Tag: W3

Grief · poetry

Of Memories Gone

Sally15 Comments

The W3 prompt for this week is to write a villanelle on the cycle of life and death.

I love villanelles (in theory). I especially love when other people write good villanelles. I’ve decided, though, that I don’t like writing them.

I wish I was Dylan Thomas and knew how to not go gentle. Instead I found myself monkeying around with a ton of bricks. Such an overused cliche.

My father died in 2019 and my memory is so blurred. I have very few clear recollections of that day.

I went for a walk. I DO remember doing that — more, I remember my own NEED to do that. There were too many people in that one room and one of them was dead. I needed to get out.

Now, when I look back at that time, there’s a pandemic in the way. It’s like a wall that I can’t see over.

Something significant happened in September 2019. I have vague memories of it.

In my attempt at villanelle-ing, I ended up with two, neither of which I’m terribly happy with —

Here’s the first:

My father’s death hit me like a ton of bricks
It happened late September but the day’s a blur
And then we had a pandemic thrown into the mix

I was his care-giver, but I couldn’t fix
The inevitable. Yes, we knew it would occur!
My father’s death hit me like a ton of bricks

A gastric bleed that would totally eclipse
The dementia to which I had begun to defer
And then we had a pandemic thrown into the mix

When I look back on that time, nothing sticks
Nothing stays in order, no memories pure
My father’s death hit me like a ton of bricks

I went for a walk — yes, that clicks
But after that? I fear it’s all a whirr
And then we had a pandemic thrown into the mix

I know I have good reason for the memory skips
How did I make it through? I am not sure
My father’s death hit me like a ton of bricks
And then we had a pandemic thrown into the mix

And here’s attempt number two:

Enough with all this talk
Words are a garbled mess
I need to go for a walk

The night we hear death’s knock
We gather to pray, witness, bless
— Enough with all this talk

The hospice nurse notes the clock
Done? Begun? Your guess —
I need to go for a walk

To walk and walk — the shock
— I can’t express —
Enough with all this talk

Dear God, I need sound blocked
I need so so much less
I need to go for a walk

Trite, kind, angry words interlock
Into some noisy distress
Enough with all this talk
I need to go for a walk

poetry · prayer

Reflection (a prayer)

Sally20 Comments

Lord, let me be a full moon
I fear I am but a crescent
May my actions
Reflect You

This is in response to the W3 prompt this week:

Write a Naani poem — “Naani is one of India’s most popular Telugu poems. Naani means an expression of one and all. It consists of 4 lines, consisting of 20 to 25 syllables. This form is not bound to a particular subject.”

Reena, the poet of the week, also provided the image as inspiration.

poetry

Hindsight (regarding the Shingles Vaccine)

Sally10 Comments

Pain that is hard to express –
Distress! I cannot measure
This constant dull ache and itch;
It’s a bitch, not a pleasure.

After I came down with this —
Yes, I was remiss, and more,
I pooh-poohed getting this shot!
I know it now — not before

This is in response to the W3 prompt this week:

Compose two verses according to the following specifications:

  • “Opposites”:The first and last word of each stanza must be opposites of one another;
    • The two stanzas must use different opposites.
  • No restrictions on form, length, meter, or rhyme;
  • Thematic: Write about emotions, attitudes, and/or moods;

I chose to try again at a Welsh form: Awdl Gywydd

  • 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.

This is also in response to having Shingles — which aren’t an emotion, attitude or mood, but they sure do provoke a lot of those.

poetry

To a 4-H Summer Assistant

Sally9 Comments

Do you remember that teenage girl
You talked to years ago?
Instead of oyster, you saw pearl –
She was a tough one though!
She pushed against all that you said
When you tried to reaffirm
That she had value –No! Instead
She tried to worm and worm
Her way away from your kind words
Why didn’t you give up?
Why not say, This is for the birds?!
But no, you filled her cup —

And now my life reads like a long and wondrous book
If he wants to know the good he did, dear God, let him look

This is in response to the W3 prompt for this week — to write a memory poem. Here are the instructions:

  • Imagine a person from an old memory looking in on you through an open window;
    • You’d all but forgotten about this person, but today their presence has given rise to this memory;
    • What do you see? What’s going on?
  • Write this as a Memory Poem:
    • Purge this memory out of your system; allude to the memory; banish the memory; 
  • Poem length: 100 – 300 words;
  • The poem must end with these words: “Let him/her look”

I don’t know if I did the whole memory poem thing correctly. First, it’s only 98 words.

But — true story — in my early teens, I was a pretty mixed-up kid. I was part of a perfect family, but I was pretty less than perfect. One summer, when I was making all sorts of bad choices, these two guys came from Cornell to spend the summer working in our county with the 4-H program. One of them started a summer band.

Indirectly, I suppose, music saved me. I got involved with the summer band and then got roped into other activities with a different group of kids and a more wholesome focus.

I think I was 14 years old. I remember swearing at the one guy in a long tirade about I-don’t-know-what and he just took it. He didn’t scold me. He didn’t kick me out. He just took it.

And continued to treat me nicely.

Of course, I didn’t keep in touch with those guys. I was a kid. They were Cornell students. At the end of the summer, they went back to Cornell. Honestly, I can’t even remember the band guy’s last name.

But, what a difference he made in my life!


family · poetry

Ichibon – Our First Cat

Sally12 Comments

“Can I have a little kitty?” I asked my dad one day.
My mother put me up to it; she knew what he would say.
When I had first asked her, she said, “You need to ask your dad.”
The thought of having NO kitten made me rather sad –
So in my simple six-year-old heart, I began to pray.

