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“as you take the road to Paradise” … and other poems by reader poets in response to last Wednesday’s prompt

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT May 24, 2017: Tell us in poem or prose what it feels like to be you on your best day.

It’s always interesting to see how different are the responses to the same prompt. Bravo, poets!  Enjoy, readers! J.D.

as you take the road to Paradise 

about half-way there
you come to an inn
which even as inns go is admirable

you go into the garden of it
and see the great trees and the wall
of Box Hill* shrouding you all round

it is beautiful enough (in all conscience)
to arrest you without the need of history
or any admixture of pride of place

but as you sit in a seat in the garden
you are sitting where Nelson sat
when he said goodbye to Emma;

if you move a yard or two you will be
where Keats sat biting his pen
thinking out some new line of poem

  • Box Hill is in Surrey, England. It is my ‘soul home.’

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

Glistening Bits of Gold

On a day where time stands still she sees
each quintessential increment of time
like the sun hitting tiny seed pods that
have fallen on the street glistening as
tiny bits of gold sparkling as jewels
that offset the black asphalt street
turning the harsh landscape of tar into
that of a black silken cape waiting
to be garnered by nature’s queen as
she strolls the avenue bending only
momentarily to gaze lovingly at all that
she has made from the beauty of flowers
orange as the poppy to that of the shrubs
close to the ground shading tiny insects
to the majesty of towering evergreens
she becomes entwined in the moment and
she is ensconced and feels content

©2017, Renee Espriu (Renee Just Turtle Flight)

::these days ::

are longer now, i feel younger now,

i am older. we do so many things.

we are no longer afraid.

make the best of summer days,

winter follows.

he remarked that it was

good enough for the

chelsea flower show.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA)

♥

27 May ( another day in paradise )

we walked the stone,

he kept the place special, closed a while,

is open now . as the sky clears

through willow arches, white calves

and butterflies.

he cuts the shrubs, hedges, and rakes the path tidy.

it is arthur’s stone.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA)

My Summer Town zoom

Zoom in to gold world,
on green metal celebratory gate
in centre of town between the shops

Look at it’s green metal pictures.
an old pump, miners lamp,
glass bottles, cricket/tennis bats,
canal boat navigates nothing

Rain constellations bus window,
cars backwash tarmac,
droplets break tension ripples natural birdbath.

Squashed plastic blue pen,
empty grey fag packet,
lobbed lottery ticket
middle of road
revelation.

Empty black/red polystyrene
Coke Zero cup circles
street middle black/white fat cat
waddles across road life design.

After nimbus drops
inhale moss
like marine pool kelp
after wave sea breeze fresh glowing Wombwell by the sea.

Pigeons, spuggys
shadow puppetry streets, houses.
Tarmac warm shivers.
Radiant windows flash mirror
passing traffic.

Evening spitting,
growling, flaming,
fluid lads/lasses on heat,
short shirts tempers.
This is the barbecue.

backyard, eye swag silver,
two joy, pica pica purplish-blue
iridescent sheen
wing feather green gloss tail.

On train squeal chatter,
vivid, green, blue, beavers,
cubs, scouts, ventures
anarchy in uniform.

Unshaven bald man,
open green raincoat,
brown leather shoes,
hauls local paper
packed lime green trolley.

Old folk bench gab,
mothers stroll babies
down funeral paths
eye gambolling squirrel,
cemetery a parkland.

Blackbird gob skyward
atop Victorian six pointed
terracotta Crown top
chimney pot
trills red brick streets

bright yellow sharp
edged box hedge sun
cracked pavements
yellow metal skip
blocks alleyway
All sun snogged

Bright cemetery leaves
behind dark,

bakers window 6 loaves,
one burnt,
nurse boards bus,
‘I was miles away’

Sunstruck leaf bunch
drips bright molten
green glass, other leaves
luminescent silver stars
in green matter, shade cut.

Patient silver hubcap
rests under stone cemetery wall
behind blue bus stop halo,
full moon fall: day waits.

Shadows pass over bus
as if it is stop motion animated.
I get on the animation.
Hand held camera
glare work journey.

Town a small canvas tent
unzipped tied back crowcall,
fragrant grass, earth close,
sun blue. Is on holiday

light quality early noon
than morning, 3 patient
full brown potato bags
by grocers,
cloud dispersal pend

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow)

Jamie’s THE WORDPLAY SHOP: books, tools and supplies for poets, writers and readers

 

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“the doctrine” and other poems in response to the most recent Wednesday Writing Pompt

The last Wednesday Writing Prompt, May 10: Words have power to hurt, heal, fool, free or nourish. They have weight. Sometimes a word – worthy in its way – is just not right for an occasion or circumstance … or for your latest poem or story. It doesn’t meet the test of your vision; but you believe  the right word will come to you. You work at it, play with it and sometimes wait quietly, as an invitation of sorts, until the perfect word arrives and speaks to you, the word that you know will speak to others as well.

