Category: poetry

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Bible Study · Faith · poetry · questions

Blind

Sally13 Comments

John 9: 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

First, forgive me for the language, but this question from the Bible irks me. It really does. I think “who sinned” in modern vernacular would be spoken today in the words I chose.

Who f*cked up?
Someone did!
Remember –
Adam hid

When he f*cked
Up and ate
That apple!
Think we’re great?

We can’t see.
Humans fail.
All people
Are so frail!

Yet some one
Not like me
Must be flawed.
We should see

Who is at
Fault, or who
F*cked up. We
Have no clue

The thought behind the question is what irritates me. Whose fault is it that someone is blind? Is it his? Is it his parents?

How small minded we are!

Here are the questions I would ask — and do ask! How can I help this person? What can I learn from this person? I’ll bet they have some amazing stories; would they share them with me?

This year for the A-to-Z challenge, I’m challenging myself to write a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire every day. I can’t pronounce it, but I can tell you that it’s an Irish poetic form that requires 3 syllable lines in quatrains. The second and fourth lines rhyme.

Additionally, I’ve been collecting questions for a few years — specifically questions from the Bible. I have a big problem with people who think they know everything, especially religious people.

The more someone thinks they know God, the converse is probably true. I know less about God today than I did last year or five years or twenty-five years ago. I have so many questions.

Turns out the Bible is full of questions.

So, I’m using questions from the Gospel of John for this challenge.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Bible Study · poetry · questions

Authorities

Sally7 Comments

What gives a
person auth-
ority?
Yes, whence doth

Command come?
A strong arm?
Lifted chin?
Wisdom? Smarm?

Who are these?
Why do their
Words carry
Anywhere?

Yet we yield
To what they
Say, believe.
We obey

And turn blind
Eye, deaf ear.
Instead of
Faults, we hear

What we want
To hear. We
nod and don’t
Disagree.

Authori-
Ty. Poo-poo.
Let me think.
Same for you.

This year for the A-to-Z challenge, I’m challenging myself to write a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire every day. I can’t pronounce it, but I can tell you that it’s an Irish poetic form that requires 3 syllable lines in quatrains. The second and fourth lines rhyme.

Additionally, I’ve been collecting questions for a few years — specifically questions from the Bible. I have a big problem with people who think they know everything, especially religious people.

The more someone thinks they know God, the converse is true. I know less about God today than I did last year or five years or twenty-five years ago. I have so many questions.

Turns out the Bible is full of questions.

So, I’m using questions from the Gospel of John for this challenge. These verses inspired today’s poem.

John 7:26 …Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?

John 7:48 Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?

When it became more and more evident that there was something different about Jesus, the common people began looking around to see what the “authorities” thought of him — hence the questions — hence my poem. But they were AFRAID to say anything — John 7:13 Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him.

But, between you and me, this particular topic is a sore spot with me. Depending on what news source you watch or read, you will have very different views of what is going on in the world from those who watch the other news. We need to be a THINKING people, who investigate the truths and falsehoods of what we’re being fed.

poetry

Open Hands

Sally14 Comments

I remind myself,
Unclench your hands
Hold them open

I remind myself,
Take a breath,
Don’t hold it

This week, the W3 prompt is to go on an introspective free verse journey. To do that, Allpoetry suggests starting with an image. I started with an image of open hands.

As you can see it was a struggle.

I wanted to write about how when you hold things too tightly, they cut into your hands and cause pain and injury.

I wanted to write something about that time my uncle grabbed onto an electric fence to show us it was safe, and like gullible little nieces and nephews, we grabbed on, too. And it wasn’t (safe) and we knew it before we did it but we were so gullible and trusting which is a kind of open hand even though it’s a closed hand on a wire.

I wanted to write about that sensation that I still feel of a dragonfly in my hand that flew away.

I wanted to write that cheesy sentiment that flourished in the 70s right along with the yellow smiley face and peace signs — it said something like, “If you love someone, let them go. If they return, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were.” I was in high school in the 70s — first loves and all that — but the more I think about it, I don’t think it’s true. I think in some situations, like children leaving home and finding their way in the world, they don’t come back, and that’s because you’ve done your job well. I have a daughter in London right now. She has fallen in love with a city that’s far from home and I couldn’t be happier for her. I hold her with open hands.

