Monday, January 28, 2013

Another Summer Storm


    Image: Charolett Gainsboroug AnOther

Another hot and sticky summer night,
and the thunder storms are rollin’ in
so I head down  to the basement
with my coffee cup full ‘a gin

I’ve got all my favorite records
Rock ‘n roll and them ol’ time blues:
Angry screamin’ and  lonely dreamin’
by folks who got nothin’ to lose

It’s cool and it’s safe in the basement
while the storm outside gets more frightenin'
I still hear the threat of the thunder
But can’t see the flash of the lightenin’


Written for The Mag creative writing group.  Check it out.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Unincorporated


    Image by Mary Bach

Living in the middle of nowhere
you get more cows than people
for neighbors.

A church, a bar
and a few scattered houses –
in Wisconsin that’s all you need
to make a town.

That, and the folks that fill it.
Though, they fill the bar more than the church,
if truth be told.

This is for the warm-hearted G-man's FF55 where some great folks link their 55 word tributes.  Check it out!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Fascination


     Image from: feefeern.wordpress.com

With shrewd, well-reasoned calculation
She thrust her hips in syncopation
inviting full participation.
His ill-concealed anticipation
was causing painful consternation
from her outrageous instigation.

Just a little fun with word-play.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Winter Skies



January skies, so pale and thin,
begin to hint at coming life,
strife from cold and dark to meet
heat and light of longer days ahead,
fed with dreamings under winter skies.

And round two:

January sky so pale and cold,
fold yourself over the sleeping land.
Hand over your daydreams of ease
please don’t make me take these from you
too.  But in your struggle there is a grace
traced on the face you show to a world,
curled in upon itself to keep out cold,
holding  hope in life and light and love.

This is an attempt at chained-rhyme for Joy's Sunday mini-challenge at IGWRT.  Basically in this form the last word or syllable of each line must rhyme with the first word or syllable in the following line.  But Joy describes it much better, so check out the link for that and lots of other chain-rhymed poetry by the toads.

Words and image by Mary Bach



Darling...


If the world should fall away today  
just hold my hand

And if we stand at the end of time
just hold my hand

And if it’s a Sunday morning
unremarkable
in every way
just hold my hand


Written for The Mag where the lovely and talented Tess Kincaid provides a weekly writing prompt.  Check it out.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Word Magic



Old, cold words
drawn from a deep well,
still yet vital,
holding
elemental forces;

Bonded, bound,
with a power to move beyond
mere naming.

Dark, shining, infinite
from a place
too deep
for pain or loss or time;

Old, cold words
drawn from a deep well,
still yet vital.

Our only hope.

Written for G-man and his FF55 where he gives us 55 words of goodness and asks for ours back.  Check it out.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

With Apologies for the Schmaltz:














My baby,

eight pounds, twenty-two inches,
born three weeks late.
Walked early – eleven months.
Talked early, and often,
the way they vote in Chicago.

By two years he was enamored
with dinosaurs.
By three he knew them all;
not just the easy ones,
T-rex and triceratops,
but pachycephalosaurus, deinonychus, compsognathus.
It was a pure, beautiful obsession.

Each day we would read
Where the Wild Things Are,
There’s a Nightmare in My Closet,
Then the Troll Heard the Squeak
and Babar;
Mr. Rogers would visit us;
we would go on walks with Maggie,
our best friend
who happened to be a Black Lab.

He was Super Dupe at two
and Bat Man at four
still lovin’ the dinos.
And when he was
five years, eight months and fifteen days
he lost his first baby tooth.

And with that tooth
a shiny, little piece
of my world
fell away.
And I cried.

He was no longer
my baby.


For Stuart McPherson's "Growing Up" prompt at dVerse with apologies for the schmaltz...but it's about my kid, I can't help it.

A Few Yarns



I’m going to need
more than rose-colored glasses
to see the bright side

*******

Pepto Bismol:
The one that coats is
the only one you need

*******

With all this higher education
to fuel our brilliant calculation
when does human adaptation
become destructive isolation?

*******

Insulate me from
the cold, pitiless world
my dear Pink Panther

*******

There once was a lass in a sweater
who’s boyfriend thought he could do better.
Though she was in the pink,
far away he did slink.
She unraveled when she read his letter.


These little fluffs of frivolity are inspired by The Mag where the lovely and talented Tess Kincaid provides a weekly writing prompt.  Check it out.

Friday, January 11, 2013

In Transit


     Image by Simon (@stmng)

We line up like dominoes
along the wall;
pressed, folded, packaged,
eyes down, hands clasped, shoulders hunched,
waiting...for what?.

We write our sins large
across the backs of strangers,
like graffiti on a bathroom stall,
public, yet anonymous. 

We recite muted incantations
forwards and backwards
through stale lips,
desperately trying
to conjure
happiness.

This is for G-man at FF55 where he asks us for 55 words of our choosing, and for the Open Link Night at dVerse. Check 'em out.

Friday, January 4, 2013

dVerse Lunes



1.
butterfly eclipse
‘round the rue
moth ‘round the yard light

2.
the moon wanes too soon
when did it
dip into darkness?

3.
inside of my head
it’s snowing
soft, storybook flakes

4.
one small step for man
in the moon
and so it begins

5.
pale grey are the days
in my head
drawing to darkness

6.
sharp, glinting edges
lures us to
eviceration

7.
winter sun sparkles
off the snow
all light but no heat

8.
You are missing from
me like a
sweet amputation

9.
with a short half-life
your love is
radioactive  

10.
I hold in my hand
one smooth stone
firm, inscrutable

11.
in the long dark night
of winter
we prepare the ground

12
ask me a one word
question and
I’ll paint your answer

13.
in my pocket seeds
lie waiting
dormant but alive


The Lune is known as the American haiku.  Robert Kelly, American poet, studied haiku, and altered the form to fit English with a 5-3-5 syllable count, and omitting capitalization and end punctuation. There are no requirements on having a nature theme, the poem may rhyme or not, may use similes or metaphors or any other poetic device.  This and lots more information on and examples of Lunes can be found at dVerse Poets Pub.  Check it out!

A Flutter of Thoughts

     Image from tumblr.com

with brain a-buzz
around a central thought,
like a lovely cloud of moths
that never lite,
the maybe-haze obscures certainty,
clarity,
conclusion

there is no focus
to the flutter of if’s;
one cannot settle...
grasp… possess… know

but in the unknowing
lies the possibility
of infinite possibilities,
and this is where our minds can dance

This is for G-man at FF55 where you can go to read 55 word gems.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

For Mom


    Image by barteklauri.deviantart.com

I light a candle in your memory
and say a prayer.

It burns low;
wax runs down the side,
collecting and hardening
at the base.

It is a long prayer.


This is for Poetry Jam.  Check out the other offerings there.


Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Happy New Year



"I hope you will have a wonderful year, 
that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, 
that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, 
that you will be loved and that you will be liked, 
and that you will have people to love and to like in return.  
And, most importantly 
(because I think there should be more kindness 
and more wisdom in the world right now), 
that you will, when you need to be, be wise, 
and that you will always be kind."  

  –Neil Gaiman

I usually post my own words here, but this quote from Neil Gaiman say just what I want to say.  And this is my wish for all of you for 2013.  Peace!