poetry

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

Sally8 Comments

Is there comfort in a lump,
Or something that is lumpy?
Lumpy screams out IMPERFECTION
Or something that is dumpy

Lumpy gravy is the worst
I think most would agree
But lumps in mashed potatoes
With smooth gravy? HARMONY!

This week’s W3 challenge is to write about a food or drink that brings you comfort.

  • Form: Any
  • Length: Up to 24 lines
  • Include: The word “comfort”

Last night I went out to dinner with a friend. One of the sides that came with my dinner was mashed potatoes with gravy. The potatoes were lumpy — and I loved it.

poetry

Fog

Sally19 Comments

The fog on little cat feet creeps
Hunting, hunting for some prey
The bustling world, not busy, sleeps
The fog pea-soups as it nears day

Unaware of imminent danger
Deer are swallowed up quite whole
Then it gets even stranger
As fog moves up and down the knoll

A flock of turkeys — gobbled down!
Now I see a wayward pup
Disappear — I’m looking ’round
Sun battles fog to come up!

Tall trees battle, disappear
Birds of every shape and size
So many things that were just here
Meet fog-filled fearsome demise

In my heart alarm is growing
Could I possibly be next?
I think it best that I get going
If I’m swallowed, I’ll send a text.

This is my response to this week’s W3 challenge where we are asked to write a poem of any form, no more than 240 words, that weaves a mystery—delightful or frightening—into its lines. Further, we are asked to have landscape and/or weather be a character in our poem

I happen to love the foggy mornings we’ve been having here. The fog is beautiful and mysterious.

Also, the first non-kid poem that I remember memorizing was Carl Sandburg’s poem, Fog, which begins “The fog comes on little cat feet” — hence the first line.

poetry

To a Coffee Mug

Sally14 Comments

You hold so much filled to the brim
Morning hope, solace, peace
Unfortunately these days are grim
You hold so much filled to the brim
In you I find grim’s antonym
One soothing sip brings release
You hold so much filled to the brim
Morning hope, solace, peace

This week’s W3 challenge is to write a Triolet about something ordinary.

What’s a Triolet? It’s an 8-line poem where lines repeat in a beautiful rhythm:

  • Lines 1, 4, and 7 are the same, and lines 2 and 8 are also repeated.
  • The rhyme scheme looks like this: ABaAabAB (uppercase = repeated lines).

I start every day reading and drinking a cup of coffee. It sets my day right.

Blather · Life

Before HIPAA

Sally3 Comments

I’ll admit — it’s a semi-irrational fear that I have of getting a fishhook stuck through my skin.

It may date back to the days when my father’s office was just off the Emergency Room. HIPAA hadn’t been born yet. I would cut through the Emergency Room to get to his office.

Which was a trailer.

Yes, it’s what you picture — the kind of structure that fills trailer parks.

When I got into the trailer, his office was on the left, opposite his secretary’s desk. Sometimes she was transcribing his dictated notes and would let me listen to his voice on the transcription machine as he said things like, “The patient was a white female, age 47, who presented with…”

Clearly another HIPAA violation. But HIPAA wasn’t a thing then. And I wasn’t paying attention to the words as much as his voice.

True story: These days I recognize people by their voices. More than once I would have walked right past my high school boyfriend had he not greeted me by name.

The other day, another person that I knew years ago walked past me and said, “Hey, Sal!”

The words got my attention, but the voice identified the speaker. I immediately knew him.

I mean, seriously, most men over the age of 70 look remarkably similar to me: gray hair or balding, scruffy beard, blue jeans, etc. Add a baseball cap and I’m sunk — until I hear their voice.

But I digress. I guess that’s how it is with stream-of-consciousness writing.

So, as a kid, I would cut through the Emergency Room on a daily basis. My pattern was to swim at the gym after school and walk to the hospital for my ride home. I would wait for my father to finish his day and we would walk together to his vehicle which was ALWAYS parked in the farthest spot available.

“It’s good exercise,” he would say as I complained about walking to the car.

One time, I saw one of my classmates in the ER. He had stabbed a pitchfork through his foot. Actually, through his work boot, and his foot, and out the other side. He was crying and cursing, obviously not having a good day.

I remember his name — but I won’t say it here. HIPAA and all that, you know.

The fishhook thing must date from those days. I think I saw someone in the ER with a fishhook in their cheek.

My father said, “They’ll just push it through and cut the barb.”

He made it sound easy.