So I open my hands to the people in my life.

And I’ll breathe through the stresses in my life.

But I won’t write a very good introspective poem.

poetry

Delilah

Sally14 Comments

My darling,
Much better than quarreling
Is this: I will stroke your hair,
Swear

Devotion
To you while you’ve no notion
(Have you?) of whose side I’m on.
Yawn

My pretty;
Sleep on my lap. I pity
Your great surprise when you wake.
Take

Care, dumb thing.
Out of the strong came something.
Sweet fool, you yielded to me
Key

Expertise
That I might put you at ease
And take from you that which God
[prod]

Had conferred
On you. Soon the deed’s occurred —
Come take the hair of this mutt!
Cut!

The W3 prompt for this week was to write an ekphrastic poem about the Rubens’ painting of Samson and Delilah.

The more I looked at the painting, the more I disliked Delilah. She’s so false. What did Samson see in her? Well, I think that’s pretty clear in the painting, too.

This is an Irish form I’ve used before: deibide baise fri toin. Syllable count for each quatrain: 3-7-7-1. Rhyme scheme: aabb. The first two lines rhyme on two syllables, and the last two rhyme on one.

The poet of the week gave an additional challenge of including a line from Samson’s riddle: “Out of the strong came something sweet.”

poetry · prayer

Lost Prayer

Sally11 Comments

Dear Barbara,
Remember when
We used to pray
And say amen

To all of our
Troubles and cares
Passing them on –
Gone – to “One Upstairs”

Who heard our words
Read our mettle
Enclosing us
Thus to settle

And face what came–
Oh! Life was hard
Especially
Yours. See — one card

Then another —
Life dealt you crap
Death, illness, hell
Fell in your lap

Week after week
We bowed our heads
We wept, we prayed
Life frayed to shreds

Why did we stop?
I don’t recall
Did we give up?
Our cups to fall

And break, as did
Our friendship? I
Wish I knew what
Shut that door. Why?

Why do people
Move on from God,
Friends, prayers, tears?
Fears? Fatigue? Fraud?

I am a fraud
Yes, yes. That’s true
But we did pray
A day or two

I was out for a drive with a friend the other night, and suddenly I recognized the landscape, the roads, the buildings. It had been years since I had driven out there but I used to meet weekly to pray with a friend. She lived out there.

We stopped meeting rather abruptly some 20 years ago — and I don’t remember why. I don’t remember a falling out. I don’t remember a lot of things from those years. They were so stressful.

But the stresses in my life were miniscule in comparison with hers.

This poem came out of the hashing around of those memories.

I need to add that faith failures — the doubts, the fatigue — they are all MINE, not hers. Pretty sure, anyway.

poetry

Geraniums

Sally11 Comments

Plants weren’t watered while I was gone
My son forgot
The geraniums were wilted
So jilted, fraught

A good watering – life appears
Or reappears
I should say – its posture improves –
Life moves, cheers

Yes, cheers my heart. All is not lost
Tiny buds burst
Within days — I am delighted
A righted thirst

The W3 prompt this week: Write a poem of three stanzas inspired by the phrase ‘A Wilted Flower’ —Rhyming: Optional

The story in the poem is true. I didn’t know I needed to tell my son to water the plants. Geraniums are so resilient. I wish I could say the same of some of my other plants.

I chose another unpronounceable Irish form: the decnad cummaisc, a form that employs quatrains with both end and internal rhymes. Here are the guidelines:

  • Four-line stanzas.
  • Eight syllables in the first and third lines.
  • Four syllables in the second and fourth lines, which both end rhyme.
  • The final word of line three rhymes with the middle of line four.
poetry

The Leap

Sally17 Comments

Exhilirating is the word I’d use
Walking on the beam to reach the loft
Yes, barefoot! I had no use for shoes
Down below, I knew the hay was soft

Walking on the beam to reach the loft
Having climbed up, up, up in that old barn
Down below, I knew the hay was soft
My brother grabbed my arm as if to warn

