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“That yes” . . and other poems to the Last Wednesday Writing Prompt

“Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.” W.B. Yeats

These responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, in praise of all hallelujah, perfect and fractured, June 20, are painfully wise and honest and moving to the point of tears. Times are hard, no doubt about it. Well done, Bozhidar Pangelov (bogan), Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brooks, Debbie Felio, Carol Mikoda, and Marta Pombo Sallés. Thanks also to artist/poet Sonja Benskin Myers for including her illustration along with one of her poems.

So here is our gift to enrich your day. Please do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.

Hallelujah for the deprived

the church (is) carved
on a steep hill

on broken glass
images
crunched under the footsteps of wild animals
which rarely pass by
pieces of wind and stone slabs
falling from names
(the names go away)

we sold our lives
a hand cuts off the wrist
no live cypress trees
or birds
the past starts
and the shadows do not move into the grave
„poor my Jorik“
you have never been born

those deprived of time
cannot die
they do not know how

the folded pin is the eye

© 2018, bogpan (bogpan – блог за авторска поезия, блог за авторска поезия)

hallelujah unison

arthritic hands clasp and hurt each other
eyes squeeze and phosphenes march
“hallelujah,” she whispers

miles away there is a beheading
“hallelujah!” they shout

miles away a child is born
“hallelujah,” say the three
(one inaudibly)

miles away there is home in the headlights
miles away a bell tower reverberates
miles away a monitor flatlines

and miles away a man sees someone waiting for him under a streetlight
shifting her feet
seeing him
and catching her breath

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

Hallelujahs

My steady breath and regular beat of my heart as I wake is a fire goaded from the snuffed out taper
of yesterday.

Welcome shouts and hugs from my family, opens petals of wonder releases sweet fragrance of warmth.

Thankyous from the boss of all my efforts curves into smiles of bairns released into the arms of aggrieved parents.

Hallelujahs out of broken, divorced, stamped out, water logged ashes lick and dance heat and light in eyes renewed.

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

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 Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

How Fragments Make

room for new making
You are the better maker.

Muscle and skin and idea undone
reveal shapes unconsidered.

Pieces of belief disassembled
into nonsense make a different sense.

Necessary chaos you can tangle
Into another order. Praise the entangled.

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

No Hallelujahs

without darkness
without questions
without nonsense

No hallelujahs

without failure
without mistakes
without doubt

No hallelujahs

without hard decisions
without dislocation
without recovery

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

CODA

Blood
Rage
Objectification
Killing
Exclusion
Neglect

How long we wait
Again for righteousness
Lifting up the
Lives of the lost
Echoing the
Longing for
Universal
Justice
And
Honor

© 2018, deb y felio

glory be

a host of horrors greet us each day
multitudes of madnesses
economies of scale sing hymns
ailing rotting-on-the-inside riffraff
make holy homemade videos
that go virulently viral in stupefying style
scores bursting at the seams about to crack

en masse we raise voices
This! Life! is astonishing
life on earth
with its variegations in virtue
imperfections impressive in their number
it is good nevertheless this creation

find a statue or painting of god
that’s not a little bit broken
let alone one of us humans

Rejoice!
ever-morphing clouds
roll across the storm sky
to release, in their fractures,
photon beams
across swarming humanity’s home
until Hallelujah! a stunning sunset show

© 2018, Carol Mikoda

:: numbers ::

:: numbers ::

i limped.

into the cathedral.
my life will be sorted,
if i bought the book @
£1.99, said suffering is
good.

i looked at the boys,
looked at the floor,
read ecclesiastes,
we are as dust,

and limped out.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

men in the village, are older now. the moth returns.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

Dance of Hope

Wrapped in orange dress
of hope is the dance.
Fluttering veil seals
renewed serene bliss.

Fans turn in the air
tasting this new flair
of hope tied in rope,
invisible thread
that beats with the heart.

