Tag: poem

poetry

i sing of Alex

Sally1 Comment

i sing of Alex slender and brave
interjected self to save
a woman pushed
pepper-sprayed
oh, if Alex had only stayed
home (and watched the news)
but instead
armed with phone
(and holstered legal gun)
he reached out to help
(as any nurse would
caring
for the
SUFFE-
Ring)
BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM
agents counted bullet holes
as Alex lay dying
(minneapolis crying)

This week’s W3 challenge is to write a poem that is inspired by another poet.

My favorite poet has long been e. e. cummings. His poem, i sing of Olaf glad and big, is a powerful story that leaves me with a knot in my stomach every time I read it.

Do I love that poem? I love its power. I love its grittiness. I love that poetry can produce a knot in my stomach, and still make me want to read it again.

poetry

Words and Seeds

Sally8 Comments

Words are seeds; seeds are words
They are scattered by the breeze
Who knows where they will go, take root
On land or stormy seas

Words, you know, are regional
They similar to seeds
When they emerge from babe or soil
You glimpse the paths life leads

Our world is global in many ways
People, plants, ideas, thoughts
English full of foreign words?
American English is British ersatz!

Even with our deep deep roots
We are fragile. We are frail.
We are NOT in cahoots
Hoping to see others fail.

Let me welcome and embrace
Those who do not sound like me
Or look like me or think like me
We’re still similar at our base

This weeks W3 Challenge was to explore the theme: Beneath the Surface.

Write in any form, but keep your poem to 20 lines or fewer.

I started with one idea for a poem — but then it took me in another direction entirely. Like a seed blown with the wind.

William Shakespeare, in Merchant of Venice, wrote these words spoken by Shylock:

If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh?
if you poison us, do we not die?
and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

I agree up to the last line. I do not want revenge.

There’s a scene in Searching for Bobby Fischer where the chess teacher is telling the boy, Josh, that he has to hate his opponent and Josh says, “But I don’t hate them.” The instructor says, “Well, you’d better start.”

No, no — he had not better start.

We need to look for commonalities, not ways to win.

poetry

Cuppa

Sally10 Comments

Cuppa
Hands curve around mug
Smell of java, swirl of cream [sigh]
Pink sunrise
One warm sip, this new day begins
The breakfast of champions:
Coffee

This is my response to this week’s W3 challenge:

Write a Cameo poem—a tiny, distilled moment—on any theme you choose.

Form:

  • 7 lines;
  • Syllable count: 2 / 5 / 8 / 3 / 8 / 7 / 2;
  • Imagery is essential;
  • Minimalism is encouraged
Life · people · poetry

Overheard

Sally15 Comments

Overheard
Malicious whispers
Between two
Co-workers
My heart grew cold at their words
Squeezing in my chest

Breathing stopped
Blackness obscured sight
My fists clenched
And unclenched
Thoughts swirled like a tornado
Unholy and wild

Office chair
Calmed me in this storm
I held on
Took a breath
Straightened my back and went out
“I heard what you said”

This is my response to this week’s W3 challenge: to write shadorma poems.

The shadorma is a compact Spanish syllabic form built from a six-line stanza with a strict syllable pattern: 3 / 5 / 3 / 3 / 7 / 5 (26 syllables total). It is typically unrhymed, and a poem may consist of a single stanza or a series of stanzas.

For this challenge, the theme is Sensory Details.

Write a close-up study of a single inanimate object or a very specific moment. Think small and focused rather than narrative or expansive. The power of the poem should come from sensory observation—what can be seen, heard, touched, smelled, or felt.

Yes, this actually happened. It was a specific moment and I tried to write the sensory details of it.

Life

Playing Chess with Amelia

Sally2 Comments

Amelia’s knights neighed
Her black pawn had tea with my white
Our bishops talked
“What are they talking about?” I asked
“Hello,” she said, bobbing one up and down
“How are you?” she said, bobbing the other similarly
She giggled
“This is more fun than checkers,” she said
Amelia is in third grade
“The pieces are people,” she stated
“Can our queens be friends?” she asked
I paused
“That’s not how the game works,” I told her
She pressed her lips together
Then she reached over and touched her pawn
The one that was head to head with my pawn
“But they can still have tea, right?” she asked

family · poetry

First Kitten

Sally16 Comments

“Can I have a kitty?” itty-
bitty me asked my father — rather,
my mom put me up to it. It
seems that she knew new
kitten would equal no. No,
unless she rigged the odds. Odds
are he would say yes to me, mea-
ning I asked, pleading, “Yes?” — “Yes.”

