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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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“among small things yesterday” and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

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

like her food
turning cold
it is only
new

within the essence
of the moment

© 2017, Renee Espriu  (Just Turtle Flight and Inspiration, Imagination & Creativity with Wings, Haibun, ART & Haiku)

Reminds

herself to use her legs when pulling out weeds so she don’t get pain in her back

aggravated by weight of cat litter bags she puts in her tartan shopping trolley

when she meets her friend Flora in town
to share a tuna salad homemade

by Sully the African refugee in the local cafe.

© 2017, Paul Brookes   (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

Bairns Are Old Codgers

Before I get taken to play at my soft playcentre,
my one year granddaughter toddles with her zimmer frame.

Later we will take her to the memory cafe
where she’ll remember her past lives.

“Hard”, of before dawn and midnight hours:
A welder in the Clyde shipyard, 1942.

“Stinks that,” she says of the steel shavings, and Swarfega.
“Heavy”, of the hammer…

A kitchen servant in a big house.
“Hurts”, of calloused pestle and mortared deferment…

I’m all giddy at tumble down
slides, scramble nets and ballpools.

© 2017, Paul Brookes   (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

Sausage

roll flaky pastry diagnostics.
Watch your stop motion self

on cafe CCTV dance on chessboard
squares black and white faux marbled

floor. Reflection in glass as check your hair over fresh baguettes or bottled citrus.

“Don’t You Want Me, Baby” pumped
over speakers amid oven beeps and bleeps.

Blow on Sausage roll for barefoot baby
strapped in pram for the ride of its life.

© 2017, Paul Brookes   (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

..among the small things yesterday..

was a larger thing, not world news, happily,
not somethinhg to chew over.

amongst the colours, the gifts, the tiny cup,
cracked, collectable, among the people
at the friday club is friendship, a bigger
thing.

quarry cafe.

although many of us like smaller items,
we have grown to know that close friends
are a quite very big, important thing in a
life. small life.

© 2017, Sonia Benskin Mesher  (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA and Sonja’s Drawings)

One pub too many

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

© 2017, Iulia Gherghei (Sky Under Construction)

when we look at another person

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

it’s all a matter of gaze
and the content thereof

© 2017, Colin Blundell (Colin Blundell, All and Everything)

#O!The Cafe Owner#

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 …….

© 2017, Kakali Das Ghosh

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY