Mag 284 — Sunset Pantoum

I want to wander there now
In the land split by the hills
Where sunset colors the valley
And gloaming shades the mounds

In the land split by the hills
Days live long in the mossy fields
And gloaming shades the mounds
As night comes in layers of beauty

Days live long in the mossy fields
Youth takes for granted the sun
As night comes in layers of beauty
Age sees and remembers it all

Youth takes for granted the sun
And the moon, the stars, and youth
Age sees and remembers it all
As sighs turn to smiles of knowing

And the moon, the stars, and youth
Then focus over the misty crest
As sighs turn to smiles of knowing
Open the gate to the beckoning path

Then focus over the misty crest
Back to the shining valley below
Open the gate to the beckoning path
I want to wander there now.

Written for The Mag: Mag 284 that inspired with the above image (it seemed like a visual pantoum to me, thus the poetic form I used).

Mag 278 — goodbye

So as to not disturb the silence from which
this poem came I will whisper goodbye.

No goodbyes to the space that will always
hold us but goodbye to the vastness of
that space. No goodbyes to your face that
is there for friends in the good book of
these days, and no goodbyes to your face
in smiling pictures from those days,
but goodbye to seeing eye to eye.
Goodbye to your hands: I loved them to
look at, and being gifted by them with
pleasures. Goodbye to the pleasure of
knowing you well. Goodbye to your voice-
its tone and timbre, and your written voice-
its passion and poignancy. Goodbye to all you
were for me—heartbreaker and muse, taker
and lover, forsaker and friend, forgiver and
forgiven.


__________
*first stanza - with a nod to final line of HOW TO BE A POET by Wendell Berry

Written for The Mag: Mag 278 that inspired with the above image prompt.
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Mag 270 — imprint

Today, five months after your death,
two young deer surprised me in the
yard at dawn. One trotted rhythmically
across the lawn, but the other stood
stoically feet away and we regarded
one another with quiet understanding.

The day held sunshine that filtered
through the slats and rays streaked
your bed. I lie briefly there each
night, my head quieted, my bones
sinking into spots where you slept.
Truth is, I still weep for you there.

At dusk clouds bloated with moisture
chugged across the sky, competing
with the sun. Eventually, as was pre-
dicted, they won. But the glorious
contest colored a modest rainbow,
while birds worked on symphonies.

Tonight gentle rain misted the yard
you loved well. It puddled in huge
rocks where it fell, those turquoise
ones we had hauled here that are
beloved by butterflies in summer.
I think they leave their prints behind.

Written for The Mag: Mag 270 that inspired with the above image prompt: artwork 

by Ulrike Bolenz.

Mag 265 — I am the sea

This is me. I am the sea.
I am pale as foam and
blue, drenched by a river
of tears flowing into me —
From me waves of change
are blowing, yet
I am still in the night,
cradling my host of loved
ones of the deep. We
sleep with the moon in
reflective trust as aeons
of dreams turn the tide.
















Written for The Mag: Mag 265 that inspired with the above image prompt: painting by Daria Petrilli.

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Mag 262 — Green God

You see, I see you
you mossy green god
and god how I love you,
you with trunks to spare
and that wild white eye
beneath your unicorn horn

You see me ignoring your
comical grimace as I come
near to whisper into your
elfin ear god how I love you

You raise your forked tail
into the green canopy,
grasping to feel the rays
of the sun and

You coax out the stars
from a midnight sky to
cool under as I unroll
my bag to sleep beneath
you with your claws as a
mossy green pillow

You show me visions in my
dreams of the story of your
old forest grove, the sad story
how you came to be lone elder

You see then that I see you
and how your grimace formed
and why you grew your giant
elfin ear to maybe, maybe
hear across the fields for
messages from your type

You stretch deeper and farther
beyond the tender young ones
and grasses, reaching for eternity,
showing earth how you love her



Written for The Mag: Mag 262 that inspired with the above image prompt.

