Tag: W3

poetry

Folly

Sally8 Comments

A ladder
Propped up (could he be madder?!)
‘gainst barn on sawhorses, planks
Tanks.

No surprise
It failed — who would/could advise
Such a scheme? Only a fool
(You’ll

Soon agree)
Maybe you’re thinking “newbie” —
Nope! That’s not it either. See —
He

Was skillful
But also way too willful
To listen to any sense
(Dense)

Just foolish
And, like a donkey, mulish
Stubborn. He thought it would work.
(smirk)

To foresee
(he could not) those sheep, carefree,
Stampeding through his death trap
(Crap!)

He survived!
This story is not contrived;
It’s true. I heard it last eve —
Steve

This 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.

This is in response to the W3 prompt: folly

poetry

April

Sally10 Comments

Oh, April!
Daffodil
Of the months!
You instill

Joy, delight,
Hope, laughter —
Yes, laughter!
For after

The muddy
Wretchedness
Of March (I
Must confess –

While I don’t
Hate winter,
I notice
Hope splinter

At the ups-
And-downs of
Cold and snow)
How I love

To see the
Trillium
The snowdrops
The Lilium

I love the
Happy sight
Of flowers
And more light

The W3 prompt this week was to write a poem about April.

poetry

“Who am I & What is My Purpose?”

Sally7 Comments

Lord, let me be a ten-tug worm
That stands its ground as best it can
Or grips its ground as case may be
While robin works as worm hit-man
Though odds are stacked against me e’er
Though I can’t win — not with this plan
Though life is ever hopeless for
The principled who’s no yes-man
Give me fight ‘gainst the stronger-than

It’s rare these days when I miss the W3 challenge, but I did this week.

The challenge was to write a nine-line poem under the title of ““Who am I & What is My Purpose?”

I am frustrated with my job. So. Freaking. Frustrated.

Today, I had a conversation that I walked out of shaking my head and saying, “I can’t.”

Then I vented to the HR person.

Then I went for a walk. On my walk, I saw a robin tugging a worm that wasn’t giving way. It was a losing battle for the worm. I think it always is. But, for half a second, I was rooting for that worm. I knew at best, though, it would get torn in half. Not much of a best, eh?

The worm gave way.

The robin ate it.

I continued my walk.

Who am I? I’m the kind of person who fights a losing battle because I believe in it.

What is my purpose? To (hopefully) make the yes-man think.

poetry

Love is

Sally14 Comments

Constant
Begun with sleep loss
Cleaning up bodily fluids
Listening
An umbrella of security
The gift of time
Hard work

This is my response to the W3 prompt this week given by Murisopsis.

She asked us to write a Cameo whose form is Heptastich (7 lines), Syllabic (2-5-8-3-8-7-3), and unrhymed. Also, she wanted the theme of love and added “try to incorporate some other kinds of love for a change.”

My youngest daughter called the other day because she had food poisoning or a stomach bug or some such thing. She spent the night on the bathroom floor.

Had she been closer, I would have gotten her ginger ale and saltine crackers, and taken care of cleaning out the throw-up bucket for her.

I’ve done it.

Love is cleaning up vomit.

One time, when I was taking care of my father, he collapsed on the way to the bathroom and wet himself quite thoroughly. We called the ambulance, but he wanted to be presentable when they arrived so I helped clean him up and got him dry clothes.

“You shouldn’t have to do this,” he said, over and over. “I’m so sorry.”

Love is cleaning up urine.

My oldest daughter is expecting her first child. I remember as a young mom going to a baby shower for another new mom. We were all supposed to write advice for the new mom on little cards. Everyone write things like, “Tell your child you love him/her every day,” or “Live, laugh, love.” I had just had a horrible outing with my baby, where he did one of those poopy things that up his back and down his leg and got all over me when I tried to change him. We were an hour away from home. For the baby shower I wrote, “Always have a spare change of clothes in the car for you and your baby.” I was dead serious. It drew a lot of laughter at the shower.

Love is cleaning up poop that’s everywhere.

Can I say here that love isn’t candlelit dinners? It isn’t fun vacations. It isn’t bouquets of flowers or pretty jewelry. It’s the nitty gritty stuff of life.

Is that the kind of love you were talking about Murisopsis?

poetry

Open Hands

Sally14 Comments

I remind myself,
Unclench your hands
Hold them open

I remind myself,
Take a breath,
Don’t hold it

This week, the W3 prompt is to go on an introspective free verse journey. To do that, Allpoetry suggests starting with an image. I started with an image of open hands.

As you can see it was a struggle.

I wanted to write about how when you hold things too tightly, they cut into your hands and cause pain and injury.

I wanted to write something about that time my uncle grabbed onto an electric fence to show us it was safe, and like gullible little nieces and nephews, we grabbed on, too. And it wasn’t (safe) and we knew it before we did it but we were so gullible and trusting which is a kind of open hand even though it’s a closed hand on a wire.

I wanted to write about that sensation that I still feel of a dragonfly in my hand that flew away.

I wanted to write that cheesy sentiment that flourished in the 70s right along with the yellow smiley face and peace signs — it said something like, “If you love someone, let them go. If they return, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were.” I was in high school in the 70s — first loves and all that — but the more I think about it, I don’t think it’s true. I think in some situations, like children leaving home and finding their way in the world, they don’t come back, and that’s because you’ve done your job well. I have a daughter in London right now. She has fallen in love with a city that’s far from home and I couldn’t be happier for her. I hold her with open hands.