When I first saw those kittens, much to my dismay,
The lady said to ask my mom and I knew I must obey
So I asked my mom with every ounce of sweetness that I had —
Can I have a little kitty?

My father loved to tell this tale. I can hear him now portray
How this funny freckled blonde-haired girl stole his heart away
With such a simple question — and he would often add
“How could I say no to that?” Yes, he would be a cad
To deny his own dear daughter the joy that came with one “Okay”
Can I have a little kitty?

The cat’s name was Ichibon. We lived on an army base at the time, and the family with the kittens had recently returned from a stint in Japan. Ichibon means #1 in Japanese, and she was allegedly the first kitten born in the litter.

Ichibon was first in a long long string of cats in my life. Today, I have an obese cat who doesn’t understand that he’s supposed to be a working cat and taking care of the mice in this house — but that’s probably a poem for another day.

This is response to the W3 prompt this week:

Write a rondeau inspired by a childhood memory

  • 15 lines long;
  • Three stanzas:
    • a quintet (five-line stanza);
    • a quatrain (four-line stanza);
    • and a sestet (six-line stanza);
  • Rhyme scheme: aabba aabR aabbaR.
  • Refrain: L9 and L15
    • The refrain (R) is short;
    • The refrain (R) consists of a phrase taken from L1;
  • All the other lines are longer than R and share the same metrical length.
poetry · prayer

Daring

Sally12 Comments

Staring at the starlit sky
Daring to believe in hope
Baring heart, baring soul
Swearing to do more than cope

When life throws unexpected curves
Then also adds surprising joys
Again we dare to dream and pray
Amen, amen — ‘midst all the noise

W3 prompt

This week’s prompt is to write a “lento” on the topic of dreams. Lento?

  • Two quatrains (four-line stanzas) with a fixed rhyme scheme of abcb, defe, as the 2nd and 4th lines of each stanza must rhyme;
  • All the FIRST words of each verse should rhyme; click HERE for an example.
poetry

Autumn/Winter

Sally14 Comments

Some may think it strange —
This is my favorite time
I sit quietly
Watching leaves waft their way down
Or swirling as if unsure
Where to fall. It’s fall —
Leaves falling, falling, falling
Left behind ’til spring
Or raked into piles and hauled
To the compost where they rot
“It’s so cold today!”
People say, pulling on coats
Wild geese preen feathers
Preparing for fall; they fly
In formation; I stay home

Truly my favorite time of year.

W3 prompt for today:

  • Compose a series of three tanka;
    • Following are three “turn lines” or “pivots” (third lines) for each of three tanka, and you must construct the rest:
      1. Turn / Pivot for tanka #1: “I sit quietly”
      2. Turn / Pivot for tanka #2: “Left behind till spring”
      3. Turn / Pivot for tanka #3: “Wild geese preen feathers”
    • These tanka are to be autumn/winter-themed;
    • You may write each of your tanka in a single unbroken line of thirty-one syllables, or you may use the five-line 5/7/5/7/7 approach.
poetry

Liturgy

Sally15 Comments

Lean
Into
The pained words
Uttered by men,
Repeated to the
God who already knows:
I believe in one God … I
Confess my faults; Have mercy, please,
According to all Your promises —
“Lean into the pained words uttered by men”

This is my response to the W3 prompt this week —

  • Share an emotion of yours in a “Dectina Refrain” poem.
  • Ten lines;
  • Syllabic: 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10;
  • The tenth line is comprised of the first four lines all together, as one stand alone line in quotation marks. (apparently the quotation marks are optional.)
  • This wasn’t a requirement — but mine is an acrostic as well.

This whole “share an emotion” business is for the birds in my life right now.

I told my counselor that this week. Not a fan of emotions. At all. Not even a little. Please make them go away.

But I’ve been trying to pray again. Trying is the operative word here.

This is why liturgy is so important. When words fail, we still have words — old words that have been spoken for centuries.

I’m not alone.

poetry

Here Comes the Sun

Sally11 Comments

Sometimes
the best part
of a cloudy day
is when
the
sun
peeks through

and

Sometimes
the best part
of a sunny day
is when
the
clouds
pass by

The W3 prompt this week (from Leslie Scoble) is:

  • Compose a free verse poem of any length 
  • Thematic: The theme for this poem should be ~ “the SUN”

Life

Bookmark Appreciation

Sally16 Comments

I will not dog-ear a page.

Instead, I use one of these:

* A random scrap of paper

* A love note from one of my
children that says, “I
love you, Mom” or “I know that
I can always go to you.”

* A piece of pretty cardstock

* Bookstore ad — “Book No Further”

* Used envelope sans the mail

* Cross-stitched cats on hardanger

* Index card scribbled with notes
And quotes from the book it’s in

* A tucked-in book jacket flap

* A grocery store receipt

* Slip from an online bookstore
that says “Thank you for your order!”

* A printed prayer, * a ribbon

* A postcard, * an old letter

* Class handout folded in half

* Tattered newspaper clippings

* Business card from an artist
That I met at a craft show

* Page from a day calendar –
2002 Far Side cows

* An unused tissue because
A used one would be quite gross

* A decades old photograph
of my kids in a leaf pile

* A Reeses candy wrapper

You have to admit there is
always something close at hand
to neatly keep your place for
when you return to reading

Many apologies. I’m not feeling terribly creative :/

However, the W3 prompt this week was to write an ode to an everyday object. This may not be an ode, but I do appreciate all the little items that rise to the challenge of holding my place in a book.