Ichibon — Ichi + bon — Japanese for Number One — our first cat

We were on an army base at the time. The family with the kittens had recently come back from Japan.

How could my father say no?

This is my attempt at an Echo Poem, this week’s W3 Challenge. An echo poem repeats the ending syllable (or syllables) of each line. That’s it. No strict rules about meter or length.

Life · poetry

Never Assume?

Sally7 Comments

This is my response to this week’s W3 challenge: write an alphabet poem

We had two options: 26 words (which I did) or 26 lines.

Assume
Question
Guess
Look
Notice
Unearth
Examine
Scrutinize
Ponder
Weigh
X-ray
Open, Close, Test
Build
Zero in
Deliberate
Know
Verify
Judge
Misjudge
Reconsider
Hope
Yield
Forgive

Never assume, because it makes an ass out of ‘u’ and ‘me

poetry

Time Change

Sally2 Comments

The next time change is two weeks away! GAH!!! On March 8, we must turn our clocks ahead and lose an hour. I’m not a fan.

In Val’s Seasonal Scavenger Hunt, prompt #3 is to write a Dizain describing your personal journey into the new season. A dizain is a ten-line French poetic form, popular in the 15th-16th centuries, featuring 10 lines of 10 syllables each (or iambic pentameter) and a strict ababbccdcd rhyme scheme.

Here’s a dizain bemoaning the upcoming time change.

I bristle when it’s time to change the clocks
It seems to me that time is time is time
The change of seasons we cannot outfox
Circadian rhythms are somewhat sublime
To muck with them just seems to be a crime
C’mon, old body, you can re-adjust!
It’s not a choice — in fact, you must! You must!
In the fall, then once again in spring
I’ll do it, but I’ll do it with disgust
The brittleness of age dislikes the swing

poetry

The Long Winter

Sally2 Comments

The apples at the store were soft
Their crispness was long gone
Too long sunsets were early
And too late was the dawn

Snuggling with her Tigger-Tiger
Kept little Molly warm
As outside snow swirled and blew
Another winter storm

“It’s almost March! When will this end?”
Mamma wailed and whined
The blinding blizzard hammered down
Of Spring there were no signs

Molly hugged her Tigger-cat
And cried, “But Mommy look!
Since we can’t go outside today
Let’s read another book!”

This is my response to Val’s Winter Scavenger Hunt‘s second prompt: Use the following words in a poetry form of your choice: apple(s), sunset, tiger, hammer.

poetry

Earthworms, Sea Pigs, Hoverflies, and Sally

Sally11 Comments

You hide, avoiding spotlight and regard,
Let others have their moments in the sun
Small talk, large groups for you are both quite hard
Thus you oft eschew the words, “Well done”

What creature, then, can I compare with thee?
An earthworm making soil in the dirt?
Or detritivore cleaning up the sea,
Hard-working anti-social introvert

A hoverfly works hard to pollinate
The lovely flowers everyone enjoys
Yet no one pauses to appreciate
The busy flying workers of no noise

Some people never see, will never know
The one who does, and doesn’t seek to show

W3 Challenge this week: write a love sonnet to yourself.

Let this line guide you:

There is in you something that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in Yourself … that is the only true guide that you will ever have.— Howard Thurman (1899 – 1981)

For Christmas, my brother gave each of his surviving siblings a mug with a QR code on it. My QR code leads me to a trivia question each day. My sister gets the bird of the day. Another brother learns a little history from his. The gift-giving brother learns about an unusual creature each day. The other day his creature was a Sea-Pig:

This high definition video framegrab was taken from MBARI’s ROV “Doc Ricketts” aboard the R/V Western Flyer at a depth of approximately 1260 meters on March 9, 2010.

Scotoplanes globosa, commonly known as the sea pig, is a species of sea cucumber that lives in the deep sea. It is considered a detritivore, or something that eats detritus, decaying organic matter. These kinds of creatures are crucial to the ecosystem, but we seldom consider them.

Out of sight, out of mind.

They probably like it that way.

I know that I do