What are the stale words – the inadequate words – you hear used to describe something you value? What words are better or best? Tell us in prose or poem.

. words needed .

alongside gestures of despair,

may communicate thought

better. or worse?

so lets be singular

enjoy our own space,

and be friends, forever.

she says that you

cannot see some people’s souls,

perhaps we need to look harder.

there is a lot going on.

© 2017, sbm.

:: those words again ::

rather a lot of words were said in friendship.

yesterday.

good words.

#writing for jamie.

words on health and well

being.

recovered, we admired

the socks, little boots.

she knew who i meant, a small

description. the bluebells are down

the road she told us.

kind words come in memory and subjected

elements.

some folk cannot connect other than eyes

while some utter such kind words; honey

and furry bears.

© 2017, sbm (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA)

the doctrine 

of inevitable progress –
the present the highpoint
of cultural and personal development –
the ancestors treated with condescension
the thinkers ignored unread
(those who told it how it really is) –

the present (so they say – the powerful ones
in their powerful ignorance) is
the threshold to a Golden Age –
provided you accept our
version of events…

tissues of false imagery
& abstraction

progress is the ghost
of a big black dog
cocking its leg against the lamp-posts
of infinite dark streets –
a convenient construct;
an unsubtle trick of the imagination;
a laying of eggs
in a basket that does not exist

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

“This comes from my collection The Recovery of Wonder (2013)
I focused on ‘words that fool’ and remembered this one. There are many words that fool, especially abstractions. The way to recognise an abstraction is to wonder whether you could put whatever the word is supposed to represent into a wheelbarrow. You could put a pound of apples in a wheelbarrow but what about ‘justice’, ‘beauty’, ‘love’, ‘democracy’, and in this case ‘progress’?” Colin

Being Unpolished and Knowing

Like strands of pearls uncultured, unconnected
they lie strewn at your feet tantamount to words
discarded and useless unable to be linked as one
until something more refined comes along

she knows this every moment of every day speaking
is broken by hesitation, pauses and frustration
like diamonds rough from nature not yet expertly cut
by the jeweler’s hand in minuscule sharp detail

something like disparate but not really the same
just as peculiar is not exactly being self-serving
for who can say she is not the bowels of that same venue
as she compiles opinions based on incomplete knowing

she ultimately sees herself on the fringe of everything
and anything but peculiar touting her uniqueness as
that of shrewdly knowing but like that of the pearls
as that of the diamond she too can be unpolished

© 2017, Renee Espiru (Renee Just Turtle Flight)

No Words

Like Light On A Needle

light shivers on a cobweb strand
between curved lace frills
of a woven white table cloth
in a spring front room.

Glare of harsh words
incandescent behind watery eyes
focus on insignificant details
as each of us folds our legs
away from the other

in the silence
below the radio songs
below the doppler
of cars and people outside
waves break up sunglint
on a pebbled shore

Don’t Read

this sentence.

Don’t understand this meaning.
Don’t interpret this link between words.

Don’t interrogate each word
as having a separate existence
from this context.

Don’t recall where you first heard,
or read these words as they
have no history.

They have not been written before.
They are new born, awaiting meaning.
They need maturity to fit in correctly.

Will have their wild times in places
where they shouldn’t be, next to words
they will be embarrassed to recall.

Second Fiddle

Always the presence
never in the presence of…

Always carries the coat,
never owns the coat.

Always opens the door to…
never for whom it is opened.

Always the ghost…
never the blood and sinew.

Always mouths other’s words
never mouth’ own.

Always imitative
never innovative.

Always derivative
never different enough….

First Fiddle

never in the presence…
Always the presence

never carries the coat,
Always owns the coat

never opens the door to…
Always for whom it is opened

never the ghost…
Always the blood and sinew

never mouths others words
Always mouths own

never imitative
Always innovative

never derivative
Always different enough….

Finding

Chat to the motor museum curator
at his post behind the counter.

“Have to bring my wife. She was into bikes, and can remember every…”

He looks at me.

“every…”

I am an idiot.

“Those things with numbers and letters on the front of cars?”

“Number plates”.

He replies with sharp sarcasm,
and no smile.

The older I get
what were once obvious words arrive less
and less when and where I need them.

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow)

From Mike Stone (Uncollected Works) via comment)

“I’m reading an excellent book, “To the End of the Land” by Israeli author David Grossman. I just came across a review of the book that does good justice to Grossman’s latest novel (http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/a-wayward-eulogy), but I wanted to mention just one of the many pearls in his book: “… Do you mean these paths speak Hebrew? Are you saying language springeth out of the earth? …” I loved the idea that our languages spring from the land that our forefathers and descendants live and die in, that Hebrew and Arabic have exactly the right sounds to onomatopoeicly express the realities of the Middle East. Of course the English poems I write about Israel can never really capture the essence of this land, unfortunately for me. My ears were formed by the backwoods of Ohio and Indiana. I feel like Moses standing on Nebo Peak seeing Israel from afar, but unable to enter it. I am in Israel, but in some other dimension of it.”