Bathing in moonlight
of newly found joy
I danced my hope with
a fluttering veil
and turned my fans in
the winds of a change.

© 2018, Marta Pombo Sallés (Moments)

ERRATUM

Paul’s poem below is from Tuesday, June 19 responses to the Wednesday Writing Prompt, the lesser being of a lesser god, June 13. His poem was posted incorrectly.  You can use the link to read the entire collection, which is quite wonderful.

Gust Is Deaf, Hills Are Blind,

trees can’t walk properly,
Flowers twitch haphazardly.

Grass is mute, rivers are dumb.
Nature is differently abled.

Mountains are too tall,
struggle to talk when they can’t

bend a knee, get down to those smaller
who are in awe when all mountains need

is to speak face to face , dispel their myth.
Same with water that rushes by,

no time to stand and stare, moments pass
before they have time to fully comprehend.

Flux needs a still moment but has to go on.
Still waters wish they could rush.

All hankers after what it Is not,
Cannot accept their place as their lot.

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

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

 

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“Scaffold” . . . and other Responses to Wednesday Writing Prompt

“My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.” Ursula K. Le Guin

These responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, the lesser being of a lesser god, June 13 certainly take us through time and geography, touch lightly or deeply on theme, all while warming our hearts and spinning our minds along the way.  Enjoy! and Thanks! to Paul Brookes, Irene Emanuel, Sonja Benskin Mesher and Marta Pombo Salés. These poets seem always up for a challenge.

Thanks also and a warm welcome to The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt to Debbie Felio, Carol Mikoda and Anne G. Myles, accomplished writers all.  Debbie’s work was featured before on The Poet by Day but not for Wednesday Writing Prompt, so here she is introduced in this context.

Join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome to share their work on theme.

Least of These

I find myself
in losing self
amid the grander
moments in creation

for why would I
settle as the larger
of the lesser
among so little

grant me the serenity
to seek the enormity
of a great God’s creativity

lesser me at the edge
of Grand Canyon’s
cragged colors

lesser me in the depths
and breadths
of roaring oceans

lesser me in the wonders
of rainbows and cloud banks
snowstorms and tornados

lesser me counted
as one of millions
stars and galaxies

never am I so grand
as when the Grandest
includes in His resume
the lesser me.

© 2018, Deb Felio

Debbie Felio

DEBBIE FELIO is a poet/witness living and writing in Boulder, Colorado

 

 

Death’s Immensity

Stand next to one wall, let’s say
the north side, of a massive
building. Look up into the
sky, noticing only a
few puffs of clouds. Sweep your eyes
back down, catching sight of this
wall — gray, smooth, unending — and

recall it.

Instantly, the personal fantasy of
existence disintegrates,
leaving only wisps. Lungs

empty,

breath sucked away.
Only flatness,
a loss of all
color and detail.
Once again,
know Death
and be

paralyzed.

© 2018, Carol Mikoda

Carol Mikoda

CAROL MIKODA teaches writing and new teachers in upstate New York. She lives in the country where she walks in the woods, studies the sky to photograph clouds, and grows vegetables and flowers. She also sings and plays piano, guitar, and bass. Although she enjoys travel, her cat, Zen Li Shou, would rather she stayed home.

*

Scaffold

For Mary Dyer, Quaker martyr, d. 1660

1.

The only woman to be taken to the scaffold twice.

In October, you watched your friends drop,

then they let you go. In May you came back

and the second time it was for real.

Both times they marched you the last mile

flanked by soldiers, drummers, ministers —

the charivari of execution. You said

It is the greatest joy I can enjoy in this world.

 

I hunt online to see what you saw before you,

gaze lifted, sure and unrepentant:

the raw wood architecture of terror

set up on Boston Neck,

a strange delicacy in it perhaps;

its silence, its certainty, full stop.

The light that was the frailest metaphor

pouring through the noose.

2.

Scaffolding, as educators call it,

means how you model or demonstrate

the way to solve a problem,

how you build on students’ experiences

adding support, until in time

they can do it for themselves.

 

When the terror of the present gripped me

I wanted to write your story,

attempt to interweave it with my own,

tell what happened while it was possible.

By the time I reached the end, I hoped

(though I no longer believed what you did

as I’d tried to many years ago

and it almost crushed me)

you would teach me to be brave.

3.

Before they led imaginary

John Proctor to the scaffold,

before he thought better of it,

before he chose the honor of his name,

he bellowed in desire

I want my life!

4.

The poet said in workshop:

The scaffolding of a poem is its skeleton.

Consider the poem as a body;

what’s keeping it upright?

What are the rules that keep it alive,

that build its world?

 

I couldn’t help but smile.

I saw that after all it was this I got:

in middle age as you were,

you helped bring me back to poetry

and left me there, lesser, grateful,

heart pounding with desire

to walk and keep on walking

in my own recovered light.

© 2018, Anne G. Myles

ANNE G. MYLES, originally from the east coast, and now  Associate Professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa, specializing in early American literature. You can find some of my earlier academic thoughts about Mary Dyer in her Wikipedia entry, as I recently learned to my surprise. I have been drawn back to my lost origins in creative writing in the past year or so, and poetry (the form in which I was trained) even more recently, including but not limited to working on a series of Mary Dyer poems. I hope to begin sending work out soon. I have a blog about matters related to my recovering my creative voice at “How public — like a Blog –,” annegolda.blog

*

My god is

Imperfect, a perfect image for me.
Humbled by its mistakes.

My god is a mistake.
A wrong answer,

Differently abled.
Its winters often in spring.

Its summers sometime in autumn.
My god is a fracture, a flaw.

Gender fluid. Defined by its
Inhumanity, it is complete

in its incompleteness. Aspires
not to aspire. My god is contradiction,

counter intuitive. Fresh in its decay.
Its more is always less. Thank god.

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

Gust Is Deaf, Hills Are Blind,

 

trees can’t walk properly,
Flowers twitch haphazardly.

Grass is mute, rivers are dumb.
Nature is differently abled.

Mountains are too tall,
struggle to talk when they can’t

bend a knee, get down to those smaller
who are in awe when all mountains need

is to speak face to face , dispel their myth.
Same with water that rushes by,

no time to stand and stare, moments pass
before they have time to fully comprehend.

Flux needs a still moment but has to go on.
Still waters wish they could rush.

All hankers after what it Is not,
Cannot accept their place as their lot.

       ONE NIGHT ON CRADLE MOUNTAIN—-TASMANIA
Never before, nor ever again
will there be such a special night;
the night a possum stopped at my feet
and allowed my touch without fright.
Glancing round the purple-black,
I saw a wondrous sight;
sparkle-threads of countless stars
roped round the Milky Way;
back-dropped moon-beams
filigreed in shining silver ray.
Thrilled beyond coherent thought,
I blended with this dream
and optically imprinted
that empyreal starry scene.
Cradle Mountain calls to me,
with haunting “siren” powers;
“come back and stay,
you’ll be entranced,
your life forever ours.”

© 2018, Irene Emanuel

. the robe.

 

kept in a box, precious.

lifted down for those to see,
that care.

did the understanding come,
the idea that all old things
are wanted, needed for their story.

not discarded on higher ground,
where dust and moth abound.

the lesser garment became prefered,
as the last shall become the first.

we shall look at the photographs.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher (poetry and illustration below)

shot_1399971890954

 

.. bad night dreaming ..

 

dreamed of devastation,           flew miles        low

over concrete .   skeletons,      bones of the thing.

 

all is dust, as dust we have become.                 slow.

 

grey.    nothing moves here no more.          no sighs.

 

they have forgotten us.        we have forgotten them.

 

are we  now the bones of what we were?

 

bad night dreaming.