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Meeting the Bar — For my dog, Bonbon

Jupiter and moons from telescope, via astronomyonline.org

Jupiter
Is our meeting place
Since you died my light went out
Out I go each night and I see you
Prancing there

Written for Meeting The Bar—The Cinquain .. .Expanded, at dVerse Poets Pub, hosted this week by Tony Maude. Tony has revitalized the traditional five-line Cinquain poetry form (follow link to refresh your memory) by working "with the cinquain, breaking it by adding an extra syllable to each line, giving a five-line poem with lines of 3, 5, 7, 9 and 3 syllables in that order." Very cool, Tony!

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Poetics: The Stuff of Life in Old Reno

The streets were gray, safe alleyways
showed some minor decay.
Bums slept there at night under neon signs
as street walkers strutted by.
In winter there was snow—
the valley air was crisp and clear,
scrubbed by high desert winds.
Morning came and many casino
workers mixed with fewer office
workers on the sidewalks, as some
drunk gamblers swayed, holding smudged
drink glasses, bleary-eyed and determined
to break even in the new day.
And all were connected by scent from the
old brick corner bakery with steamy windows—
a sweet yeasty aroma created in the
dark of night when the baker and his crew
in white aprons mixed and kneaded
and baked breads so sumptuous
as to make the people proud to live there,
to breathe the same air, to break bread
with one another, to be nourished for another day.


Written for dVerse Poets Pub - Poetics, where this week Grace, in a truly lovely prompt, asked us to write about bread.
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Carpe Diem Haiku Kai: Solitude (Kodoku)

Christmas music plays
We select prized ornaments
Just the cat and me

         ~

Old handwritten note
"New York childhood Christmases"
Beaded star for tree

         ~

As far as a star
As near as these memories
Tender solitude


Written for Carpe Diem Haiku Kai: Solitude (Kodoku)

Carpe Diem Haiku Kai: Autumn Sunlight

Cob web in early sunlight (© Chèvrefeuille, your host)

Dog runs in late sun
Grass carpet of dewy webs
Spiders may forgive

~

Written for Carpe Diem Haiku Kai: "Autumn Sunlight"
This is a new meme group for me. I was drawn to this prompt, as it reminded me of a scene this autumn when I was walking my dog. We were alone in the vast soccer fields of a nearby school on a weekend and the late slanting sun showed that the grasses were totally carpeted with spider webs. It was truly awesome, and I pondered how fleeting the beauty of the spiders' handiwork would be.
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Meeting the Bar — Thankfulness, unfinished

 Ferns in Black and White by Jim Crotty (2010)

That unseen bird chirping alone, rejoicing
in a tall fern, in the rain, at Thanksgiving

The Pastoral, Beethoven’s 6th symphony,
for deep insight and soft soul flight,
to rejoice in musical thanksgiving

All feelings that swell beneath certain words:
rejoice and pastoral, unseen and alone,
rain and music, thanks and giving

The quiet breath that fills the chest before
a sweet note or an unkind word: one
deserves thanks, the other needs forgiving

Breathing here, now, in this symphony of
solitude in the night, following news of
an old classmate’s passing on Thanksgiving

That unseen bird chirping alone, rejoicing


Written for MeetingTheBar—Thanksgiving Turkey with a side of Poetry, at dVerse Poets Pub, hosted this week by Brian Miller. He asked us to write a poem about what we are thankful for. Fresh on my mind were the last 24 hours......

Mag 236 — Moth at Mindfulness Camp

We were meditators, Buddhists, and
free spirits, we walked in the sand,
danced in waves, sang fireside,
worked side by side
in happy labor, sat side by side
in locked silence needing no key
but to return to our breath,
to that one moment, the
only breath, the only moment.

Some brought their kids there too, the cutest
things, sweet groundling sprites
with painted faces and spirits so
pure, who warmed in friendship
and made plays for us, whose bows
to us in the great hall made me cry,
they caught the first light of dawn to
find low tide where the caves told
them secrets, maybe only one secret.

