Category Archives: The Pen

Creativity Stymied

allpoetry prompt – word bank: curtain, serpentine, sentinel, noble, unbound, crystal, finite, reverberate

form – etheree

circling,
serpentine thoughts
slither, a sentinel searching
for cohesive nerve connections;
unable to place two words together.
The curtains of the heart shut, no noble
endeavor this. Frustration unbound, needing
one crystal clear chorus, a prayer that
creativity won’t prove finite with
broken edges the mind ever
falls from, unending
reverberation of
failure.

Outside The Garden

allpoetry prompt – nightside of eden

We live out our days
on the nightside of eden,
banished from the garden.
Left to cold, dark, and pain

We wait impatient
for the last sunrise,
that signals homecoming;
that trumpets the gate song.

We toil for things that
never bring peace.
We love frail people
that forever disappoint.

We strive for growth
that never hits the mark;
a people breathing need
for a place we can’t remember.

We love imperfect,
with less desire than
needed to lift us
high enough to be loved.

We wait sleepless
through the long night,
shivering and longing
for the gardener to wake us.

The Princess of Lettuce

allpoetry prompt: significant memory

working as a salad girl
just a kid myself
busy Sunday afternoon
kitchen humming waitresses in black
and white swinging in and out
through doors with balanced trays
and tips in their pockets
you walk in with your dad and I stop curious
customers are not a kitchen fixture
but you are being led and I hear him ask
can you hear this and smell that
then he describes the beautiful princess
dressed in white
and smiles at me before leading you out
and I was glad you could not see
clown princess mascara running
down little girl cheeks
blindly scooping lettuce into plastic bowls

Against The Tide

allpoetry prompt:  against a pier and the ragged fingers of ten thousand waves

When one man stands strong
he is a pier jutting out
into the ocean of humanity.
He interrupts
the course just enough to effect
the flow to shore, as the waves
of daily life
divide and go around him.
The shore
is breached from a new angle,
and deflected back to the sea,
following the altered path.
Though small, you can see the effects
ripple outward as he changes the tide
forever.

Nanowrimo Part Deux

I had just about decided to not participate at all this year.  I have been concentrating on writing poetry and just didn’t think I would have the time.  I have started an outline and it just kept whispering to me so I have signed on.

I do not plan to make the push for 50,000 words this year.  If it happens, fine, but I am going to concentrate on working a bit slower and trying to write well instead of just a lot.  Nanowrimo will help me be accountable and my word count will go to the region I am affiliated with so I don’t see a downside.  My word count will show on the meter on my blog page but it will not rule November for me this year.

Ice Flow

allpoetry.com prompt: “Life goes on even when you feel frozen in time”

there is no silence like ice
everyone moving slowly
as though under water
I watch them pass
and wonder
shrinking
to the size
of the hour that
gives no quarter
drags on into days
and stuck, I keep watching

Naked Moon

allpoetry prompt: you disrobed the moon

We are on to you
coy beauty!
Shyness?
Only showing yourself
after dark but
then that light,
the glow that catches
the eye and draws
us to watch.
Night by night,
in front of all those stars,
you do a slow dance
teasing, just a little hint
at first, as though you
haven’t already decided.
Hiding in the day,
making us wait,
until naked, you smile
and beckon,
wanton, no blushing
virgin.
You’ve done this before.

Nightfall

Sunday Scribbling prompt: intense

Shadows grow long teeth
Claws scrape asphalt
Bloodless moon drips pallor
Cool sweat crawls down
hunched back
pooling in the small
Flightless wings
Naked hands cover
Sightless eyes as
nothing drowns out
Spirit mutters
Branches moan in
Stillness magnified creaking
Sneaking home

One

First attempt at poetry in the form of a pleiades

One lone star before the dawn,
Only singing morning song.
Own the sky until the sun
opens eyes and light has won.
Obeying gravitational laws,
Ocean tides rotational cause,
Offering beauty as I pause..

“PLEIADES: This titled form was invented in 1999 by Craig Tigerman, Sol Magazine’s Lead Editor. Only one word is allowed in the title, followed by a single seven-line stanza. The first word in each line begins with the same letter as the title.”

