dVerse Poetics: The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me

Kim is charge of the pub today.  She is asking us to write poems about being an animal.  A simple and lovely prompt.

Mr. Cat
Nobody’s home,
Just me.
I walk around and explore.
I jump on the furniture
the kitchen cabinet,
the dresser,
the toilet….
I nap and graze on the nibbles in my bowl.
I take naps and look outside the windows.
Today there are lots of birds at the feeders
Who laugh at me and fly on the sill to tease me.
When you get home,
I ignore you of course.
Until you pick me up
and fold me into your arms
and ask,
Did you have a good day?
Of course I did but…
It is better now you are home.
I settle into your lap
as you nibble on treats
and watch the birds outside the window.
And we both nap.

SamCat the Ripper: RIP 10/15

dVerse Poetics: Rain rein reign

Today Lillian is hosting Poetics at dVerse Poets Pub. She is asking that we rain on, rein in, reign over…just don’t rain on her parade! No doom and gloom, no politics, no naysayers – sounds like a plan to me! The Pub opens at 3:00 pm EST. Bring your best umbrella, your best scepter, your best horse!

Lovely Day
I remember when I was a little girl –
but then I’ve always been little –
Dancing on our front porch while
the rain came down.
Isn’t it a lovely day….
Spring rain happy,
summer rain quick,
autumn rain melancholy,
winter rain snowy…
I was by turns Fred Astaire
and then I was Ginger Rogers.
Dancing on the walkway in front of the house,
Dancing on the walkway around the house,
Dancing dancing dancing.
I remember taking you out into the rain
and dancing –
You threw back your head and laughed.
You had never danced in the rain before.
Like a summer rain you came and went.

I still dance in the rain.
I wear Wellies now –
Hello Kitty!

public domain photo

dVerse Poetics: Border

This is posted for today’s Poetics at dVerse for Grace’s prompt – Border.  I am also posting for the Tuesday Platform at Real Toads.  The links to these pages are:  http://dversepoets.com/2017/08/22/poetics-border/  and  http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-tuesday-platform_22.html

Hedges
our small country community consists
of nine houses along the road ending in
a cul-de-sac.
the yards are all separated with thick tall
boxwood hedges –
each of the hedges has a small slip through
in case a neighbor wants to borrow a cup of sugar
or to take a neighbor some peaches
or for kids to go through playing hide and seek.
dogs and cats wander at will in the community
shimmying through the hedges
always going home for lunch and dinner and sleep.
snakes, birds, rabbits, deer, frogs, turtles, raccoons –
they all work their way through the tangled branches
or use the greenery for nesting.
So the hedges do nothing except define property
and back here in our small country community,
That doesn’t really matter.

d’verse Poetics: MTB: Bob Dylan

Today, Bjorn is celebrating the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature:  Bob Dylan.  It seems the folks at the academy got over their tightassery and actually chose somebody that almost everyone knows and isn’t some obscure foreigner – an American Bard.  Congrats to Bob Dylan! http://dversepoets.com/2016/10/13/meeting-the-bar-bob-dylan/

Bob Dylan: Poet
I met him several times years ago.
He was fuzzy haired and serious
and pretentious.
But the man can write.
I’ll give him that.
So like a rolling stone
and the Byrds’ favorite Tamborine Man,
He does write songs and lyrics that stays with one.
How long?
The answer my friend,
is blowing in the wind.

***lines in italics are direct quotes from various poems and titles of Bob Dylan’s songs.

 

dVerse Poetics – The Spouses

Kim is our guest prompter today at dVerse Poetics (kim@writinginnorfolk.com).  This is her first time hosting for us!  She is asking us to write about, being, the spouse of someone famous, hopefully, someone dead so no libel.  I am taking it one step further by writing as the spouse of Dorian Gray, my eternally beautiful and bored, favorite character of Oscar Wilde.  Come visit us today and get to know Kim and the rest of the gang – however we show up! http://dversepoets.com/2016/08/23/poetical-spouses/

Mrs. Dorian Gray
“I care for who you are, not for what you wear.”  Dorian Gray, Penny Dreadful

I sit here, old and wrinkled.
I have often wondered at you –
Eternally young and beautiful…and bored –
although you kindly say I never bore you
and you still touch me as you did when I/we were young
and that in your eyes, I am still the young bride
you brought home these sixty years gone.
The men and women come and go,
yet somehow, I still remain.
I wondered why, two decades ago –
Why you were still young and beautiful…and bored –
Until I found the portrait.
Until I found the portrait secreted away
in a basement room, hidden behind locks.
You were distracted one day and left your keys
on the bedside table.
And so
I took them and went to the room.
I must confess,
My heart almost stopped in my chest
At terror of the beast in the life-sized portrait.
And how as I watched, it changed
And became even more bestial and deformed.
I never told you I knew your secret but…
I think you guessed.
I love you,
Heart of my heart and soul of my soul.
I’ll love you until I die
Which God grant, will be soon.

