I’m drowning in
tomato soup
I’ve paddled fast
and furious
but can’t escape
the goop
the eyes, the flies
are watching me
and will not
let me out
I pray that they
don’t fill the spoon
and snort me
through their snout!
Image source:Â http://wallpapers.free-review.net/12_~_My_plate.htm
there are doors
that keep us safe
and doors that
keep us near
and doors to worlds
we wish to see
down paths
so dark and drear
we cannot see
around the bend
the future all unknown
and yet we walk
without a map
and hope
to make it home
all must walk
the path alone
though married
young or old
a hand may make
for comfort now
staving off
the cold
but to the world
we come alone
and leave the
very same
pass through the
veil of sorrow here
leave words
our only fame
image credit: Carmen Spitznagel
going about
the business of life
running and pleasing
never feeling you are enough
breathing constricted
thinking conflicted
you can lay it down
look around
feel the air on your skin
sun warmed a mystery
of cloud shadows
moving over your face
over the valleys of deep
sorrow and peaks
of joyous heights snowbound
where the bristle cone pine
twists around your heart
chases rabbit and raven
and laughter and haven
for all earth just waits
while going about
the business of life
inspired by “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
Written for dVerse
there is tired
and there’s tired
and right now
I am feeling
every stinking sinking
ache and creak
and pain that sneaks
in older bones
like telephones are
calling all the joints and
things are screaming
this is seeming
like it should be
happening to someone
could be maybe older
temper smolders
I’m not that one
I’m not aging
I am raging and not going
with no fighting
let me tell you
I’ll work through it
I am staying and
I’m playing and some
singing
maybe dancing
there’s a party and
I’m hanging I’m not missing
one sweet second
if I have to then
it won’t be graceful
if I go
well then I know
that you will all start
doing fun stuff
so I’m calling
father time’s bluff
stick me up
in that back corner
I’ll be quiet
and just listen
write my stories
and my poems
just a scribble
maybe nibble on a snack
or maybe two
just let me stay
what do you say?
Written for Open Mic Night at dVerse
ejected from polite society
presumed impropriety
how was I to know
and now there’s nothing
left to show but
oily shadows inching away
from salvation
coating grace with heart debris
keeping joy at bay
keeping me down
keeping me sleeping
under cardboard
under fire escapes
that go nowhere
nothing but dead air
and the rat-a-tat
of an impact wrench
around the corner
I am rendered silent
spinning out on waves
of our disconnect
strung out cans
with no string between
slip the grasp
as morning clears
peeling tar paper
revealing concrete
frosted by rusted pipes
I turn my head
make myself small
make myself small
you don’t see me
Three Word Wednesday prompts: eject, impact, render
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8t4Sjmlc-w&feature=related
This gentleman says it much better than I ever could. http://wheneftalks2.blogspot.com/
Image credit: Geir Akselsen
wildness cannot
be tamed
with a whip
just forced to wear
a different hat…
temporarily
fifteen word challenge
for sale
red velvet dress
and diamond earrings
will trade for
comfortable shoes
and teapot
I stand and watch
at even tide
they wait in shadow
of timberline
I watch. they watch
we wait each night
and when the fullness
of the light
lay on the field
in gentle glow
they turn and silent
as the stars
like twilight ghosts
they go
and left alone
in dark to dream
and yet bereft
I turn away
and wonder if
they miss me too
and will they come
tomorrow
curled around hunkered over
covering the soft the pale
the unshelled inner
on the ground all the sound
that beats around my ears
and all I hear is my own screaming
dreaming of a silence deeper
feel the vines, a slippery creeper
wraps and strangles off the breath
my heart, my heart
oh God, my heart
It swells and shrinks and now
I think that it will burst no maybe
not just petrify and calcify the bony cover
pull it over shut the door
stay on the floor it’s safer here
the air is clear and even in the darkness
falling over me just cover me
like angel wings just shelter me
while I am torn just hear my prayer
I let it out a little bit
protecting it while healing happens
you will see the sun will come
I will it – Come! I’ll stand again
and take you with me
hold my hand I know you can
I know you can
You can.
I say this now
and leave it here.
The years of living tell the tale of proof.
A second glance is not enough to know
If all will hold beyond the blush of youth,
with more than memories for each to show.
Through crisis, childbirth, bills and petty fights,
the truest tests of how we’re really made,
Of bed-spanned chilly shouldered angry nights
when words cut deeper than the sharpest blade…
Yet when the dark gives way to clocks and sun,
I know who shares the day throughout the years,
And who will meet me when that day is done,
stick through the heartaches, laughter, even tears
We chose to put down roots in close confine,
As tree limbs over years grew intertwined.