Words In My Coffee

Just a ramble – don’t look for a deeper meaning.  It isn’t there.

Paschal’s in the kitchen
cooking up pork and bean dreams
while Jae roams lost internal landscapes
got me to thinking sinking under
the weight of the words
that come whether they fall on
the paper of stay in the light
I’m just trying to make
sense of it all on a green sky night
write it for Sunday
write it for Wednesday
it don’t matter when it comes
to the end they just
don’t hear you and it’s not real
clear to you why all the words
jump off the page and jumble
in dark recesses excesses of pathos
angst oh just say it out drama bout
the commas where they go and
how you use them sets it all up
you went to the wizard but
he didn’t have much to say
hurts my head that being said
they all just holding out
reaching out leaching out all
the soft cream center leaving nothing
but the hard shell coating voting you
off the page the stage the wages of all
the sinners storing up for winter
ought to share to care to swear they
will they won’t they lie inside the ride
is bumpy roads are paved with gold
but it’s tough digging and you
got to want it bad you had it and
let it slip right through your fingers
lingered a little too long at the table
it’s all scraps now scrape the plates
the late comers warm summers
bubble gummers with their boots on
trampling out the vintage singing out
the rage of plague of latest generation
thought we knew it too but in the end
the answers get all muddy waters
rising analysts apprising us of coming
trends preachers ends mission sends
us all out to the ether nether whether
you like it or not we all just children
all just keepers of brothers and secrets
and mothers rocks their babies watch
them grow and go and march off to the
world to sow the seeds of just another
turn of the screw the world the furled flag
of drag it through the years and
come out smelling like a rose
the thorns the close of every play
ends with a bow they say
no Saturday complete without
the matinee the mellow drama
fellow man my brother sister
twist her up in knots she bends
spindles and mutilates her brain
but rain will wash it all away
the play’s the thing the wing
the heights just leap don’t keep it
under cover hover over all the
rooftop steep drop shop what a fall
we all land here sooner or later
alligator ab initio
then the chorus
amen

I Wait

It’s been awhile since I have written anything for Three Word Wednesday and this is very late, even for me but here goes.

Also for AllPoetry contest Janis Ian “In The Winter”

Three Word Wednesday Prompt: Absolve, Hiss, Ridicule

The hiss of the teakettle
the tick of the clock
I carefully place the teabag
in the cup
and wait

through the window
dim winter light
sneaks through
and ridicules the midnight
in my heart

Chance meeting
polite inquiry
absolves you
and I cover myself
in cotton quilts
and wait

Coyote Dreams

brother coyote whispered a howl
turned off the tv, news all bad anyhow
left piney woods set out for road
the road that leads to horizons past
the angry majority cloistered in cul de sacs
eating sacks of snacks with racks of clothes
closeted in shacks lacking love I’m
thinking, a snarl, a growl I listen now
Coyote said “come closer Jack.”
it was whack, talking smack, walking
through a dry wash with bird squawking
the mountains ahead I was led red sky
hiding day setting, blood letting, climbed
miles and days and rays of flaming sun that
frozen doubt, against  snow that blows
and burns and turns me inside out
coyote tunes were sung.  I followed desert swallows
sent ahead to scout coyote ruins
under indigo moons we saw the planes
dropping money, money burning
money turning, turning all the wheels the
love it steals coyote laughs and laughs
he knows  it’s only moonlight
moonshine in his eyes through
clouds yellowed with age, the page
the story coyote told is written on the desert
and erased by one small drop of rain
but I’ll keep walking singing
stringing dreams and schemes
coyote seems to know but only shows
me what I want to hear and I am lost
the desert swallows up the cost
of walking with coyote

prompt: indigo, desert, Jack, drop of rain, lost

The Rest Of Time

allpoetry contest prompt: as time settled against itself

sun poured out
dregs of summer sauce
and heavy lidded
heavy limbed
I watch it cease
the moment stretched
and curled up
on the grass
tiny pink tongue preened
as time settled against itself
softly purring