So I open my hands to the people in my life.

And I’ll breathe through the stresses in my life.

But I won’t write a very good introspective poem.

poetry

Delilah

Sally14 Comments

My darling,
Much better than quarreling
Is this: I will stroke your hair,
Swear

Devotion
To you while you’ve no notion
(Have you?) of whose side I’m on.
Yawn

My pretty;
Sleep on my lap. I pity
Your great surprise when you wake.
Take

Care, dumb thing.
Out of the strong came something.
Sweet fool, you yielded to me
Key

Expertise
That I might put you at ease
And take from you that which God
[prod]

Had conferred
On you. Soon the deed’s occurred —
Come take the hair of this mutt!
Cut!

The W3 prompt for this week was to write an ekphrastic poem about the Rubens’ painting of Samson and Delilah.

The more I looked at the painting, the more I disliked Delilah. She’s so false. What did Samson see in her? Well, I think that’s pretty clear in the painting, too.

This is an Irish form I’ve used before: deibide baise fri toin. Syllable count for each quatrain: 3-7-7-1. Rhyme scheme: aabb. The first two lines rhyme on two syllables, and the last two rhyme on one.

The poet of the week gave an additional challenge of including a line from Samson’s riddle: “Out of the strong came something sweet.”

poetry

Geraniums

Sally11 Comments

Plants weren’t watered while I was gone
My son forgot
The geraniums were wilted
So jilted, fraught

A good watering – life appears
Or reappears
I should say – its posture improves –
Life moves, cheers

Yes, cheers my heart. All is not lost
Tiny buds burst
Within days — I am delighted
A righted thirst

The W3 prompt this week: Write a poem of three stanzas inspired by the phrase ‘A Wilted Flower’ —Rhyming: Optional

The story in the poem is true. I didn’t know I needed to tell my son to water the plants. Geraniums are so resilient. I wish I could say the same of some of my other plants.

I chose another unpronounceable Irish form: the decnad cummaisc, a form that employs quatrains with both end and internal rhymes. Here are the guidelines:

  • Four-line stanzas.
  • Eight syllables in the first and third lines.
  • Four syllables in the second and fourth lines, which both end rhyme.
  • The final word of line three rhymes with the middle of line four.
poetry

The Leap

Sally17 Comments

Exhilirating is the word I’d use
Walking on the beam to reach the loft
Yes, barefoot! I had no use for shoes
Down below, I knew the hay was soft

Walking on the beam to reach the loft
Having climbed up, up, up in that old barn
Down below, I knew the hay was soft
My brother grabbed my arm as if to warn

Having climbed up, up, up in that old barn
What we were about to do seemed unsure
My brother grabbed my arm as if to warn
But we both felt the danger was the allure

What we were about to do seemed unsure
The warm and musty hay beckoned below
But we both felt the danger was the allure
The pigeons cooed, outside I heard a crow

The warm and musty hay beckoned below
Would we do it? Would we take that leap
The pigeons cooed, outside I heard a crow
Our knees shook, we took a breath quite deep

Would we do it? Would we take that leap?
A silent prayer, a silenter amen
Our knees shook, we took a breath quite deep
And once done, we’d do it all again

A silent prayer, a silenter amen
Exhilirating is the word I’d use
And once done, we’d do it all again
Yes, barefoot! I had no use for shoes

This is my response to the W3 challenge this week: write a pantoum about a childhood memory. A pantoum is made up of a series of quatrains rhyming ABAB in which the second and fourth lines of a quatrain recur as the first and third lines in the succeeding quatrain; each quatrain introduces a new second rhyme as BCBC, CDCD. At the end, you loop and grab those A lines again.

When I was 7 years old, my parents bought a non-working farm with 100 acres and 4 barns to explore. It was idyllic — truly. One of the things my brother and I did was climb up into a hayloft in one of the barns and jump down into the pile of hay below. So scary. So much fun.

The middle barn held the hay loft where we jumped.

poetry

Oh, to be a flower

Sally19 Comments

“Please select
Me!” She wanted to direct
The gardener as he scanned,
Hand

Already
Full of flowers, gaze steady.
He looked for one final bloom.
Gloom

Just settled
Over her. Her gold petaled
Head drooped in an oh-so-sad
Bad

Way. Downcast,
Rejected, again outcast,
Passed over. But then he stopped
Dropped

His pruner
“I wish I’d seen you sooner,”
He said to her. “You are sweet!
Meet

Your sidekicks.”
[snip!] She joined the spray, transfixed
By the beauty around her.
“We’re

Delighted
You can join us!” She sighted
A welcoming rose and mum.
“Come!”

This is for the W3 challenge this week. Heather (Sgeoil) challenged the participants to do a little personification. I had an idea for a flower being plucked from the garden for a bouquet (inspired in part by the bouquet that was on my bedside table when I stayed at my son’s house). My idea involved going in that sacrificial direction of losing life for the sake of something bigger. But, as you can see, it went in a totally different direction.

I wish I understood my own process.

AND — because I like Celtic forms, I went with a Deibide Baise Fri Toin, and Irish form with 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.