 

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

 

Llac de Banyoles copy

Confidence

With ebbs and flows
like sea and lake waters
the ground was trembling,
magnificent earthquake
confidence was at stake.
Wanted to do your best
so never felt at rest
you are too self-demanding
so confidence faded.
Too much self-exigency
leave me please, let me be
tell it now.
That parent, sister, brother,
that relative of yours
or that good friend or lover
if not, the teacher you had
someone said: great, keep up
or someone said, instead,
I think you have no talent
you will not earn a living
you are now wasting your time.
Your confidence fluctuating.
Ghosts of self-exigency
ghosts of negative people
let them vanish.
Hateful comparisons,
like storms amid the sea
till everything seems awash,
like strong winds on Earth
till each house looks swept,
mercilessly taken.
What light dwells in your soul
what thoughts in your mind
this is not to be disregarded,
disrespected or dismissed.
From your uniqueness, your creation
comes as a true revelation.
Let the ghosts of comparison
fade away from the sea
from the land you inhabit.
As the sun shines on you
so will confidence.

© 2018, Marta Pombo Sallés (Moments)

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

 

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“Fog” , “This Poem Must Be Taken Literally” . . . and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

“The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

“If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.” Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

The theme for Wednesday Writing Prompt, awakening on our rockey rebel road, June 6, 2018, was to share with us the poet in non-ordinary reality, the doorways that lead from the physical to the spiritual. This was perhaps not the easiest of prompts but these poets rose to the occasion with depth and panache. Lovely! 

Thank you Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Bozhidar Pangelov and Anjum Wasim Dar. Bravo!

A warm welcome to poet, writer and educator, Michele Stepto, new to The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt. I included a link below to her book, which looks fascinating.  It’s on my reading list.

Enjoy this fine collection with its profound delights and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. Links to each poet’s site are included below so that you can visit, read more of their work, and get to know them.

Fog

She received as a gift a carpet
with fog in it and moved
the furniture and rolled
the carpet out in the middle
of the room and found
that fog was rising out of it
in little wisps
and that when she stood
at the edge of it it
was just like standing at the edge of a cliff
high up over the ocean in the evening
when the fog is coming in

She moved the furniture back
and it did not
fall through the carpet
it did not disappear
she sat down in her old
armchair next to the lamp
and thought
she was floating in mid-air
on a foggy day
or flying a plane in the fog
everything feeling pleasantly
cold and damp as she closed her eyes

She sat there for a long while
dreaming about trees seen in fog
and things coming toward you
out of the fog small birds
who stayed put and didn’t fly in the fog
as she was staying put
now in her chair
their heads tucked
under their wings and dreaming
as she was of paradise
of their own Shambhala
high in the mountains
girdled in fog
or clouds
it hardly
mattered

© 2018, Michele Stepto 

Michele Stepto

MICHELE STEPTO: I have taught literature and writing at Yale University for many years, and recently at the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont. My work has appeared online at Verse-Virtual, What Rough Beast (at Indolentbooks.com), Ekphrastic Review, NatureWriting, Mirror Dance, Lacuna Journal, and One Sentence Poems, which nominated “The Unfinished Poem” for a Pushcart Prize this year. Along with my son Gabriel, I translated from the original Spanish Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World.

445px-charlotte_corday

„Убийството на Марат“, Бодри, (1868)

“Miss Corde was reading Plutarch by night the books then used to be taken seriously” Zbigniew Herbert

(Adam Lux – Meditations)

Miss (or already, why not, Missis)
is reading.
So did she before getting married. The revolution of 1960s All is Love is over.
She used to sleep in tents. Why not?
The freedom has to be defended.
Drums, fires, the screams:
“Down with! Who doesn’t jump is.”
Rumble behind the walls. Marat is. Alive? Death? Used to live?
The time is traveling. The crown’s refined hat.
The hair short. With all the colors.
“In a dress like a blue rock.”
Obelisk? Yes! of passing from
necessity to
necessity (for survival).
Mrs. Corde, is reading. The Game of …
She’s dreaming. “All is love”.
The day is the most usual.

