Tag: poem

poetry

Two Cats

Sally10 Comments

Two cats share an old chair by the woodstove
An orange tabby and a calico
They stretch and bask, sometimes paws interwove
One wakes and grooms the other, licking slow

They eat their food together from a bowl
Or crouch together watching some poor bird
Sometimes they argue ’bout who gets the mole
Mostly they don’t care who gets the last word

Companions would be an inadequate
Description for this cat-relationship
So bonded in a way that’s not clearcut
Expressing joy wtih purr and lick and nip

They are true friends — someone with whom they can
Just be themselves without ulterior plan

This is my submission for the W3 prompt this week: write a sonnet on the theme of friendship.

poetry

Early Morning

Sally15 Comments

The howling
Ah-roo yip, yip (no growling)
Wakes me. Or does it? So near!
Hear?

And owling
hoo-HOO hoo-HOO (no growling)
Out my window, I hear life
Rife

With wildness
Foxes scream – WRAAAAGH! – no mildness
(Or growling) Look at the dark!
Hark!

It’s early
But day is alive, surly
Lonely, looking, using sound
Found

In darkness
Life not visible, starkness
Yet teeming, streaming. New day —
Yay!

This is my response to this week’s W3. POW Lesley Scoble challenged us to: Create a poetic scene, based on this imagery: It is early morning. You get out of bed and go to the window.

Here’s the thing, though — I go to work at 5 AM, so I get up at 3:30 AM. When I get out of bed and look out the window, I’m mostly looking at darkness. Or the moon. I have written a poem or two about the moon.

For this, though, my getting-out-of-bed moments of late are full of sounds, so I wrote about them.

The coyotes have been so active and loud. And the owls. Fortunately, I don’t heard the fox scream often, but I did the other morning, as I lay in bed thinking about getting up.

Morning — even early early morning when it is still dark — is my favorite time of day.

The poetic form is an unpronounceable Irish form: Deibide Baise Fri Toin. Quatrains. 3-7-7-1 syllables. Rhyme scheme aabb: lines 1 and 2 rhyme on two syllables, lines 3 and 4 rhyme on one.

Blather · poetry

Two Roads — FWIW

Sally5 Comments

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
(I should be telling this with a sigh)
Stood at that fork and took it
Hey Yogi! Hey Raffi!
Look it! Look it! Look it!
You know what came next?
(What came next?)
A knife and spoon!
(clink, clink)
So I kept on walking down the road
With a fork-knife-spoon as my load

On Saturday I was supposed to go to a poetry reading. Mind you, I have done that only once before in my life and it was a terrifying experience. Thankfully an excuse presented itself and I bowed out. The friend who had invited me offered to read my poems for me. I gave her two — neither of which had been the poem I planned to read.

She messaged me later, telling me that the poems were well-received, that I was a rare talent.

To prove her wrong, I’m going to go ahead and publish last week’s tripe, my response to the W3 prompt. The POW gave a lovely challenge: to use 1-2 lines from Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”

Unfortunately Yogi Berra infiltrated my brain regarding that poem. Yogi once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” It’s one of many Yogi-isms for which he is famous. Like, “It ain’t over, ’til it’s over,” and “You can observe a lot by watching.”

Suddenly, too, while writing, I was doing battle with Raffi, who kept singing at me (in my head) about a time he went for a walk.

Sheesh.

Sometimes the muses either just aren’t there or are a couple of clowns.

Anyone else struggle with this?

poetry

In my hand

Sally9 Comments

The nothing weight of a bird
(the word is zero zilch nil)
In my hand, I thought it dead
But its head moved. Later still

The indigo bunting flew
Brilliant blue away on wing
Wonder, marvel, such splendor
I surrender to this thing

This idea that beauty
(nature’s duty) is oft found
In small overlooked moments
Whose components astound

When examined or seen
Like the green praying mantis
Spindly legs folded in front —
A hunt? Or holy practice

The wooly bear in my palm
A psalm of security
As it curls up –in that pose
Choosing to trust surety

I would get it ‘cross the road.
I sing an ode to efts (or
Are they newts?) turtles, toads
Crossing roads. Yes, I adore

The fact that I can hold them
Avoiding mayhem of cars
Moments of peace in my hand –
So grand – if we but stop, ours

This is a Welsh form: Awdl Gywydd (pronounced “ow-dull gee-youth”)

  • Four lines
  • Seven syllables per line
  • The final syllable of the first and third lines rhyme with the 3rd-5th syllable of the following lines
  • The second and fourth lines rhyme.

It’s my response to the W3 prompt this week. Selma Martin (the poet of the week) challenged us to write a poem of any form on the theme of the beauty and perpetuity of the natural world that surrounds you. I am a nature-rescuer, in my own very small way, helping small cross the road on a daily basis, and very occasionally, like the indigo bunting, being surprised at life where I assumed death.

poetry

Garden Fresh

Sally18 Comments

Summer foods
Summer eats
Fresh wholesome
Tasty treats

Green beans – yum!
Dangling down
Pick and eat
Best all ’round

Cucumber
Love to munch
Garden yield
Fresh raw [crunch]

Yellow squash
Sliced, sauteed
Seasoned well
Makes the grade

Corn on cob
Freshly picked
Butter, salt
So perfect

Summer foods
Summer eats
Fresh wholesome
Tasty treats

This poem is a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire.  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.

