Instagram Poem

Today at Real Toads is Tuesday Platform. Sanaa is Suggesting instagram sized poems. So here we go for day 24 of Nannumope.

the full moon flutters
on the surface of the pond
lone cicada sings

Numb

Today is Day 23 of Nannernannerbooboo. This is for Kerry’s prompt on madness at Real Toads. Kerry has given us several examples of quotes from Shakespeare on madness as this is the great bard’s birthday.  Wee notes:  often times the insane were treated worse than animals.  In the 1890’s it was common to treat/to “cure” insanity to pull the teeth of the insane, to give women hysterectomies, freezing cold baths, laudanum…Bedlam, Willard Asylum – these names conjure up visions of horror.

Numb
“I have become comfortably numb” Pink Floyd

My family put me here years ago
when I had a child out of wedlock.
They drugged me
gave me cold freezing baths
cut off my beautiful hair
pulled my teeth
gutted me like a fish
I withdrew from them
Now I live inside my head
I walk on stars and mountains
I am silent
Non-reactive even when abused
by the attendants
I say nothing
I no longer fight
I just sit
And think
And scream
Inside my head
Inside my
Inside

public domain photo

Dandelion Prayer

Today is day 22 of the Nannernuclearmeltdown. Susie has given us wonderful quotes and pics to use for our poems at Real Toads. I was happy to see the dandelion, my favorite flower. today on Earth Day, I have chosen the quote about the dandelion but I have used my own picture as I feel it gives us the true survival spirit of the flower as we need this so badly at this time in our lives.

Dandelion Prayer

“A fresh and vigorous weed, always renewed and renewing, it will cut
its wondrous way through rubbish and rubble.” William Jay Smith

Bloom where your seeds fly –
Lion’s tooth bite away the pain
The sorrow –
Dandelion give us joy
Especially help us to rise above the challenges
Give us lasting joy
Help us to use our intellingence
to build Instead of destroy,
to heal each other
to heal the earth
to heal us of our emotional pain
to shine for us with the warmth of the sun
to lead us into tomorrow
and to make us smile with your bright
and cheery mein
and to give as freely as you.

public domain

Little Kitty

For Day 21 of Nanomargarine or whatever…this is for Brendan’s prompt over at Real Toads, 30 in 30.  This is about an animal of myth or legend or as I like to call it, after one of my favorite movies, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.  This is also for Sunday’s Poetry Pantry at Poets United.

Little Kitty
Little kitty,
Do you know you were once worshipped in Egypt
as a goddess?
Did you know you were once considered
the protector of the Pharoah,
that women desiring children
would wear your image around their necks
and that the number of children they wanted
would be represented by the number of kittens
depicted with you?
Did you know as Bastet
you were protector of perfumes,
and medicinal ointments, that you guarded
against contagion and evil spirits and vermine?
In the personification of Bast
you were depicted as a hunting lioness –
the most powerful hunter in Egypt?
As Bast and Bastet you brought together
the Upper and Lower Kingdoms of Egypt?
Little kitty,
I would like to dress you in gold jewelry
and let you eat off my plate
and wander at will and have people
bow to you, to have you as the wife of Anubis,
help with preparing my body with burial
and guiding me over the spirit river
to eternal life.
Little kitty who’s name was Belle
and is now entombed in a shoe box
and wrapped in my Duke tee shirt
your grave marked by lilies of the valley
and a double delight rose.
Little kitty, keeper of my heart and
Protector of my soul…

British Museum

Haibun – Tarheel

Day 20 of Nano. Sherry is giving the prompt for today at Real Toads. My favorite prompt yet. It is based on the free verse poetry of Al Purdy, poet laureate of Canada. She has gifted us his wonderful poem, Say the Names. It is a true gift. The saying of names of places we loved, people we loved. I am doing a haibun – a true prose accounting of something in our past and ended with a seasonal haiku. Haibun are always in first person and always non-fiction. I truly loved this prompt. I didn’t do it credit but I tried. Wee notes about the pronunciation: Bahama (buh HAY muh) and Moriah (mo-RYE-uh).

Tarheel
I am a North Carolina girl. Born and raised there. Some nights when I can’t sleep, I sit on my back steps and say the names like a litany: Tobacco Road, Research Triangle, Duke University. I go back in my mind and remember: the air smelling like cured tobacco and honeysuckle, the hamburgers at Fint’s Place where my father would sometimes go to play pool. He’d take me along and set me on one of the barstools where I would spin around and around and cadge nickels for the jukebox. The street where we lived in the house built by my great-grandfather’s grandfather – Holloway Street. Trips to the beach through small towns and all of them smelling of pit cooked barbecue and banana pudding and closer the salt of the ocean – Kinston, Wilson, Smithfield, Piney Green, Pumpkin Center all the way to Atlantic Beach and Fort Macon. In the summer the roads would be lined with fields of tobacco, soy beans, corn. Through it all like a silver ribbon, Eno River graces the land through which it flows.

And then the church cemetery where my family is buried – up through Roxboro and turning onto the Moriah Road winding across Lake Michie. Through roads again lined with tobacco and corn, small houses and large houses, newly built and long time ago built. My mother would point out that Aunt Rose lived there and Aunt Blanche raised her boys and Rose’s when Aunt Rose died of cancer too young. Through Stem, Oxford and at last at Bethany Church in Moriah. Both sides of the cemetery flanking the road. My great-grandfather’s great-great grandfather gave the land for use by the church. My family is buried there, the old stones grey and covered by lichen; Elizabeth and Baby Boy, Pearl, George, Celia, Josie and the newer stones, my grandparents Leo and Josie, my father and mother James Robert and Celia. The two huge magnolia trees give shelter in snow and sun. The soil is red as blood and filled with rocks – it took the backhoe crew two days to dig my father’s grave. These names and more sews my soul to this red soiled, kudzu laden land. From Ashville to White Lake, my heart holds too many names to count.  Though I no longer at there, it is still my home – Tarheel born and raised.

honeysuckle drifts
over the land at night –
scents lay us to rest

 

Beach

A micropoem for Today’s prompt at Real Toads, day 19 of the Nanasomething. Sanaa has given us several word lists from which to choose to make a poem. I chose the list with blue, mouth, sensual, features.  I chose a micropoem ’cause I didn’t want to scare Shay with a haiku!

Beach
the dominant blue sea
opens its mouth and sensually
licks the features of
a submissive beach

The Now

For Paul’s prompt at Real Toads – 30 poems in 30 days. It is now only 12 days until the 30.  This is based on the Japanese concept of silence or, chinmoku – the space between the notes or, the now.

The Now
Keys on a piano –
g…
a…
b…
the silence between the notes –
and again –
g…
a…
b…

public domain