HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Wishing you all treats and no tricks … and here’s your first treat of the day, a poetic Halloween celebration courtesy of Paul Brookes, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Colin Blundell, Renee Espiru, Kakali Das Gosh, and John Anstie with a link to Joseph Shaw’s audio of John’s poem to music. Enjoy! … and do join in tomorrow for a prompt from a special guest poet. All are welcome, no matter where you come from or whether you’re beginning, emerging or pro. The last Wednesday Writing Prompt was “Twas All Hallows Eve, October 25.
Time Fetches
Received English version
Watch yourself as it’ll soon be time
that the tall hawthorn hedge
that bars you from other worlds
becomes thin this season
in it’s cloud ghosted ditch
so folk from the other side
can bleed through to ours
and you’ll see these weird folk
walk outside your door.
Burn a candle in your home
and light lanterns, jack o’lanterns,
candles outdoors to show
the weird folk, spirits and all
the direct way back. We don’t
want them to detour where
they are not welcome. Respect them
and they’ll respect you.
This night light a fire
in your hearth
to protect yourself
or better yourself.
Write on a scrap a paper
a part of your life
that you wish to be rid off,
such as anger, a baneful habit,
misplaced feelings, disease.
Throw it in the flame
so you may lose
that part you’re ashamed of
Yorkshire Dialect version
Watch thee sen as time fetches on
as tall hawthorn hedge that bars
tha from t’other worlds
in its cloud ghosted ditch
gets thin this season so as folk
from other side can fetch them
sens over an bleed through to ours
and tha’ll see these weird folk
take a stride outside thee door.
Blaze a candle in tha home
and set a flicker lanterns, jack o’lanterns,
candles outdoors to show
the weird folk, spirits and all
direct way back to where
they bide from, so as they don’t
detour where they’re not welcome.
Respect them, they’ll respect thee.
This night light a fire
in tha hearth
for to protect thee sen
or better thee sen.
Scribe on a scrap a paper
a part of thee life
tha wish to be rid on
anger, a baneful habit,
misplaced feelings, disease.
Lob it int flame
so tha may lose
that part tha ashamed on.
This Samhain, All Hallows Eve
place on your table a skull,
small animal skeletons
of shrews, mice, rats disgorged by
forest owls. Lay your gravestone
rubbings as welcome placemats.
Down the centre carved pumpkins,
squash, carrots, swede amongst pine nuts,
walnuts and berries, and dark
breads, rye, pumpernickel, dried
yellow, red leaves, open fir cones.
Fill a cornucopia
with abundant fruit, apples, pears,
leeks. Fill each cup with apple cider,
sweet wine, or honey mead.
Light all with fragrant candles,
to flicker over the plenty.
The table is a thankyou,
a blessing on the goodness.
Go outside, collect dead plants,
to twist and turn and mold a man
or woman to bring inside,
and place on the table.
Give thanks to them and your dead
ancestors before you eat.
that compels you: perhaps it’s the flames
that leap and curl (free engulfing spirits)
or lick gently at the dead waste
calming to eat away at the centre of things
throughout the empty night
perhaps it’s the isolation –
you and Fire alone in the dark night
in which reflecting fires hang forever
perhaps it’s purification –
sterilisation of assembled dross… its reduction
to a usable commodity associated with
the neat feeling of arranging a garden
in the midst of the wilderness
perhaps it’s like death – convenient
tidy cleansing eradicating…
my father knew what he was doing ordering
‘No Mourners’: if they’d been there
it would have been attenuated
hypocritical unholy
It was the time of coming winter after fall
And she came from a ball
It was a Halloween evening
She loved and groped that Eve harmonizing
It was the time for feast
She loved the spirit though came from the east
It was the time for fun
She wore gleaming costumes with a bun
It was the time to unfold new spirit
The air blowing felt different autumn waved and heart enlightened bright
It was the eve when the pall between worlds was sleazy
And to rhyme melodies of worlds was so easy
It was the time to taste candy
She relished its flavour with a brandy
It was the time to sense eerieness lurking around the corner
And the eastern country girl addicted to all unknown being just a learner .
So many takes on growing old: gifts, beauty and downsides. These are responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, October 11, Once Upon a Time When They Were Old. Welcome to Billy Antonio, here for the first time and thanks to Billy, Ginny Brannan, Renee Espiru, Iulia Gherghei , Colin Blundell, Gary W. Bowers, Kakahli Gosh, Lady Nimue, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Paul Brookes for so beautifully rising to the occasion and so generously sharing their work. Find some smiles here, a giggle or two, a sigh, a tear … and a load of talent and wisdom.
shriveled rose petal
the intricate veins
on mother’s hands
BILLY ANTONIO is a poet, writer, and public school teacher. He is the author of the mini-chapbook In a Country with Two Seasons (a haiku collection)published by Poems-For-All. His short story, The Kite, has been broadcast on 4EB-FM, 98.1 in Brisbane, Australia. Some of his fiction and poetry have been published in Tincture Journal, Red River Review, Poetry Quarterly, Akitsu Quarterly, Anak Sastra, The Cicada’s Cry, Frameless Sky, The Mainichi, Scifaikuest, Star*Line, The Asahi Shimbun, Sonic Boom, among others. His poetry has won international recognition. He lives in the Philippines with his wife, Rowena, and his two daughters, Felicity and Asiel Sophie.