But then, he didn’t have a fishhook in his cheek.

I remember my father explaining to me how the manure pitchfork through the foot presented a particular problem because of the risk of infection. Should they just pull it out? Cut the tip and pull it out? I think that’s what they did.

It doesn’t matter. The prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday wasn’t pitchfork. It was hook.

I can’t decide if I like stream-of-consciousness writing or not. It feels like a bunch of blather.

What do you think?

poetry

Instructions on Not Giving Up

Sally8 Comments

I close my eyes to the darkness
It’s easier that way to not see
The suffocating night
With its lack of light
Where even shadows can’t be
It’s a deafening deaf abyss

Open your eyes; find the light

Sticking my head in the sand
I can neither see nor hear
Nor taste nor smell
Nor live my life
’tis its own hell
Sans peace, sans strife
This existence of living in fear —
I must be willing to stand

Open your eyes; find the light

I rise and lift my head high
I open my eyes to the dark
A slim shaft of light
A glimmer, yet bright
Catches my eye like a spark —
Engagement is how I defy

Open your eyes; find the light

This is my submission to this week’s W3 challenge.

Kerfe challenged us to write a bop poem titled “Instructions on Not Giving Up.“

A bop poem has three stanzas and a refrain that repeats after each stanza. It tells a story or explores a problem, a bit like a mini-drama.

  1. First stanza – 6 lines
    Present a problem or situation.
  2. Refrain
    A single line that repeats after each stanza. Think of it as the poem’s chorus.
  3. Second stanza – 8 lines
    Expand on or explore the problem in more depth.
  4. Refrain
    Repeat the same line.
  5. Third stanza – 6 lines
    Show a solution or a failed attempt to solve the problem.
  6. Refrain
    Repeat it one last time.

The other night I listened to an artist describing her process. She said that painting has taught her to look for the light. I need to remember to do that.

Homeschool · poetry · prayer

At the Beginning

Sally20 Comments

At the beginning
Of my journey into conservative Christianity
I heard this sermon:

“If Christians were rounded up and put on trial, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

And I thought, Of course there would be. I know my Bible. I pray. I have memorized countless verses.

But then, at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, when Christians were condemning homosexuals and saying this disease was proof of God’s judgment on their immoral lifestyle, my brother, a Presbyterian minister, honored people with AIDS and their caregivers by having a dinner for them at his church. I thought about that action for years. Now there’s a conviction.

In the middle
Of my thirty years of homeschooling
I heard a homeschool convention speaker say:

“Ninety percent of homeschoolers vote in national elections when they are old enough to vote. That fact alone should have politicians shaking in their boots.”

And I thought, That’s a pretty remarkable fact. That’s a lot of power. Dear God, may they use it wisely.

But then, I watched my own homeschool convention heroes fall one by one. Joshua Harris renounced his faith. Cheryl Lindsey was excommunicated. Doug Phillips had an affair. They all are, after all, very human. And that voting power is a little scary.

And now,
I watch “Christians”
Wielding a sword and showing no love.

Dear God, I pray, convict me of compassion. May there be evidence of that in my life. Not power. Not judgment. Just kindness.

This is my submission to SoCS where the challenge was to write a stream-of-consciousness post using the words, “at the beginning.“

It’s also a response to the W3 Challenge this week in which the poet of the week challenged us to use one or both of the following images and write Prosimetrum or Versiprose: both forms combine alternating passages of prose and verse.

poetry

The Statue of Liberty

Sally14 Comments

The water laps at Liberty Island
Give me
Your tired
Your poor
New York bustles on the mainland
Huddled
Masses
Yearning
My friend huddles in her home
O Mother of Exiles
Lift your lamp
Amen

This is in response to this week’s W3 challenge. The italicized words are all from The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus which appears on a plaque inside the base of the Statue of Liberty. The poem is familiar and haunting.

I have a friend who is a naturalized citizen. I met her at the gym where I work and have known her for her journey as an immigrant — the trips back to her home country to see her children and to bring food; finally being able to bring her children to live here in the USA; studying, taking, and passing the citizenship exam; buying a home here.

I hadn’t seen her in a while so I asked a mutual friend about her.

“She works [at her housekeeping job] and goes straight home every day,” the friend said. “When she gets home, she cooks and eats. She has put on a lot of weight, so now that’s another reason not to come to the gym.”

I asked why, although I was pretty sure that I knew the answer.

“She’s afraid.”