THE WORDPLAY SHOP: books, tools and supplies for poets, writers and readers

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our prison of lost hope, a poem … and your Wednesday Writing Prompt

i admit, it’s so tender, unspoiled
tongue forages for the right words ~
they always carry the light of Spirit,
always merge with the mind and
the heart, always temper and
stir, if you use the right ones,
if you use them the right way,
the way of what we call honest,
durable and full of life, words
that speak in every moment,
to every heart; but words come
stale and dry, jejune or threadbare
devitalized, dull and unimaginative,
pondering – something authentic?
constant, colorful … all that and ..
buoyant, fresh – Yes! the right word,
vibrant and fearless clarifies vision and
frees us from our prison of lost hope

“Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like rain.”  Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

© 2014, poem and photograph, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

THE WORDPLAY SHOP: books, tools and supplies for poets, writers and readers

We continue with the current 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.

LESSON EIGHTEEN, Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.“Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terror attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden desire that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don’t fall for it.” Prof. Snyder,  On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

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“Eclipsing Rainbows” and other poetic responses to last Wednesday’s prompt

LAST WEDNESDAY’S WRITING PROMPT May 3, 2017 asked “How does wild nature make you feel at the very core of your being? Tell us in prose, poem or even photography.” Below are the works share by other poets in response to this prompt. Thanks to Renee, Sonjia, Colin and Paul for good reading.

Enjoy!

Eclipsing Rainbows

There are moments of clarity drenched in a soul’s peace
where everything is an eclipse of brilliant rainbows
and becoming is like being mirrored images in lakes
where coral reefs are arms cradling infinite oceans
whereupon mountain rising islands are pristine views
touched only by Galapagos creatures of uniqueness

entering into a communion devoid of ritualistic cups
and eyesight becomes like those raptors’ rapturous quest
to make the flight over the highest of mountain ranges
like child’s play when there is a vision to fly along
and wings are the freedom of song birds a narrative song
in chorus with insects accompanied by frogs croaking

perceiving the world in a field of flowers engaging in
the mystery of becoming seeds under dark brown earth
and pushing up toward the brilliance of mother sun to
sprout into every conceivable bloom with stamen covered
with the sweetest of nectar drawing hummingbirds for
their respite and insects unknowing a pollination of life

© 2017,  Renee Espriu (Renee Just Turtle Flight)

::aside::

i cannot live through
stagnant water,
i need oxygene
to survive this life,

to swim in clear
utter glory,
natures sweetest potion,
float among lilied notions

and live readily.

rancid pools a bitter
marriage make,
yellow scum upriver,
comes down reminding
sleepless nights
and half remembering.

running water or amnesia?

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA)

just how is it

that you suddenly feel an urge
to reach for pen & notebook
to record some Great Thought?

some itch of the brain –
grumble of neurons:
the remembering of rolling a little ball of snow
around a winter lawn till it becomes
impossible to manage the times
when you looked up at the night sky
to locate Orion’s Belt

Niord’s horn sounding
over all the bent forest winds
to come to this place here & now
where the river flows in & out
all day & night

moment for picking up
the thread of things once more
making a knot in time

Colin Blundell (Colin Blundell.com)

As I Dive

I make the world.
Become young and lithe.

Turn from bird
to fish, from fish

to a water’s swerve
I am feathered water,

dots and dashes curve
in ash black and flame white

rippled negative sunlight
ribbons over

sleek and sheen,
I swallow pike, perch,

trout, and bass.
An underwater ember.

I clamber on shore
as lumpen land.

I put on years.
My paddles in the wrong

place. They waddle my weight,
a loon. I give birth

clumsily, mumble
a tremolo, yodel,

wail, and hoot
across the waters,

call-up-a-storm.

*******
Let Me Dive Quick White

turbulent eddies,
preen copious oil,

wild silver flows easily
over streamlined
strong legs and feet

pinion rocks under and above.

All black, but for a white bib:
a dinner suit with white

serviette draped from the collar,
dine fresh meat river.

Don’t give me stillness:
stagnant, silent, dead.

Give me bright, loud, lively lilt
so muscle winged and flaps over

closed nostrils, eyelids feather
submerge, strong short bill

tumbles pebbles, sorts meat course
morsels,

momentum immerses
into maelstrom,

barely make wake,

splash in flight,
Rock jump

float on belly,
wings spread like oars.

Revel.

*******

© Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow)

THE WORDPLAY SHOP: books, tools and supplies for poets, writers and readers

We continue with the current 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.

LESSON SEVENTEEN, Listen for Dangerous Words. Be alert to the use of words extremism and terrorism. Be alive to the fatal notions of emergency and exception. Be angry about treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.” Prof. Snyder,  On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century