Charlotte?
She administrated justice.
The falling stars are glowing.

Democratic changes in Bulgaria started after the Berlin Wall in 1989 Jean Paul Marat, a prominent French Revolution. Charlotte Conde is his murderer. https://shortprose.blog

© 2018, bogpan [Bozhidar Pangelov] (bogpan – блог за авторска поезия блог за авторска поезия)

REALM

Sleep deprivation
May lead to conversation
That you wake up inthemiddleof
Even though it is you who is talking.

The Goddess of Sleeplessness
In that other underworld
Has made you an emissary of her
Realm,
And conferred on you
The demigod’s trick
Of creating monsters.
Taillights
Become eyes…

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

A Smooth Skin

is ugly. Trace beauty
in bloody edges of scars.
Tattoo your face and hands
with raw wounds. Glow.
Bruises brighten your looks.
Pimples and spots mark sexiness.
Wrinkles entice awe.
The look is all in scabs.

Containers

do not contain. Vacuum
is packed with it all.

I wish you were more obtuse.
I can’t understand this clarity.

All is tightly enclosed in open space.
All is nebulous.

Please talk in riddles. Plain
Sentences confuse my head.

Exactitude is imprecise.
Clarity is obscurity.

Distance is not a measure.
I need you to be woolly with words.

Only The

incompetent do their jobs properly.
Ensure you are only partly trained.

Half skilled emergency services save lives.
It’s what you don’t know that counts.

Amateurs are the only professionals.
Fully trained and experienced cause accidents.

Complete competency leads to lack of trust.
Once experienced you are useless to society.

Successful people are always trainees.
They are oil in the cogs, ensure smooth running.

Mistakes ensure a job is done thoroughly.
They ensure society is rectified.

Be Promising

There are no promises.
Money does not exist.
Nothing to breach.
No agreements or vows.

One can never be broken.
You can never be on one.
No laws, no lines can’t be crossed.
You promise not to promise.

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

This Poem Must Be Taken Literally

My body is a rainbow
My blood is an explosion
My heart is a rusty cage
These are not metaphors

Please take this literally
That cloud is my opinion
That road is an orange
That wish is my house
That burnt toast is my belonging

These are not metaphors
This hand is a metal spade
This foot is a knife edge
This mouth is a dark valley
These words are made of light

This is not a poem
This is the ultimate answer.
This tells you how to live
This tells you the only truth

This Mop And Bucket

are poetry to me.
My pen is a mop

I stick in a bucket
of disinfectant floor cleaner

pull out mop sodden
with words and splash

them backwards and forwards
slop lines one after the other

Until the floor fair shines,
My mop is dry, needs another dip.

I squeeze out the gunk
back into the bucket.

More the floor shines,
dirtier the bucketful gets.

A good poem is a clean floor.

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

. reading for anna .

 

carrying the book, gently,
i find that jesus
is off the wall again.

breeze from the doors
blows him and cobwebbed minds
away,
as i write the small book,
on black keys of words.

gentle here this morning,
sun dreams in,
quiet in all the rooms,
and arms held high,
i come into the morning,
with string and sealing wax.
sbm.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

.valley of the widow.

grey day, rain.
squeaky bath taps.
this is the valley
of the widow.

this is the day.
writing the wall,
trees stand tall.

yellow flags, the route,
to another place

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

There Is Someone

There is someone who talks to me
And keeps me waiting-
If only I could see The Spirit
Which I feel close by, yet so far

A bar on thoughts and actions,
I cannot think because my mind is quiet
And not moving or stirring
Lest the sweet words of The Spirit
May not find their way in-
And I may crush the tender layer thin

In between which keeps us bound,

I cannot let go the joy
I have found in my heart
at hearing the mellifluous melody
of the affectionate aura around,

which seeps into my soul to make peace
and washes smoothly away the tears
and the fears so deep,
I can now sleep with ease

For I cannot speak of the
Good Night Prayer
That descends in time so rare
my soul, to repair

And I cannot say that if I wake
Life may be like a snow flake
White and pure and sure, as
The Angels will come to Heaven, take.