Having climbed up, up, up in that old barn
What we were about to do seemed unsure
My brother grabbed my arm as if to warn
But we both felt the danger was the allure

What we were about to do seemed unsure
The warm and musty hay beckoned below
But we both felt the danger was the allure
The pigeons cooed, outside I heard a crow

The warm and musty hay beckoned below
Would we do it? Would we take that leap
The pigeons cooed, outside I heard a crow
Our knees shook, we took a breath quite deep

Would we do it? Would we take that leap?
A silent prayer, a silenter amen
Our knees shook, we took a breath quite deep
And once done, we’d do it all again

A silent prayer, a silenter amen
Exhilirating is the word I’d use
And once done, we’d do it all again
Yes, barefoot! I had no use for shoes

This is my response to the W3 challenge this week: write a pantoum about a childhood memory. A pantoum is made up of a series of quatrains rhyming ABAB in which the second and fourth lines of a quatrain recur as the first and third lines in the succeeding quatrain; each quatrain introduces a new second rhyme as BCBC, CDCD. At the end, you loop and grab those A lines again.

When I was 7 years old, my parents bought a non-working farm with 100 acres and 4 barns to explore. It was idyllic — truly. One of the things my brother and I did was climb up into a hayloft in one of the barns and jump down into the pile of hay below. So scary. So much fun.

The middle barn held the hay loft where we jumped.

poetry

Oh, to be a flower

Sally19 Comments

“Please select
Me!” She wanted to direct
The gardener as he scanned,
Hand

Already
Full of flowers, gaze steady.
He looked for one final bloom.
Gloom

Just settled
Over her. Her gold petaled
Head drooped in an oh-so-sad
Bad

Way. Downcast,
Rejected, again outcast,
Passed over. But then he stopped
Dropped

His pruner
“I wish I’d seen you sooner,”
He said to her. “You are sweet!
Meet

Your sidekicks.”
[snip!] She joined the spray, transfixed
By the beauty around her.
“We’re

Delighted
You can join us!” She sighted
A welcoming rose and mum.
“Come!”

This is for the W3 challenge this week. Heather (Sgeoil) challenged the participants to do a little personification. I had an idea for a flower being plucked from the garden for a bouquet (inspired in part by the bouquet that was on my bedside table when I stayed at my son’s house). My idea involved going in that sacrificial direction of losing life for the sake of something bigger. But, as you can see, it went in a totally different direction.

I wish I understood my own process.

AND — because I like Celtic forms, I went with a Deibide Baise Fri Toin, and Irish form with aabb rhyme scheme and syllable count of 3-7-7-1 for each stanza. The first two lines rhyme on a 2 syllable word and the last two lines rhyme on one syllable.

poetry

Thoughts on Travel

Sally12 Comments

I have just
One wild life —
So should I
Avoid strife?

When roads di-
Verge, should I
Choose safe? or,
Wonder why

I paused at
All — and plunge
Headlong in
A great lunge

Of faith. I
Think I’d like
To rise, go,
Walk, swim, bike

Encounter
Life in all
Its pain and
Joy. Enthrall

In being
Alive! Yes!
I needn’t
Second-guess

Brains in head
Feet in shoes
This must be
Life I choose

Tiny nods to a few poets who inspire me.

I was beyond honored to have been chosen as Poet of the Week by Kerfe who blogs at MethodTwoMadness for The Skeptic’s Kadish W3 prompt.

What does that even mean?

  1. She liked my poem “A Dance for the Lonely“
  2. I had to come up with the next prompt (I chose an unpronounceable Irish form – Cethramtu rannaigechta moire – which requires 4 line stanzas with 2nd and 4th lines rhyming, and strict 3 syllable lines)
  3. I have to choose the next Poet of the Week

Well, I’m traveling this week, so I chose a theme of travel.

Easy, right?

Wrong!

I’ve scrapped so many poems this week! The pressure is on! Between walks in beautiful British Columbia, I’ve tried to write and the struggle is real.

But I started a Lenten devotional on Ash Wednesday based on the poems of Mary Oliver so I tried to let her inspire me a little.