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our evolving, a poem … and your next Wednesday Writing Prompt

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“It gets to seem as if way back in the Garden of Eden after the Fall, Adam and Eve had begged the Lord to forgive them and He, in his boundless exasperation had said, ‘All right, then. Stay. Stay in the Garden. Get civilized. Procreate. Muck it up.’ And they did.”  Diane Arbus 

surfacing from mother-sea, we came ~
we came shape-shifting and sighing,
living before the prescient moon and
under the life-giving sun, we climbed
mountains and marched into valleys

short-lived, we camped by the riverside,
we slept in caves, we cleared the forest,
built cities that domesticated us

we became sophisticated, forgot our
rootedness in the archives of heaven,
our shared destiny with the earth, we
forsook our history and the stars,
invented math, maps and compasses,
governments, borders and ownership

we built great ships to sail the oceans,
to drum across the sky and away to outer
realms and other planets, we mislaid our
true stories and, in ignorance suckled
on prefabricated values, these streamed
from cold fires that stoked insecurities ~
we confused wants and needs, hungered
for the sake of our own stupidity
and someone else’s greed

© 2017, poem and photograph, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

Perhaps you see our evolving in a more positive frame than Diane Arbus and I suggest here. Then again, maybe not.  Tell us about it in a poem or poems.

Share your poem/s on theme or a link to it/them in the comments section below.

All poems on theme will be published next Tuesday. Please do NOT email your poem to me or leave it on Facebook. If you do it’s likely I’ll miss it or not see it in time.

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 in order to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These will be 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, August 20 at 8 p.m. Pacific.

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

Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I 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.

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“nervy anna” … and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

c 2018, Jamie Dedes

 

“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper.  Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper.  The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here.” Thick Nhat Hanh as quoted by Satish Kumar in You Are Therefore I Am, A Declaration of Dependence [Recommended]

Three brave souls took on the the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, A Commonwealth of Saints, August 7, both challenging and probably controversal to some. A few of the poems are not quite on target but certainly pointing to it. Enjoy! and Special Kudos! to Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes and Sonja Benskin Mesher.

Read on and be with us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.

I hope you’ll visit and get to know these poets. It’s important for us to support and encourage one another in our art and in our solidarity around our concerns for the social and ethical issues with care about.  I’ve linked in blogs for your convenience.

nervy anna

we won’t incur nirvana’s wrath
if we don’t stroll the eightfold path.
for lucid lurid sharp or dense
nirvana has indifference.
and karma is as karma does
but karma will not be nor was
nor heretic nor missionary
is a beneficiary.
it is never headline news
when one retains one’s unright views.
the crunch point is what satisfaction
derives from someone’s unright action.
a range from peace to dissolution
is found in retro retribution.

© 2018, Gary W. Bowers (One with Clay, Image and Text)

That Yes

of your breath as it lets go into the fresher air opportunity offers with open hands,

an apology for pain given from the giver heals the sores and blemishes, some self inflicted, hands

over a cup of tea, coffee or glass of fresh greeting
A wholesome kiss and gleam gladdened eyes

without expectation of return or reparation,
sip down electricity that sparkles your bones.

© 2018, Paul Bowles (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

So Grave

As she stands in the queue
she sees his down turned mouth,
his face buried in his chest,

Along with her order she buys
an extra cup of coffee.

The stranger smiles at her smile as she gives
him the drink. “You look so sad.”

“My wife’s grave has been vandalised,
love. It’ll cost a thousand pounds to repair.”

© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)

.sarah’s bible.

there is lavender
in the fire, someone
is tapping
on the window, patterned
with cracked kings and
predecessors.

sarah’s bible, hand held,
open via perspex
and blue velvet
at ecclesiastes
chapter three.

to everything
there is a
feafon, etc,
in italics.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.notes for anna.

back to the cathedral where the book says it is all for nothing anyway talk about giving hope away. a spiritual reduction, a sad deduction from some who should know better.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

There’s much to enjoy in Sonja’s art and you can view much of it on her sites and she shares are generous amount on her Facebook Page. So multitalented.

 

ABOUT

Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I 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.

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“A Child Said, What is the Grass” Walt Whitman … honoring Michael Rothenberg’s Read a Poem to a Child Initiative

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.” Maya Angelou

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother’s laps,
And here you are the mother’s laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.

– Walt Whitman

Thanks to Craig Morris of the Grass Roots Poetry Group for citing this poem in honor of Michael Rothenberg’s 100TPC 2018 Global initiative, Read a Poem to a Child.

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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.”

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A Commonwealth of Saints, a poem … and your next Wednesday Writing Prompt

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“I’m looking for a second reformation. The first reformation of the church 500 years ago was about beliefs. This one is going to be about behavior. The first one was about creeds. This one is going to be about deeds. It is not going to be about what does the church believe, but about what is the church doing.”  Rick Warren

some inkling of unity beyond division
of mystical, not mythical
of cup, not sword
lost in a strange search
found on the angel wings
of compassion and wisdom
the sacred in ordinary time*
the simple me and thee of
the anointed, appointed, awakened before myths and dogma
something sweet in orthopraxy, not orthodoxy
in ontology, not theology
the clear light of universal wonder
funding a commonwealth of saints

* meant in a secular sense

©2016, poem and photograph, Jamie Dedes, All right reserved

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

What are the virtues of orthopraxy in our religions?  Why is orthopraxy important, especially in our own time given the events and challenges of the day? Share your poem/s on theme or a link to it/them in the comments section below.

All poems on theme will be published next Tuesday. Please do NOT email your poem to me or leave it on Facebook. If you do it’s likely I’ll miss it or not see it in time.

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 in order to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These will be 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, August 13 at 8 p.m. Pacific.

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

Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I 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.