© 2018, Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans)

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

 

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“Vincent Van Gone” … and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

 “I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone.”  Nikolai Gogol

The heartening responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, the hanged man, May 30, which asked what people – well-known or not – inspire us. Thanks to poets Lisa Ashley, Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Sheila Jacobs, Sonja Benskin Mesher and Marta Pombo Sallés responded with work that is both beautiful and heartfelt.  Thanks to Sonja and Marta for also sharing their illustrations.

Welcome to the multi-talented Clarissa Simmens, making her debut here with Austisophobia.

I must also draw your attention to John Anstie’s homage to his stepmom, One of a Kind.  Read it HERE.

Enjoy! … and don’t forget to visit these poets and get to know them and to join with us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are encouraged to share their work on theme.

AUTISOPHOBIA

Most people fear me
Now that I’ve confessed
My autism
Despite the internet
And other fonts of info
They think we all melt down
And want to commit violence
On anyone blocking our path
Even if we only know them virtually
When the main thing
We on the spectrum share
Is our despair
That we are unlovable
To others
Merely because
We don’t know
The right words to say
Or the correct facial expression
When we are thinking of what was said
And what we’d like to convey
I dislike pity
So when things get sad
I go into Warrior Mode
A secret code
That bids me to lift my head
Love myself
And most days (and nights) I do
But there are times
When I watch as others
Shower kudos on their
Sisters and Brothers
The Neurotypical
Who fit in
While the Neurodiverse
Like me
Suffer the penalty
Of being different…

(c) 2018 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) (Poeturja)

CLARISSA SIMMENS (Poeturja)  Clarissa Simmens is an Independent poet; Romani drabarni (herbalist/advisor); ukulele and guitar player; wannabe song writer; and music addict. Her poetry is written simply, striving to compose musically, including talking blues, folktales, and memoirs of life. Facebook and Amazon. (photo © Clarrissa Simmens)

I have health and body challenges. This simply written narrative “homage” is trying to capture how it might be for my “Swim Buddy” and the thoughts that cross my mind about him as I swim and work out in the water. I hold nothing but admiration for him.

Swim Buddy

One random day he fell off a ladder.
Paralyzed on impact
never to walk again, they said.

What year ago did he appear
young man in a wheelchair
rolling into the water?

How many hours has he fought
his struggles unknown
to the likes of you and me?

What year did he appear one day,
legs booted and braced,
swaying from side to side?

He swims laps beside me most days now,
offers to loan his special chair—
my surgery is coming soon.

Some months with walker & cane for me,
sticks & braces for him forever,
we park side by side in the disabled spots.

We cross paths in the grocery aisle
sneaking looks at what we’ve chosen,
both leaning on our carts, canes tucked in.

He is greeted by many, a strange notoriety,
his story known on the island.
How many times a day does he say, I’m okay?

We speak hello by the locker room
noting the weather, he’s finished early today.
I don’t ask. We go our separate ways,
he to his truck, me to the water.

© 2018, Lisa Ashley

vincent van gone

john wayne took
kirk douglas to task
for playing vincent van gogh
“play real men, not queers”
is only lightly edited for conciseness

but vincent was a real man
not a very pleasant man
but none can deny that fierce passion
that took him to the coal mines as a lay preacher
and gave him to live as the miners did
In the wretchedest of poverty
(he was soon fired, of course,
for misrepresentation of a proper preacher)

humiliation and scorn were his daily lot
the townsfolk called him “crazy red”
and he lived squalidly

but he was a dreamer alchemist
and he distilled an elixir
of hurtsoul and seethy seeing
from his churning core
and spread the elixir on canvases

he is gone but not
rectangles of his psyche remain

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

 

I see the unexpected generosity of so called “ordinary people” as remarkable:

Caravan (Please Take Change)

Three women in the queue
The first empties her packed trolley.

