Tag: W3

poetry

Strength

Sally2 Comments

Line: Point A to B
≠ strength. Conversely
Circle: pointless and centered

The W3 challenge this week was to write either 1) a haiku, 2) a tanka, or 3) a senryu and use the word “strength” in it.

I looked up senryu because I didn’t know what it was. “The senryu is a three-line Japanese poetic form that focuses on human nature, generally with an ironic or darkly comedic edge.” (from Masterclass) It has 17 syllables, like a haiku, but I gave up on 5-7-5. Also, I decided that ≠ is one syllable. Of course, it’s not.

This may not seem human nature-ish, and it isn’t funny, but I had read something the other day that said Jesus drew circles, not lines. It stuck with me.

A bully draws lines in the sand and taunts those on the other side. Love includes them. There’s my human nature angle. (Angle — sheesh — I’ve got geometry on the brain!)

Note to David: I’m not submitting this to the W3 because it’s really not in keeping with the rules of the challenge. It was inspired by the challenge, but not a senryu.

poetry

Reflections on the Moon

Sally11 Comments

That crescent
Half-hidden, luminescent
Resting on clouds in un-stark
Dark

Moon inspires
Because it only requires
Mass gravity sun to be
Free

It’s waxing
Now – growing, growing. Maxing
At full. Sun reflected bright
Light

Such beauty
The moon is never snooty!
It brings delight to the sky
[sigh]

My desire —
Be like the moon and conspire
To make people smile when they see
Me

This is my contribution to the W3 prompt this week. This week’s Poet of the Week, Sheila Bair, challenged us to write a poem exactly 64 words in length that incorporates the words “light” and “dark”.

Done. This is a Celtic forms, Deibide Baise Fri Toin (don’t ask me to pronounce it), an Irish form with an 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..

I LOVE the moon. I really do. More than once I have thought about the fact that when we see the moon, we are actually seeing the sun’s reflection. Of course that begs the question — what am I reflecting? Dear God, let me reflect things that bring joy to others.

poetry

Why

Sally11 Comments

My mom becaused me when I whyed
I think I drove her bonkers
Her dementia was NOT payback
Because, you know, love conquers

I really didn’t how alot
I whyed and whyed and whyed
Now I who and date-of-birth
And where do you reside

My employer moneys me
It’s not my motivation
And when I nice those in my office
It’s for more than information

I love when people story me
Their travels far and near
And when older farmers farmer me
And tell of their John Deere

But let me backtrack to the whying
It’s just something that I do —
Other moves towards friendship
The more I understand you

This is my response to the W3 prompt this week. The prompt involved verbing words like “because”. Melissa provided a list of words and we could choose five.

I used: because, how, money, nice, and farmer (which I know now was a misread — it’s actually former).

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

The One that Got Away

Sally10 Comments

Do you remember that fish?
The one that got away?
Yeah — that humongous one
That amazing summer day

Oh yeah — do I remember!
That battle ‘twixt you and it?
You were so gol’darn mad
You said that you could spit

[He laughed a hearty laugh]
Oh, man, yes, you are right!
The one that got away
’cause it put up such a fight!

[So, the both of them chuckled
As they stared into the sky
And nibbled on summer timothy,
Then heaved a mighty sigh]

Yes, this is my own submission to my own W3 prompt.

A few weeks ago, I went with a friend to the Arkell Museum in Canajoharie, New York. They had at least 20 Home Winslows as part of their collection!

If you’ve never been to (or heard of) Canajoharie, let me tell you, it’s a tiny town on the Mohawk River in upstate New York. When I was a kid, we went on a field trip to the Beechnut factory there, where baby food was processed and made. Some summers later, I worked at a camp in Middleburgh, New York, where I passed Beechnut fields coming and going — beautiful, rich, farming field of whatever produce Beechnut needed.

Honestly, the whole area was/is as idyllic as a Winslow Homer painting.

In Canajoharie, as part of their village library, they have an art museum called the Arkell Museum. That’s where they had this collection of Winslow Homer paintings.

Anyhoo — I had just seen (and been blown away by) Winslow Homer, up close and personal. He made (and makes) my heart ache. Hence the prompt.

Honestly, I love that grew up in, and now live in, rural upstate New York. I don’t think there’s any prettier place in the world.

As far as the big one that got away? — boy conversation since the beginning of time. Right?

poetry

Seasons

Sally23 Comments

From there to here and here to there
From that to this and this to where
From seed on wind to in the ground
New growth, slow growth — changes abound

In winter earth and trees are bare
From there to here and here to there
Snow and ice yield to subtle Spring
Or not-so-subtle — hear it sing?!

As birds return and leaves burst out
Flowers bloom. They whisper. They shout
From there to here and here to there
Summer comes with flamboyent flair

Flaunting sunshine on sparkling lakes
Eagles, herons, doves, ducks and drakes
Some migrate south on cool fall air
From there to here and here to there

This is my response to the W3 Challenge this week — to write a quatern on the theme of transformation.

What’s a quatern, you ask? Well, it has four quatrains (four-line verses). It’s syllabic: each line has eight syllables. It may rhyme, but rhyming is not required. It has a refrain. The refrain of a quatern repeats the 1st line of stanza one (S1) as the 2nd line of S2, the 3rd line of S3, and the 4th line of S4.

I feel my Dr. Seuss influence is showing in this one.

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.

Faith · poetry

In Church

Sally11 Comments

Praying in a pew on well worn kneeler
Darkness flickers while light streams
Sinner. Beloved. Which?

That shadow in the back — did I see something?
Tiny glimpse of disquiet
Lurking, lurking, lurking

Yet, there is light casting rainbow colors
Through tow’ring stained glass windows
Overwhelming peace

Praying in a pew on well worn kneeler
Tiny glimpse of disquiet
Overwhelming peace

This is my response to this week’s W3 challenge — to write a Garland Kimo on the theme of good vs evil.

The ‘Kimo’ is a short syllabic poetic form of three lines. The syllable count per line is 10/7/6.

Also, the kimo is focused on a single frozen image (kind of like a snapshot). So it’s uncommon to have any movement happening in kimo poems.

The ‘Garland Kimo’ is a series of four ‘Kimo’ verses, in which the fourth Kimo verse is composed of lines taken from the previous three Kimo verses, using the 1st line from the 1st Kimo, the 2nd line from the 2nd Kimo, and the 3rd (last) line from the 3rd Kimo.