Old age
prisoner of my bad temper
in search of my light past
when I used to laugh my tears out
everything was a reason for laughter
jokes on everyone
I was the soul of the party
the champagne was sparkling into my eyes
now the joke is on me
I’ve suddenly realized that
laughter had abandon the ship
I enjoy only the sound of a quiet evening
alone…
Now it’s a time in my life when my engines
run slowly
In fact I have energy just to watch others pass by
to watch leaves turning green
to really breathe the air and sense the fragrance of a fresh born flower
Now I run the movie of my life backwards
I’m stunt how always in a hurry I used to be
obsessed to be free, nobody to interfere in my way
Now when I am tired, and maybe smarter
for sure older
I stopped by the river side, stare at my reflection in the fluid mirror
And silently shared a tear
Why so alluring this argil is !
Why so mysterious this forest is !
Clasping dusk in a swan’s wings
Groping the falling darkish with shedded coniferous leaves
In the twilight of life when each spirit waits for someone
Eyes brim with tears
Birds retire to their nests flying over the blue ocean
Defraying moistures in their slender feathers
Flute of a shepherd boy sway my old heart
The night comes through stairs of mist
Through my watery old eyes
Agony switches apiece
But today in this watery moonlit night someone is at my door
Someone has reposed his eyes in my old eyes
In this assembly of life
O my unknown love
Please never renounce my crooked hands
Life crinkles body shrinks
But Love is endless – eternal
Please love me dear till
My last breath
Saying I’m pretty in your eyes
with my grey hair
Dry lips and vague vision
Kissing me upon my doom and cheeks
With Crisscross streaks …
on the outside (he says) counting the hours
that have fled all too quickly
a ripple in time
way beyond into the future
I’ve been awaiting something (he says)
for which I had to sit
in a comfortable anteroom
listening to the sounds of music
and laughter from inside the great hall
on the inside (he says) I’m still wondering
what I’m going to be when I grow up –
how I will frequent the literary pubs
& sit writing poetry at beer-stained tables
being a constant mystery
to the anxious youth at an adjacent table –
myself when young
I stride through all the Magic Cities;
I conduct my own symphonies of sound
and enter the soul of these two new cats
He comes to visit each day,
reminding us as he enters that he’ll
be taking her home as soon as she’s
better, as soon as she’s stronger;
his dear sweet wife.
He lives for this woman, now mute
regressed in her memory–
holding tightly to a baby doll
perhaps for comfort, or perhaps
lost in vision of childhood
long past.
He gently wheels her through the halls
as though on some grand tour–
then he sits on the sofa in the hall
and lovingly clasps her pale parchment hand.
Talking softly, he asks
“Do you know what day today is?
It’s New Years eve day”
……”Can you hear me?”
……“Do you know who I am?”
and I wonder…
When I am old and lost in my thoughts
will someone come to see me each day,
gently take me by the hand–
and quietly remind me who I am?
coddled in wool blanket drifts
Sun sears baby eyes through bright windows,
hospital paths cleared tall walls
of snow either side. I howled
a gust down shop aisles, on street
to the dentists. Crowds frowned.
Summer bike rides in country lanes
Spring divorced winter.
Summer was another dialect. Coarser,
to play was to laik, sweets were spice.
Wide games in a silver wood, ventured
into cold huts. Fun with sausages and custard.
Hull hunkered in Christian winter, relieved by Summer gamelan and hope for a vocation
to last manual work and taking the pillock.
It didn’t. Winter of closing pits.
Bristol summered in performance
Classes on interview technique, teach
Teenagers how to think into a job.
beyond unemployment benefit office screens
Spout words over dripped lager louts,
Back in summered day buzz of words clapped,
then winter cancered into debt
and prodigal return. No fatted calf
only steroid fatted bald mam and chores
in garden until I met my future wife
for a bet in breaks between admin.
Summered teach adults write and history.
A winter that lasted twelve years headset
yoked ears bent to abuse from wronged
Customers and peddled official lines.
Summer came with an unwanted death,
A years enjoyment of travel and delight.
Summer comes in to autumn with cash gone.
Life a priority. Bills must be paid. Work
only part time, buzz when I help customers.
The variety of responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” September 27 are a pleasure to read. Thanks to Renee Espiru, Sonja Benskin Meshery, Gary Bowers and Paul Brookes for coming out to play and sharing their fine work.
Join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome to take part no matter the status of career. Beginners and experienced are welcome to come, be inspired, share their poems and get to know other poets.