Do you need any carrier bags?
I ask.

Three to start with. I have to sort out
What we’re taking in the caravan.
Why did I buy so much?

Help packing?

Yes please while I empty this.

We’ll do it for you offers one of the other women.
We’d love a caravan holiday. Don’t take up much space.

Five carrier bags full later she says. I’ll have to fetch my car round. I’ll never carry all this.

We’ll carry it for you. We’ve only got these odd goods propose the other two women.

I can’t have you doing that.
Yes you can.

A caravan of women carry bags
out the door.

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

“Don’t let it get away!”
my sister shouts as my Dad’s hot air
wrapped in rubber flaps up
over the ocean
in a cross gust.

We both climb in to steady it.
“We’re going out too far!
“I can’t see mum and dad.”
She shouts clambering back out.

She grasps the rope to pull
it forward but gust is too strong.
She lets rope go. “I’m going
back.” she shouts and swims away.

I try to paddle but gust is against me.
I get out, grab the rope, try to haul,
the current is against me. I climb
back in. Watch the beach, and mum
and dad disappear, till there is only
the gusted, grey green waves.

It is cold. In my trunks I curl
into a question mark
in the rubber dinghy.

Suddenly, a shout. A huge hand
gathers me and dinghy up.
I rise into air. Lifted
into a smelly fishing boat.

“Thought tha wa lost their lad.”
the sea god says.

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

Pied Wagtail

As I pack another’s bag
He says ” I were a packer

down pit. Tha’d have made
a good packer.”

I set each odd shaped stone
in place to hold back debris
hold up the pit roof so others
may have space to work.

As I pack her bag
She says “Aren’t they beautiful.
The pied wagtails”

She watches their skitter
and bob outside the shop
window. “My dad was

a blacksmith in the pits.
Well, he was a farrier,

But when they got rid
of the ponies he became
a blacksmith. He allus

told me Pied Wagtails
nested in pit prop piles
stacked outside the pit.”

My pit prop holds up
the roof that others
may safely work.

The pits are all closed
their memories are all open,
a black and white skitter and bob.

Packer:

Pack – Roof support made of stone. Large stones at the front, built up like a dry stone wall.
Packer (1) – One deployed to build the pack walls and fill behind with debris.
Packer (2) – A big piece of stone to use in the pack wall.
Packing – Act of building a pack wall and filling a void.
Packhole – Void at coal face to stow dirt either or both sides of the gate from the ripping lip.

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

Showing them

i.m.Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis 1929-1993

They discussed her wardrobe for Texas.
Simple, elegant outfits, Jack suggested
especially on the Dallas trip – to show
those fur-hugging diamond -dripping
dowagers what good taste really was.

She showed them: chose a pink Chanel
suit, navy blouse and matching pill box
hat laid out the night before, accessories
hidden while she smiled to crowds along
Elm Street, waved a white-gloved hand.

When he frowned,suddenly,slumped
forward in the heat’s glare she hunkered
down, cradled his broken head in her lap,
scrambled across the limousine’s trunk
with white kid gloves polka-dotted red.

She lay on the back seat, her body draped
over his, wouldn’t let go until she reached
the Trauma Room of Parkland Hospital;
sat outside,refused to remove her gloves,
relinquish any more of him to strangers.

She showed them, showed the world as
L.B.J.swore the Oath of Allegiance on Air
Force One and she stood at his side, wore
blood-stained stockings and snags of dried
grey matter on her shocking-pink suit.

© 2018, Sheila Jacob

.the bull box.

 

i read Glyn Hughes, sometimes.

sometimes, i look at the photograph,

and wonder how it was that last year;

think of

how you wrote to me, sent

me your book

with a private inscription.

