseeing
No sweet, wet baby kisses from blistered lips,
. . . . songs unsung
No wedding portraits to dust and treasure
No graduations or trips to the sea
. . . . just their bodies to bury
crushed
beaten
stilled
by the engine of nihilism
Limbs cracked and broken, bellies torn
Faces purpled, hearts stopped
Hearts stopped … . . . . hearts stopped
Some mothers’ hearts have stopped
Some mothers’ children
“It was a slow and brutal death for so many,” Trump said as he announced the attack on a Syrian airbase, retaliating for the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime. “Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”
“Mistah Kurtz-he [lives] ….. A penny for the Old Guy …
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!”
The Hollow Men, T.S. Elliot
what must it be like for you in your part of the world?
there is only silence, i don’t know your name, i know only
that the fire of Life makes us one in this, the human journey,
trudging through mud, by land and by sea, reaching for the sun
like entering a ritual river without a blessing or a prayer
on the street where you lived, your friends are all gone
the houses are crushed and the doves have flown
there is only silence, no children playing, no laughter
here and there a light remains to speak to us of loneliness,
yet our eyes meet in secret, our hearts open on the fringe,
one breath and the wind blows, one tear and the seas rise,
your grief drips from my eyes and i tremble with your fear
“This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.” The Hollow Men, T.S. Elliot
Much to my delight there are seven poetic responses this week. Bravo, my friends! Five of the poems are responses to last Wednesday’s Writing Prompt:
“How do you generally receive the night? With joy, reluctance or fear? Do you sleep well or not? Tell us in poem or prose. If you would feel comfortable doing so, please put a link to your response in the comments section below – or, if the work is short enough – just include it there that we might all enjoy it. Responses to Wednesday Writing Prompts are published here on the following Tuesday.”
I was introduced to the multitalented (poetry, art and asemic writing) Sonja Benskin Mesher when I featured Rueben Woolley and his work. Sonja designed the covers for his collections. I’ve been enamoured ever since. Sonja says, ” I have worked full time as a visual artist since 1999, and have spent those years exploring ways to communicate thoughts and concerns with my paintings and drawings. It’s not all you see on the surface, it goes deeper than that. The work goes back touched and collected. My present surroundings, here in Wales, and that of Cornwall where I spend much of my time, inform the work, and inspire the subject matter. Then with the work I remember, and try to make sense of it all.”
I think Sharmishtha Basu – artist, poet and writer – has been blogging as long as I have, which would mean since 2008. I’ve watched her grow her talent and expand her art and writing world into a small industry. She illustrates her own poems, has sixteen blogs and self-publishes on Amazon. From the tentative writer she was initially, she has grown strong and confident as a result of hard persistent work. Visit Sharmishtha’s Gravatar Profile for links to her blogs.
PEACEFUL IS YOUR PRESENCE
Peaceful is your presence
Like losing oneself
In embrace of peace itself
Losing self awareness
for some certain moments
Turning away from worries
Frictions and tensions
That won’t leave wakeful mind.
Who says you invoke only
Fear, terror and darkness.
Renee Espiru (Just Turtle Flight) writes poetry and short stories and is adept at digital art, producing interesting illustrations to accompany her poetry. She says she’s been writing from a young age and that her ” writing is based on my life’s experience and my observation of life. I have been asked the question of where I come by my ideas … and have come to the conclusion that without life observed there would be nothing on which to base any writing at all.” Over the years, I’ve always appreciated Renee’s willingness to take on any writing challenge thrown at her. Renee’s work is often featured in The BeZine.
A SIPHON FOR DREAMS
The night is a siphon for dreams
drifting thru stars & moonbeams
nudging in its’ turn each muse
igniting imaginations’ fuse
visiting angels night’s shadows
a lighting of a candles’ tallow
Gary W. Bowers (One With Clay, Image and Text) was born in California and lives now in Arizona. He is a poet and artist with a quick wit and a unique and engaging style. Gary’s creative specialties are acrostic poetry, portraiture, ceramic sculpture, Ticonderoga Black pencil drawing and, most recently, mixed media that includes oil pastel. Check out his blog. Inquiries about purchase of posted artwork, or commission of custom work including but certainly not limited to acrostic portraiture, may be made via e-mail to onewithclay@hotmail.com. HERE is the artwork that Gary did for me.
nightie night
shutter lids o halfanearth
shadow has your number.
cue the creatures oer your girth
batten down n slumber.
slow the breathing ebb the sway
as the starscapes twinkle
and the dreams come out to play
and the brows unwrinkle.
Paul Brooks’ blog (The Wombwell Rainbow) is subtitled “Inspiration. History. Imagination.” All true. Check it out. I find his imagination charming and it’s something you can appreciate given his poem shared here today. Paul’s newest collection, The Spermbot Blues, his second chapbook is tentatively to be published by OpPRESS this Spring. Announcement pending. We’ll let you know.
THE ELEPHANTQUAKE
Elephantquake bossed a vast forest.
no rain, all lakes, tanks, ponds,
water holes arid. It thirsts
It searched for water.
It knows of a hidden lake
always full and goes there
to save itself. After five nights
it revelled and splashed in the lake.
Daily it marched upon moonhares,
maimed and wounded them,
on its route to the lake.
One day moonhares met
to save themselves
from the elephantquake
Some said “Abandon this place.”
Others “It’s our ancient home.
Let’s find an alternative.
Let’s see if we can scare off
rampage of elephantquake.”
Some of them said, “We know
of a trick that works
with elephantquake.
we need a sharp person.
A moonhare has a message
for elephantquake. It says
“I come from Moon who doesn’t
want you supping lake as bound
there you kills and maim hundreds
of hares. Lake is forbidden.
Return to your forest home.
“But where’s this Moon, your home? asks
elephantquake “In this lake.
It consoles the survivors
of your rampage.” “Then, let me see him,” requests the elephantquake.
“Come alone with me, I will
show you.” Moonhare takes it one
night to shows Moon’s silvery
reflection in the lake, says
“Here it is, my home, the Moon.
Lost in meditation.
Move quietly, salute it.
Don’t disturb it and bring wrath.”
Elephantquake sees it as real,
salutes it, leaves quietly,
returns to its forest home.
Hares heave sigh in relief.
When I wake to the day
And straight away
Feel bereft for the theft
Of my spoons in the night,
I must reset my pace
For the hours I face
And the fact I don’t keep
All my spoons in one place,
Is what lessens my plight
Though the day’s still a fight
And I grieve at the waste
Unless I stop pretending,
Surrender to fate and
Just focus on mending
And wait.
When I wake up renewed,
With all spoons am imbued,
I feel hope that I’ll cope
With the basics, at least –
Unless there’s a treat
Or appointment to keep.
I will try for an even keel
Mostly, unless I feel
Daring – spoons sparing.
And, if I succeed –
Which means no extra need –
I retire to bed with
A positive head.
My spoons are my wealth
For my life is defined
By the soundness of health
In my body and mind.
It is measured and treasured by
One simple goal:
That of having control
Just as much as I’m able,
But, oh! For a ladle
To hold in reserve that
Makes up for how much
I rely on my nerves.
“In politics being deceived is no excuse.” Leszak Kolakowski
Recommended read: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Left, right or center – American or not – it’s a must read for our chaotic times … and not just the list of lessons but Prof. Snyder’s commentary on each. This book is a rational enlightening little gem and a powerful wake-up call.
Lesson Two: “Defend Institutions. It is institutions that help us preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of ‘our institutions’ unless you make them yours by action on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about – a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union – and take its side.” Prof. Snyder
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 