The W3 prompt this week is to write a food-related poem in any form. Okay, I thought, I’ll just write down everything I eat for the day and make a poem about it. Here was my first verse:

Farmstand egg
Whole wheat toast
Smoked Gouda
It’s the most

But I realized that almost everything else I ate was garden-related, so I nixed my egg sandwich and just put verses in that involved fresh produce.

poetry

Hip Pain Sucks

Sally11 Comments

When I rise up from sitting down to standing
My hip protests, “No! No! You can’t do that!”
But I’m active — and I’m sick of where I’ve sat
I actually love the physically demanding!
My hip protests, “No! No! You can’t do that”
When I rise up from sitting down to standing

This was a tough challenge for me! The W3 challenge this week is to write a biolet. A biolet is a six line poem in which the first two lines are repeated as the last two lines, however in reverse. The rhyme scheme can be expressed as ABbaBA (with the capital letters representing the repeated lines).

Additionally, Sadje challenged us to use the theme of love/hate. I love being physically active. I hate the way this stupid hip pain is keeping me from being as active as I usually am.

poetry

Kittens?

Sally9 Comments

It hit me when I saw them play
That fuzzy tumbling adorable ballet
Of baby animals. I was smitten
But — they’re just a kittens!

Okay — not kittens. Tiny webbed feet
Downy feathers, little bills, complete
The picture — Gosh! I’m smitten!
They COULD be a kittens

Actually, I could call them a litter
But they’re a brood, all a-skitter
In the lake. I’m smitten
But no — not kittens!

These ducklings make me laugh and smile
No agenda. No politics. No guile.
Just joyful play. I was as smitten
As if they were kittens.

I’ve been swimming in the lake. Of course, I can’t take pictures of the ducklings while I’m swimming, but sometimes when I see them, all I think is that they’re just like kittens — except they don’t have fur and claws and whiskers. Instead they have fuzzy feathers, webbed feet and bills. Other than that they’re pretty much exactly the same.

This is in response to David’s W3 prompt to write a poem about something that amuses you. Ducklings amuse me. So do kittens.

poetry

The Story of a Clock

Sally17 Comments

There once was a clock FULL of faces
In a restaurant — sheesh — of all places
So loud and so rude
While folks ate their food
Non-existent was homeostasis

So the chef there (whose name was Bill)
Finally reached his fill
Of its public emotions
(louder than oceans)
That he “accidentally” dropped it on the grill

As the clock sizzled and screamed
Bill literally stood by and beamed
Ahh — peace at last
(It happened quite fast!)
Ambiance returned, redeemed

Well, look at me — whipping a limerick or three on the day the prompt was posted.

This is in response to the W3 prompt — and what a great one it is! — to write a limerick based on the photo prompt.

poetry

(not really) a Cento

Sally11 Comments

i have never traveled

So much depends
Upon
The fog
a ribbon of moonlight
the dew on the morning grass
the snow carefully everywhere descending

somewhere, gladly beyond
a smaller gift — not the worn truth
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
the world offers itself to your imagination

Line 1 and Line 8 — e.e. cummings — together these two lines make one complete line “somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond”

Lines 2 and 3 from a William Carlos Williams’ poem that nobody understands but is forced on high school students across the USA.

Line 4 Carl Sandburg — first line of the first poem I remember intentionally memorizing

Line 5 Alfred Noyes — not a full line, but from The Highwayman, the first poem I voluntarily memorized just because I liked it and was smitten by the tragedy of the story. Anne of Green Gables also memorized it, but I didn’t even know AoGG existed at the time.

Line 6 Billy Collins — not a full line, but from Litany — just a poem I love

Line 7 e.e. cummings again

Line 9 also Billy Collins — not a full line, but from The Lanyard — a poem one of my sons sent me for Mother’s Day one year.

Line 10 e.e. cummings — I LOVE e.e. cummings

Line 11 Mary Oliver — not a full line from Wild Geese — a poem one of my sons read at my father’s funeral

A weak attempt at the W3 prompt this week: Write a Cento on the them of Love.

A cento is a poem formed of lines from poems written by others. I didn’t use whole lines most of the time.

poetry · swimming

Where I learned to swim

Sally12 Comments

Those twenty
Yards – chlorinated plenty –
Were my haven after school.
Cool

Wet refuge
After the social deluge
Of people pressure and the strife —
Life!

Yes, water
Is life-giving. The hotter
The peer interaction hash
[splash]

The increase
In joy! To dive in, release
All the heavy weary stress –
Yes!

Go swimming!
When your day has been brimming
With all life’s too-muchness – get
Wet.

This is my response to the W3 prompt this week which is to compose an ekphrastic poem inspired by any image of a body of water (ocean, waterfall, lake, etc.). The Poet of the Week (Sarah David) also wanted us to include the image that served as inspiration.

The photo is from the pool where I learned to swim. The pool itself is long gone, converted into office space. When I walk past that building, I try to remember what is was like inside, but it’s a struggle. I can’t picture the pool.

Then, I found that photo in an old yearbook at a used bookstore. The picture is at least 15 years older than I am, but the memories that flooded over me when I saw it — well, let’s just say I HAD to buy that yearbook for a ridiculous price for that one picture. That pool was such a happy place for me.

The poem is an Irish form called Deibide Baise Fri Toin. It’s made up of quatrains with an aabb rhyme scheme. Syllable count 3-7-7-1. Lines one and two rhyme on a two-syllable word; lines three and four rhyme on a monosyllabic word.