© 2018, poem and illustrations (below), Sonja Benskin Mesher

176210_10150167580116177_5315279_o.jpg

 

jon lord

the words came clearly, shining,

by the kettle early. knowing

i must write,.disappearance on

the stairs, may they drift in later

like a moth, soft and quietning.

now i write nothing, just

the shapes and patterns,

the notes on keys, tapping.

usually the same each morning,

until the differences,

show, and we are challenged.

john lord is gone, his words and sounds

remain.

© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher

I do not have any poem specially dedicated to a famous person for their courage, wisdom or whatever other qualities to admire, but I have a homage to some anonymous people that unfortunately are no longer among us:

Time and Human Cruelty

Time
cannot be changed
or escaped.
Time is a thief,
a friend to no one
and every day is
a gift.

You cannot change time
or travel back
to reverse those things which
should never have taken place.
People killed for no reason
or
is there ever a reason
to kill other human beings?

Those people did not get lost.
When you’re lost you’ll sooner or later
find the way back.
Or perhaps not.
But you’re not erased from Earth.

Those people were killed,
just a few compared to other countries
in our world.
None of them will ever return
to the world as we know it.
They’ve just been removed too soon,
swept away by the cruelty of others:
white supremacists, Muslim terrorists …

But which governments are orchestrating
such massacres in our world?
Who’s feeding the monsters
is equally a monster.

Let’s tackle the root of the problem.
Only this way we’ll be able to say:
I am not afraid!

Time and human cruelty
are friends to no one:
Charlottesville, Barcelona, Cambrils
and many more.
The outcome is always the same.

© 2018, poem and illustration, Marta Pombo Sallés (Moments)

2nd poem: A tribute to a Catalan allegorical figure, the Pescallunes, a moon fisherboy, and to those anonymous people following his example:

Moon fisherboy

Someone unplugged and unscrewed
the moon and the stars.
They were stolen away from us
and we were left with a dark blanket,
covering the surface of the Earth,
under which we must live our lives.

Amid the darkness, in the sky
of a salted night, some of us
sit by the same old sea,
or mountain, or field, or by that river,
where once a sickle moon reflected itself.

Soft wind combs the lonely fields
of broken dreams.

Some of us search for the lost moon and stars,
electricians looking for some spare parts
to screw and plug in again in our hearts,
in the sky of illusions.

Some of us have brushes in our hands
starting the repair job,
painting a new landscape.

Someone plugs in the sun
and when the night comes again
stars and moon begin to shine anew.

The mirror of the sickle moon
reappears on the river waters.

As the ancient legend tells
a fisherboy wants to fish the moon
and put it in his bucket.

Someone laughs at him
and at the impossibility.
But deep inside the boy knows
he is a pescallunes,
a moon fisherboy,
like any other inhabitant
of that small Catalan village.

The fisherboy knows deep inside
our world needs more moon catchers
like you and me,
people with plenty of illusions,
dreams and projects.

© 2018, poem and illustration, Marta Pombo Sallés (Moments)

And the 3r poem is again an allegory or personification:

silent-love-vs-boasting-vanity

A long time ago
I got used to living with
My open wounds,
The last withered while
I was staring at the sunset
In the middle of the fog.

Yes, you told me so many times
About your suffering,
How your heart shrunk
Fisted in bleeding red
While your eyes tasted
The salt of the ocean waves
And cristal pearls were running
Down your cheeks.

On that plane you felt
The freezing coldness
Where just one thing
Would not freeze:
The fountain of your tears.

Yes, indeed I remember
All the pain on that plane.
You sent me back to the
Land of rejection.

Yet I am a resilient rock
With my withered wounds
That I carry since ancient times
On this eroded earth.

But to exist is to resist
And so I dwell in human hearts
Who care for each other.
And may I receive your boasting waves
Crashing on my shores
Those hearts will restore me again
For I am silent love and not vain.

© 2018, poem and illustration, Marta Pombo Sallés (Moments)

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