The youngest, age five, caught me
walking one day to the lodge, ran
to me, said I could see her moth -
Come, come - her eyes all alight,
she led me to a corner of the deck
then reverently lifted the moth
and put it in my hand, and I said I
hoped it had had a happy life, and
she whispered It never knew winter.


Written for The Mag: Mag 236 that inspired with the above image prompt.
My picture of the child in the poem is below.

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Poetics: Reno

 

A homecoming

Everything, everything I saw while driving
there was enveloped in beauty.
Besotted with three great forests, I
had haiku in my head, celebrations
transferred to scrappy notes at stops along
the way and later simply written on
paper with the steering wheel for support
as I drove. Everything, everything so
sublimely crystal real had full appeal
until, seemingly surreal,
The Biggest Little City came into view.

How now brown cow town,
with your bawdy teats suckling the masses
who build on your dry rolling hills, sucking
the life out of my memories of the place
where my mother breastfed me
in a room near the Truckee River, the
place where my haiku stream ran dry.....

But some love the town I left long
ago and left again, this time feeling
somehow renewed in spite of the disjunction
as, in spite of myself, a part of me
functions there still: a little blessing part that
whispers "please stop growing" - all the while
knowing it won't, and guessing it does not
mind that my mind was fresh with haiku
once I reached the next timber line
where everything was everything.

~~~

Written for dVerse Poets Pub - Poetics, where this week Abhra shares beautiful thoughts about frequent moving, and returning home, then asks us to compose a poem about a homecoming: "what it is to stay away and the coming back after a long time – have you been worried that the place you call home has changed all the time you have been away?"

~~~

This scene seems necessary to me. RIP, Robin Williams.

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Mag 232 — describe that art, name that tune

That song has a familiar ring to it,

a don't ever forget I can't-get-

no-satisfaction, put-your-hand-in-the-

hand-of-the-man-who-stilled-the-water,

lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds, you're

watching the-Rocky-and-Bullwinkle-Show,

by-the-time-we-got-to-Woodstock-we-

were-half-a-million-strong, eight-miles-

high, ebony-and-ivory kind of feel to it.

My X the rocker used to play it. But,

damn, I just cannot name that tune.



Written for The Mag: Mag 232 that inspired with the above image prompt
(Keith Haring).

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Flash Fiction 55 — There in my dreams

 Image via Pixdaus: 40 Breathtaking Places to See Before You Die by www.boredpanda.com - Venice, Italy