A Life Betrayed
She lives the only life
she has ever known
inside someone else’s home
she wonders how she came to this
miles of fields and distance
a breeze touching her
now frail being
did someone leave her here
without her knowing and
will she wake one day
to find she’s dreaming
for she loved him so in her way
but was he a mirage or
just a ruse she wrote of
in her own knowing
before her body did betray
and stole her life
and youth
the characters for the most part
get themselves into such a muddle
usually intent on mirroring
the messes & muddles of others
closely observed by scheming clowns
with special peculiar insights
how will they get out of the muddle?
a question which keeps you entranced
turning the pages rapidly
never really wanting an unravelling
no linearity just sets of closed circles
of rather bizarre impossibility
occasionally a character will experience
a bright moment of illumination
or clarity which I have come to call
the specificity of the ordinary:
the cat on the terrace dust particles
lizard on a sunny bank
bare gritty floorboards leaves in the wind
ivy climbing on a rock as it might be
to refer it all to myself measuring
the impact of the ordinary
if only the characters had listened
to their author’s commentary
more carefully they might all have been
able to rescue themselves
he grips the tablets in his charge, this
courier of commandmenta, and takes umbrage or looks
askance at some person or
persons on
his left. on his head
are zigguratish lumps,
horns, that should have been
unsculptable rays of
light. julius the pope, the vicar
of christ, has left
his mortal remains entombed
here, and moses to guard
them. the likeness
of julius was to be
the capstone of the tomb
but it was never
done. the militant pope
had need of his hireling
visionary elsewhere,
as plasterer and muralist
for a now-renowned chapel.
the tomb was finished in 1545,
decades after julius’s promotion
to resident of Heaven.
Here is the collection of responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, he’s a tumble weed, September 13. I’m quite pleased with the efforts of Renee Espiru, Paul Brookes, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Iulia Gherghi, Collin Blundell, and Kakali Das Gosh. Bravo, poets! Enjoy the reading, visit their blogs, and strike-up a friendships with other poets.
The next Wednesday Writing Prompt will post tomorrow. All are welcome to come out and play, no matter where in the world you live or where you are in your career, emerging or established.
Rainbow Lace Muses
dreams are like the sweet smell
of ambrosia not like
the bitter of coffee
before her
she sits by the restaurant window
staring at nothing
and seeing everything
perhaps she sees her life
without children running about demanding
time
time she doesn’t have and
does not have to give
for life should chord
space and quiet
life should be filled
with writing muses
laced with rainbows
filled with artist
paper
& tools for both
housed in a place
beneath
trees
sprinkled with star dust
a place with fields of
wild flowers so
she can commune
with nature
with her soul
she is lost in her thoughts
as the restaurant
comes to life
around her
with the laughter of
children
playing
she is reminded that life
hinges on choices
of ambivalence
In my high school years
I was addicted to one pub
Every day around six p.m.
I would take the dog out
The dog was the pretext of course
The pub was across the park, nearby the lake
His owner was like a brother to me
His entire family was my family for awhile
Their harmony, their happiness
Were my refuge
I was safe there in that glass pub
Soon enough I became a student
New places to explore
The pub on the top of the National Theatre
The pub of the University of Architecture, this one was more a club
For playing cards, all sort of games
The pub of the Literature University
Placed underground, with black oiled walls
We divided fairly our time between those three
I would start my day with a coffee in the Literature’ pub
Puff my cigarette while studying faces
The smoke would burn my eyes
But in that quasi darkness no one would notice
Lucky strike, no filters or some Romanian stuff, equally strong
I would always forget my lighter
So asking for a light would start a friendship
Next, at noon
Me and my friends would visit the Architecture’s pub
There the students were taller
Handsomer, intriguing
Here we would take our lunch
Being a far more light full place
And in the evenings, when some money grew in our pockets
We would join the roof crowd
On the top of The National Theatre
Where crème de la crème would meet
One or two pints of beer would grant the effort
When broke or during the exams
The nearby pub will greet us at 3 a.m. in the morning
What else but a beer to fixate your knowledge
Or to provide a blissful sleep
I wasn’t picky
Whatever would come first
Very soon the school was over
Life stuck its teeth on us
Devoured by our duties and responsibilities
We can afford only fast food restaurants now
Just before movie starts
The animation movie, 3D
With its special glasses that cover an
Underground slumber
forgetting for the moment that they
might be looking at us in the same way –
all those behavioural manifestations –
do we not impute to them
a kind of completion settled composure
compounded of what we take to be
definite things – arrangements of thought
intellectual substructure of identity & feeling?
take anybody you imagine you know
however they might be in themselves
do you not see a certain settledness
of body & mind spirit & dalliance
towards the world? look how they move
with dignity or resolve or shuffle their feet
with an uncertainty they might overcome
suddenly with intention direction & purpose
and how do they see you
mirror of themselves hearing about them
arranging a Bruckner symphony
for a hundred recorder-players?
like the man in the roadside café
I’d never met before
and am never likely to meet again
told me he’d just done
O !the rural cafe owner
Let me enjoy the blinding heavenly light
The accompanied whistling winds
I-a tumbleweed has ushered
your cafe
To pleasure an eternal liquor ,beer or wine of love
Let me escape from the crustfallen life
A chain of of diurnal routine
Let me recline at the front porch of your tavern
Enjoying a dirge quiescence
Let me exempt from the bricks and mortar ,chimney bellflower and clamorous clarion
O ! the rural cafe owner
Let me fly away from the anguish intolerable
May it be just for few moments
But I would sip the red wine of the loveable apple
Forever …….