I understood that also. She looks Hispanic (because she is). Her English is heavily-accented, and gets worse under pressure.

I understand her fear.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me

We have so lost our way.

fiction

Sea Air

Sally5 Comments

The sea air brought the relief for which I had been hoping.

“O lies! Damned lies!” I had cursed, thinking back on the incident that had driven me to these travels. I was simply doing my job, putting together a write-up for social media. The last things I needed were a photo and biography.

I stopped at the studio, snapped a photo, and went home to my computer, but there I struggled to log in. “Where did my PIN go?” I asked. Without it, I couldn’t post anything.

The artist accused me of sabotage. “Lies!” I told him. “Those are damned lies!”

He scowled back at me. “You’ve ruined everything: the paintings, my reputation and biography!”

“Sea air’ll ‘elp you,” my Cockney neighbor said. He had been correct. The weekend away was what I needed.

It wasn’t just the air. It was the sound of the gulls and the waves, the salty smell, the sand, shells, and dunes. It was the absence of people.

When I came back, I found legal documents shoved through my mail-slot. Some were messages from the police saying they needed to talk to me. Some were nasty-grams from the artist. My troubles hadn’t gone away.

“Did ‘e ‘elp you?” asked my neighbor.

“Who?” I replied.

“Sea air,” he said.

“I went to the shore. It was wonderful,” I said, “but I didn’t see anyone there.”

“No!” My neighbor said, “Cee ‘ee Ayr! ‘e’s really good at this stuff. Do ya need ‘is contact info?”

This is my weak attempt at the Unicorn Challenge. I’m still reeling from the news that this was the penultimate Unicorn Challenge. Next week will be the last one.

Of course, they tried to put a positive spin on things. “Look!” they said. “CE Ayr wrote a book! You can order it on Amazon!”

So I hid the name of his book a couple of times in this post and fought the urge to add an “e” to CE Ayr’s name.

And I’m not even going to tell you the rules for the Unicorn Challenge — that the post can’t be more than 250 words and we have to use the photo for inspiration — because next week it will all be over.

In the meantime, I’ll just cry myself to sleepe.

poetry

Magniloquent (not)

Sally1 Comment

Mechanical? I am not!
Any cogs? Not in my brain!
Gears clinking? Pshaw! I forgot –
No – machinery’s a bane
I truly don’t get motors.
Laugh at my utter absence
Of comprehension.  Rotors?
Quite a puzzle. I’ve no sense!  
Use this gizmo? Okay — yes
Explain its operation?
No way! — I’d rather address
This flow’r than mechanization

The W3 challenge this week involved a dive into “vintage mechanical marvels: music boxes, paddle steamers, tractor engines, grandfather clocks, fob watches, steamships, penny-farthings—you name it.” We were told to “Craft a poem inspired by these bygone mechanisms—let your mind whirl and tick with poetic possibility. And here’s the twist: be sure to include the word ‘magniloquent’ somewhere in your poem!”

For the record, “Magniloquent describes language that is intended to sound very impressive and important, or a person who uses such language.” (From Merriam-Webster)

This poem doesn’t use magniloquent — but I did make it an acrostic.

I really DON’T understand mechanical anything. Music boxes are beautiful for the sound that comes out of them. I like tractors because I love the smell of freshly mown hay and the neat rows of it in the field. Fob watches can have beautiful cases, but better I like the way it feels — the ways its curves nestle into my palm, its weight in my hand.

poetry

Escape

Sally12 Comments

To the ocean I would go
Just to see the water flow
Whooshing in and pulling back
Hearing shells go crickle-crack

On a lakeshore I could stand
Digging toes into the sand
Watching mallards swimming by
Ospreys, eagles in the sky

Rivers also beckon me
On their way to far-off sea
Current flowing, rushing on
By an unseen power drawn

Water is my great escape
So I have an oil seascape
When I’m home and cannot go
Painted ocean soothes my woe

This is my response to this week’s W3 prompt. Poet of the Week Marion Horton challenged us to

“…turn our gaze outward—to scapes. Your scape might be a landscape, seascape, cityscape, dreamscape—any view that stirs something in you. It could be drawn from memory or daily life, from a photograph or a painting, from what still stands or what’s long gone. Write in any form that helps you say what you need to say. Somewhere in your piece, be sure to include the word scape.“

The painting used to hang in our sunporch. I had to move it recently because I noticed it was being damaged by the sun and heat in that room.