In one ray of light a dust particle sparkles in flight.
I ride on it.
In the gondolier's melody my name is sung.
I cling to a building as a speck of
cardinal red paint,
then am a thread freed from an awning
of bright aquamarine
floating in heady air
into this canal of dreams

~~~

My post written in exactly 55 words for Flash Fiction 55, now hosted by the lovelies over at imaginary garden with read toads. 

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What is happening to me

 Photo courtesy of Unsplash

“What is happening to me happens to all fruits that grow ripe.
It is the honey in my veins that makes my blood thicker, and my soul quieter.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche


That which does not make our souls quieter
makes us stronger, honey.
And you, and you, my love, still disquieted,
I know what makes your blood boil. I know
what you see as strange or funny, that your
favorite fruit is the pear (substitute the 'p'
for a 't' and you have tear -same shape-
a familiar fluid we've shared).
You know veins in bodies and in rocks, and
how to rock a baby to sleep. You are deep.

Yet, that which makes me stronger
has ultimately quieted my soul:

accepting that blood is thicker than
water, that water can turn to wine (and
forgetting that could kill me), that
fruits need their chosen place in the sun
and soil to ripen; they need their
own happening place in time and space --
that we may always be thick as thieves,
but fragile and endangered as honey bees.
As for me -oh me- my love, you know I know
where to grow old and where my soul to keep.


Written for Write on Edge (I absolutely love that title!), who supplied the above photo and quote by Nietzsche as this week's writing prompt. I also incorporated another Nietzsche quote into my poem: "That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

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Flash Fiction 55 — obligation

The Room by Anne Selleck (2005)

A ration of time, just
a fraction. But
fractured.
Hard to schedule, hard
to please. Dreaded.
Can be dreadful when
not in a zoned-out,
zen-like space. In
laws and in lives some
things are not meant
to be. Human
frailty.
Dis-ease, these
disjointed
hours. He’s cracking
his knuckles. She’s
cutting off her nose.
In spite.


Written for Flash Fiction 55, now hosted by the lovelies over at imaginary garden with read toads.
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Meeting the Bar—Self Portraits

1986

I have been my own worst
enemy in life but also
the soul
who saved me.

I have not looked at myself
enough to know,
or care,
what I truly look like.

I am beginning
to look inwardly and so
I see
my eyes for the first time.

I see myself through
the eyes of the pets
I love
and who have loved me.

My pet peeves are these:
dogmatism, jingoism,
racism,
fundamentalism, consumerism.

I love trees, the ocean,
all animals, quite
a few
people, literature, music, silence.

I value authenticity, simplicity,
honesty, dexterity,
equality,
jocundity, virtuosity, equanimity.

I am grateful for sunny
days, rainy nights,
one tiny bud,
a field of flowers, and love.

Love and beauty
always wanted to guide me--
I did not
pay enough attention when young.

Love and beauty
call to me still and now
I listen
to them more and more and more.



Written for MeetingTheBar—Self Portraits, at dVerse Poets Pub, hosted this week by Brian Miller. Brian challenged us to "write a self portrait poem. It can be symbolic, metaphorical, descriptive—you get to choose what you show and what you veil." Not an easy prompt!

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Mag 215 — The King of Cats

He is mine as sure as words
give pause to sweet sighs.

I love the softness of him
I see in his eyes.

He does not find fault in my
demands or my cries -

nor when I rub my big head
on his trousered thighs.

The day I found him I knew
that I had a prize.

So I presented him with
the finest of flies -

and a dead mouse gift also
but he prefers fries.

I like to sit in his lap
while books make him wise -

and I play with the pages
like one of the guys.

When I come home wet he rubs
my fur 'til it dries.

Then I snuggle down with him
and dream 'til sunrise.

 ^.^

Written for The Mag: Mag 215 that inspired with the above image prompt
(The King of Cats, 1935, Balthus).

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Mag 214 — Caged

Create interests for yourself,
a house becomes a cage
when love goes.
She said those words to a
friend of a friend awhile ago,
feeling so wise for one
so young, for one with love
taken for granted -- as memory
is also taken for granted,
not expected to go.

Now, in this house, her
father putters around caregivers
who come and go, come and go,
like his flickering memory
turning to dust -- and she
comes and goes less and
stays more and more, caged,
hoping for one more lucid
smile, one more time to hear,
How's my darlin' girl today?
before love and memory
become only a mime's act.


Written for The Mag: Mag 214 that inspired with the above image prompt
(photo by Kelsey Hannah).
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Meeting the Bar—Emotion in poetry

 Image: cropped photo via Upaya Zen Center

Sitting on his black cushion
there on the floor, with
the sangha seated about like
a half-moon of intention
listening-absorbing, he
told of his journey, of
the suffering that
brought him there.
 ....Then
sudden stillness came as
he could speak no more
in the small-town art center
quieted from activity, with
spot-lit children's paintings
playing colorfully, silently.
 ....And
dozens of Pink Panthers
danced on the walls as he wept.

 ~~~

Written for MeetingTheBar—Emotion in poetry, at dVerse Poets Pub, hosted this week by Claudia Schoenfeld. Her prompt was to write a poem about an emotion without saying what the emotion is.
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