Reeve Carney as Dorian Gray – public domain photo

dVerse Poetics: Blue

De is our pubtender today over at dVerse.  She is prompting us to write about blue, the blues, sad blue, happy blue, blue jeans, blue bayou, blue plate special, the hues of blue…blue! Come join us and read about blue.  The Pub opens at 3:00 EST.   Poetics: Breathing in Blue

 

tomb detail – eye of Horus

Falling Through Blue
Falling through blue –
Through the layers of cerulean, azure
Dappled with lapis
And tingled with turquoise –
Falling into blue
Emerging wet and sparkling
With scales and flashing fins.
Breathing in the blue skies
And breathing out the blue moon.
Falling through blue –
Falling falling
And landing on a huge pile of powder blue stars
Bright against deepest midnight blue
Falling through blue into the
unearthly beauty of morning glory blue lake.
Drowning in blue
Resurrecting into sky blue
Eternal as Egyptian blue –
first color of creation –
sky and sea.
Tattooed with wode
painted in tombs
blessed by the gods
Written through the ages.
water lilies – blue on blue on blue.
The sky of blue bewitches
and your eyes capture me in their blueness…
every day.

claude-monet-nympheas-ii

kuroi akumu: black nightmare

Today Claudia, one of the founding members of the dVerse community, is prompting us to write about our emotions, about how we feel – not the feelings of the world, other people – but how we feel and to avoid using generalities. Metaphors might also be used. Come visit us at d’Verse Poetics. I have a feeling you may be amazed.  Linked to:  http://dversepoets.com/2015/11/24/poetry-as-a-vehicle-to-transport-emotions/

kuroi akumu
I move through the days like our local
weather report. Sunny and cold
and on the inside a storm is raging
threatening to obliterate me and
like many of those storms in dreams it
cannot be escaped – it rears on the horizon and
then it is there on top of you sucking the breath
from your lungs.

A restaurant.
They specialize in rare natural foods.
A friend and I go – we have been friends
since 1975 –
in the middle of the room dividing the eating areas
a huge fish tank with
fish like flashing jewels.
and then,
and then…
there are creatures in the water
like hairless black cats or small dogs
being held in the water with wires
as they shake and jerk
trying to escape and
waiters stand on ladders and with long tongs
extract long sprouts growing from seeds
embedded in their flesh – and the animals are
almost but not quite dead because they continue
to jerk and jerk and jerk and the water
slops over the side of the tank
wetting the tiled floor with water
stained with black and red.
In horror I scream why is this?
Why doesn’t someone care?
Why doesn’t someone stop this?
How can we eat this food pulled from
the flesh of dead and dying animals?
I turn to my friend – an animal rights activist
and I grab her and scream into her face
and she says but it is delicacy here.
And I stand and scream and no one cares
and the animals on their wires jerk and jerk
like tortured puppets and no.one.cares.

My husband awakens me and holds me but
still I shudder – no.one.cares.

Midnight Moon

Tuesday is the Poetics section for d’Verse Poets Pub. I am the pubtender for that day. I am requesting that people write poems about Halloween. It can be a retelling of a local ghost story, something fun about trick or treating, kids, candy, decorations. I chose to go a little dark on this one. This will be linked Tuesday to d’Verse when the post goes “live” or….undead…mmwwwwaaaaaaaaa!    http://dversepoets.com/2015/10/20/10958/

free public domain image

Midnight Moon
and there, beneath the silent moon
leaves rustle under the feet
of silent folk who rise from the earth –
drifts of fog and smoke
blown hither and yon
by an errant breeze.
They pass around us
and through us and we feel the chill
and taste the tears of sorrows
still alive.
Will midnight never come?
Will the moon never hide behind the clouds
casting into deeper darkness
the hearts of those who will not sleep?
I wait…
and still
I wait.
Midnight comes slowly…
Will midnight never come?

Poetics Tuesday: River of Silver

Today at d’Verse Poetics, Bjorn is our Pubtender. He has given us a variety of petroglyphs, carvings found in caves in Sweden.  There was quite a variety of them.  Their primitive beauty is timeless.  Although I know this is not the story behind this, I chose to write a story of two lovers caught in hard times and longing to sail away to something better.  Come join us at d’Verse to see more of these amazing cave carvings and read the poems written by poets of today about those people of so very long ago.  Here is the link:  http://dversepoets.com/2015/10/13/dverse-poetics-carved-in-stone/