1. 3 quatrains of alternating rhyme and a couplet all written in iambic pentameter. In this sonnet form, the premise of the poem is established in lines 1-8, a turn (or volta) toward its resolution begins at line 9 and the resolution is revealed in lines 13 & 14.
     a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
g g
2. A total of 14 lines,
3. 10 syllables per line.
The main thing I am unsure of is the pentameter. It gives me fits…
Everybody’s doing it dancing it
Shaking it getting down and dirty with it
Bugging out hugging out
The band is really rocking out
The crickets singing back it up
All the little ants will hack it up
Their mandibles will chew it up
The honey bee is sunny
And my money’s on the wasp
With the stinger
She’s a singer gonna put
The hurt upon you
Close your eyes you
Never see her
Only hear and in the clear
It’s not your year the hive
Is buzzing quit your
Fussing stay away from that one
She’s a playa and the preying
That she does is all the buzz but look
At widow she’s in black
And looking fly
But don’t you try she loves
And leaves you
In a web that’s gonna
Weave you right into
The mainline she’s a mantis
And she’ll school you
Then she’ll fool you
Into thinking that you’re
Drinking at the party
Insect madness
Hopping gladness
Think you love her
Her agenda is to end you
She will take and when
She’s sated you are fated
Make your exit from the ball
Her love bite ain’t just a nibble
She wants all and let’s not quibble
Ladybug is nice
And gives the best advice
Just
Fly away just fly away
Fly away home
for a contest on AllPoetry 🙂
also Sunday Scribbling prompt: Plan B
image credit:
In words I am laid bare for all to see
though often more than I would mean to be.
The truths sneak out in thought and crafted phrase,
I hope to hide my soul in verbal haze.
I look between the lines and lose the key
that locked the parts away I would not see.
I’m tangled in the syllable divide,
no hidden meaning ever on my side.
In punctuated periodic ends,
The parenthetic mysteries abound.
I duck below the message that it sends,
Pronounced alive in melody of sound.
working on iambic pentameter…I hope 🙂
* evidently, it is not iambic but it is rhyming quatrain composed in decasyllable…back to school!
When I was young
and the universe sung
past the stars and the moon
in the sky gently hung
I could stretch past the edges
balance freely on ledges
felt the life force within me
honored all of my pledges
Now as I get older
things seem a bit colder
the universe smaller
Those younger seem bolder
the outside world shrinking
but never my thinking
my internal world growing
though outside is sinking
The ground where I stand
may be sinking sand
but my heart flies in clouds
I hold dreams in my hand
Image credit: Diego Arrigoni
weep for us
you stone and steel
for we have lost our way
rough weather
cast patina still
your age cannot conceal
that what you were
and what we are
our fates both would be sealed
For we are frozen
hardened cast
scars that will not heal
your outside matched
our inner hearts
we’ve lost the will to feel
Sunday Scribbling prompt: Sensation
there was a girl
she held the light inside her
the darkness tried
to cover it
the sadness tried
to put it out
she held and stuck and waited
she held the light
waited for the dark
to erode away to dawn
from broken heart
it shone and spread
to all who observed
tenuous connections
of paper and wires
a silence so loud
it crossed time zones
until gold stuck to synapse
white wrapped round
and round and held
the light to all
pieces shared
light shared
held by a thousand fingers
can’t be extinguished
and all help carry
the light
the gift
the heart
prayers for a friend
Paris Poet’s Society August meeting blog post contains several poems that are posted here as well as some by other members of the group
http://parispoetssociety.blogspot.com/2011/09/august-meeting .html
The robins are back.
I thankfully pick my way, careful
to not disturb;
as though I mean anything to them;
as though they were there to welcome me.
A blackbird admonishes from his branch
as I pass below.
He knows how self-centered I am
and he laughs.
He would steal bright things from me
if I stopped paying attention.
We revel in the coolness.
The blackbird, the robins,
and I.
I somehow let a milestone pass. This is my 1002nd post on this little internet island. I wish I had something deep and profound to say but I am simply grateful to have this place to set my thoughts, a crooked path that seems to circle back on itself and then wander to the edges, moving from shiny thing to shiny thing, folding and scribbling and peeking behind in case I miss a prize. I am forever grateful to the wizard (Tony) for allowing me to perch here, making sure that the nest stays high in the branches away from predators. The magic that was cast at the beginning still holds though it is mercurial. The world was there all along, but you left the door open, and I thank you.
there is a palpable moment
when the dark holds on by fingertips
then lets go with a sigh
velvet gives way
to cotton on the line
and every living thing
uncurls and shakes off sleep
birds sing the dawn devotion
and I hold my breath
waiting for the finale
of sunlight