If You Saw Me

allpoetry contest prompt: if you saw me

and if you loved me
my flesh would not be
bruised from trying to
fit your iron mold
my inmost heart of
center part of who
I am
would sing and
you would find the harmony
line that drifts waiting
to be anchored by
your acceptance

My Birthday Present

you must have stayed up
all night measuring and
figuring, pencil behind your ear
computations, calculations
formulating postulations
defying my imagination
geometry of fantasy
each drop of dew
placed for effect, reflect
refract the light as you
stepped into place you
found your mark and
pear trees stopped
their falling you were
calling and they struck a pose
and turned to stone
shadows thrown across
the field to cover over
hover on the grass the light
bright glass as stones
exquisitely cut and set
to let the dazzle soar and
roar a thousand times through
human eyes and I could hear
the bluebird wings
in silence I would bow
my head and thank you for
the grace to know that you
will be here every morning
but this one day was mine
and you were warming
all just for me

Our Children

still mulling over challenge day stuff.  this feels incomplete…maybe because my thoughts are still incomplete.

Maybe it can count for Sunday Scribbling prompt flashback as it came from flashes of conversations from earlier in the week

We are standing on your corners
with our arms held open wide.
We are running down your hallways.
We are burying your pride.

We are asking why we hunger
while you have more than you need.
We are crying in the darkness,
while you comfortably sleep.

We are walking to the bus stop.
We are playing in the street.
We are mirrors you won’t look at.
You’re a game that we can’t beat.

We can’t meet your expectations.
We don’t even know the rules.
If you think that we don’t see you,
you are shallow, empty fools.

We are growing strong and angry.
We are prices you can’t pay.
You think things will never change,
but we know there’ll come a day.

We don’t love the things that you love.
We resent the things you buy.
You have traded things for our blood,
and your children see and cry.

We are more like them than you are,
and you threw us all away.
You have treated us like garbage,
and you shake your head and say

“We don’t understand your hatred.”
“We don’t get why you don’t care.”
“Don’t you value other people?”
“Is there nothing you will share?”

“Won’t you take care of your children?”
“Won’t you work to get your own?”
“Don’t you dream of doing better,
eating meat, instead of bone?”

We are only what you taught us,
when you turned and looked away,
busy with your grown up dreams –
sleeping dogs no longer lay.

Will you weep for what you once knew?
Will you cry and wonder why?
Will you wish you had done better?
Will you mourn for what has died?

Starlight Dancing

First attempt at a Quatern

http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/quatern.html

technically not quite right – need to work on the syllable count, but cool to learn about a new form (at least new to me)

In the starlight I see dancing
shades of silken blue and green
poets chancing on the darkness
wishing for the words come falling

closing eyes to pain and sadness
in the starlight I see dancing
smallest lights that draw us closer
hear the heaven’s chorus calling

bringing nothing in my hands
eyes raised to the moonlit night
in the starlight I see dancing
synapse follow nerves go prancing

joining in I write with finger
poised above what clouds have woven
symphony of moons enhancing
in the starlight I see dancing

I Am Warmed

I am warmed and blessed
by this quilt
I wrap around me
against the night winds
covered in words
of others fingers poised
over other keyboards

pieces shaped and fit together
weaving a fabric luminous dreamed
and stitched sometimes
with tight perfect
aligned never daring to diverge
some raucous with joyous abandon
screaming colors radiant

this piece on the corner was left
by a heart in pain who’s story
wept the warp and weft of
patchwork life sewn together
of bits and flesh and bone
not so pretty but it holds
knotted strength

there is a star embroidered finest gold
on a deep blue velvet
rich with joy and confused
how can it shine alone
but shining anyway
because stars do
what stars do

his words the red and orange
slashes angry stormy bright
she sets lace and lilac
oh so carefully asking please
he cuts stacks of woolen sturdy
she wraps flannel around her head
and rocks and sings

I smooth this cover gently
fingering material of memory
slowly memorizing favorites
wanting to choose my own parts
to be blessed and in return bless
the hearts that sew their row
on row and watch as all are

warmed like me
by work of hands
lives pieces
hearts colors