River of Silver
Up here in the cold north I
Looked out on the blurred black and white photograph
Of the landscape, in the pouring rain –
Ruts full of water
Bare trees shivering in bitter wind.
Sat on the edge of the bed
And watched you sleeping.
Wanting you to wake up and
Hear me say how much I loved you
And how much I hated it here in this cold land.
Let’s go south babe.
Let’s just take that river of silver south
To the land of sidewalk preachers
And yes ma’am and no ma’am
And where flowers bloom all year
and rushing out of
opening and closing screen doors
of small cafes
the low buzz of cordial conversation and
the perfumed glory of coffee
and fresh hot hushpuppies,
Where we can order a basket of them for cheap
And slather with sunshine butter
And drink with coffee black as coal
And thick as the slow voices
And lightened with sweet condensed milk –
Babe, it’s warm there.
Let’s leave this land of grey cold
Let’s take that river of silver –
Us two – where even in the rain
You can find places of warmth.
Let’s take that river of silver
To the land of gold,
Even if we can’t spend it
We can be together
And be warm.
Let’s take that river of silver.

Haibun Monday: d’Verse Poetics

Today is Haibun Monday at D’Verse Poetics Pub. Bjorn and guest, Hamish Gunn, have given us the prompt to use one of two quotes from poet Khalil Gibran.  http://dversepoets.com/2015/10/05/haibun-monday-2/

 

Peaceful Dragon
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. Khalil Gibran

A cold, wet day in Kyoto. I did not want to be here but since I was, I decided to go to Ryoanji, a few blocks from the hotel where I was booked. Because it was cold winter rain, I took a taxi instead of walking. The taxi driver was happy I was American. I sat in the back seat for the few moments it took. Several times I caught his eye in the rear view mirror, he always smiled. When I got out of the taxi handing him money, he waved it away. “American. Stranger. Cold.”..I could not in honor leave money after that. I bowed deeply to him as he drove off.   I hoped he would look in his mirror and see.

I was alone on the viewing platform overlooking the dry garden. I stood looking in silent awe. On top of the wall was a row of sparrows. All fluffed out, eyes bright with curiosity, they watched this Western stranger move from one end of the platform to the other until I felt “right” and sat down. A few moments later, a young man came in and sat down close by. I glanced in curiosity and he smiled,. We sat there for an hour or so breathing in the perfume of the past, breathing out the steamy breath of the present. The breaths mingled with the cold air and became absorbed. The sparrows became restless, the air turned sweet. I knew that smell – snow! Soon snow flakes joined the rain. I sensed the young man was looking at me. He pointed up and around the garden – hatsuyuki – first snow, he said and sweetly smiled at the sky. It was time to go. Stiffly I began to rise and he put out his hand to help me. We walked in silence to the parking lot where I would summon another taxi. He motioned me to follow him and without fear, I did. With gentle courtesy he opened his car and brought out a thermos. He handed me the cap and poured hot tea into it. I sipped quickly, thawing. A taxi pulled in the lot, trolling. He hailed the taxi for me and put me in speaking to the driver. I gave the driver my hotel and was taken there. I paid him and went inside. I headed for a hot shower and room service.  I blessed my new friends who gave without asking.

First snow and sparrows –
Strangers become friends beside
The peaceful dragon.

free public domain Getty Images

d’Verse Poetics – Complicated Heart: haibun

Tuesday at d’Verse Poetics, Anthony is our pub tender. He has gifted us with eight original lines of poetry. He wants us to write a poem using three lines of our choice from the eight Please come visit us, read the original, amazing lines from this talented young man, read the poems linked and….link one of your own! Mr. Linky is good for 33 hours so you have plenty of time to submit one of your poems. The lines I have used are bolded and italicized. My submission for this is a haibun. October 5 is another special Haibun Monday!& If you enjoy writing this form or are curious about it, come visit us then as well. Hamish Gunn will the guest host along with our fearless leader and poet extraordinaire – Bjorn.

Complicated Heart
Sakura Matsuri –under the cherry trees I wandered alone. The petals of pink and white blew in the fitful breeze or caught in the grass. I looked at the patterns they made, there beneath the trees and craved images of you. The tree limbs, danced with grace against the blue sky. My heart wept remembering the fluidity of your presence.

Hanami in Hakone was almost past. In memory I saw the petals falling on your black hair, saw your elegant hands catching the petals in the wind and holding them to my lips to lightly kiss before you again scattered them to the wind. A lost love found in you awakened my heart. Years passed. Japan called you home. I should have gone with you. You should have stayed. The heart makes the simplest things so damn complicated.

cherry blossom rain –
pink and white petals – flower
tears – blue sky dims.

copyright kanzensakura

 

d’Verse Poetics: Change #2 tanka

Another tanka for d’Verse Poetics on the prompt of Change.

 

pink cherry blossoms
from tiny buds now green leaves
form a canopy –
green leaves fluttering soon to
be withered leaves on my lawn.