My Anchor

An American Sentence for Posted Positive Poetry. the American Sentence was created by Allen Ginsberg because he couldn’t follow the rules for proper classic haiku. It must be a complete sentence and exactly 17 syllables.

My Anchor
“When someone you love becomes a memory…that memory becomes a treasure.” — Unknown

Even after death, you are still my anchor in sad stormy weather.

Cold Stars

For Amaya’s prompt at dVerse which has some strange rules. I hope I fulfilled them all. If not, oh well.

Cold Stars
“You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I look at the impersonal stars in
the cold night sky
and I wonder –
do they know you died and left my sky?
do they care?
they shine all the time you know.
you just can only see them at night.
How can I care about the end of civilization
when my life changed so drastically?
Is that why you stars shine on in the cold darkness?
Not caring?
You stars suffered an unfathomable loss
eons ago?
And still burn with the pain of it?

Sorrow is Shit

For Carrie’s Sunday Muse BlogSpot.

Sorrow is Shit
“People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can’t rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.” ― James O’Barr, The Crow

the crows were once my friends.
then a great sorrow overtook me
and I exploded in anger and then finally,
deep harsh tears.
the crows left me.
I am alone lying here,
the crow drops a key into the empty
cavity that is now my chest –
sans husband, sans heart, sans friends, sans love.
I wish the crow would replace my friends.
sorrow is shit without friends.

Love

I chose option 1  for Mish’s prompt – a book that is physically close to me and that means a lot to me – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
A short not-quite poem.

Love
“ ‘You’ll stay with me?’
Until the very end,’ said James.”
― J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I will stay with you,
Until the very end.
I held him until he took his last breath –
my beloved husband whom I love until the end of time.

Haibun: Family

Today is Haibun  Monday at dVerse Poets Pub.  “This week, let us consider gratitude: Its essence, those reasons we have for feeling it, and what our lives—and our world—may look like if we live it.”  Frank wants us to write about gratitude.  It isn’t just for American Thanksgiving, but for us all.  Traditionalist that I am, I am ending this with an American Sentence.

 

Family
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” Richard Bach

The black and white photo, a Polaroid. One of the first my mother took with her new camera she bought for the heck of it. We all stared in wonder as the picture appeared on the film and she wiped the swab of developer/fixer across it. The photo has lasted for 62 years. It shows us all around the Thanksgiving table – my great-grandfather, my grandmother and grandfather, my father and mother and me, and my two aunts, the younger sisters of my mother. In the center of the table is a huge turkey, a ham, and a big platter of my father’s perfect fried chicken. Bowls of vegetables from the garden canned or frozen, and on the sideboard salads,  a luscious fresh coconut cake, several pies, a pecan pound cake with an orange glaze. The first cake I had ever baked. I was six.
We are sitting around the table smiling at the camera. My mother pressed the remote bulb and there we are, frozen in time. Now the only people left alive in the photo are my two aunts and I. However, I look in the scrapbook at the photo with tears in my eyes and gratitude in my heart. My family. My people, my tribe. How when we went around the table to speak what we were thankful for, we all to a person said, “Family”.

Love surrounds us daily even when family has passed to heaven.

Song of Us

Song of Us
“One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that.” – Joseph Campbell

Under a magnificent autumn sky
lives people,
people that
feed the hungry,
adopt and save animals,
visit and care for the elderly,
read to children in libraries,
help their neighbors with their lawncare
when their neighbors are suffering from cancer,
people who volunteer at animal shelters,
stand up for a child that is being bullied,
try to save the environment,
take a meal to a neighbor in need,
keep bees,
give their seat on a bus to a pregnant woman,
take a bullet for their law enforcement co-worker,
take a teen under their wing and love them,
babysit for a young couple so they can have a night out,
plant gardens to beautify and to feed,
feed the cats in the alley,
comfort a dying dog,
play with puppies at the shelter,
teach children how to read,
teach adults how to read,
bake something for the church or school bake sale,
call the police when there has been an accident,
try to do the right thing by all people,
share love and happiness with all…
this is the song of us.

copyright Toni Spencer

Little Lion

For Carrie’s prompt over at Sunday Muse BlogSpot.

 

Little Lion
“How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven.” – Robert A. Heinlein

I hated dolls when I was a child.
I preferred my stuffed animals,
our cats and dogs.
I dressed the cats and dogs in
the clothes of the dolls,
rode them around in the doll carriage,
had tea parties with them and
read stories to them.
I loved them dearly.
To this day I remember them all.
I remember I wept bitterly when they died.
I know my cat Pugsley who
was euthanized three years ago,
I kissed him before the vet
administered the shot.
I kissed his sweet face and whispered,
sleep well little lion, sleep sweet.

The Rose

For Sunday Muse BlogSpot #71.

 

The Rose
“How much has to be explored and discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling.” Claude Debussy

She flies through the air like a rose
flung to a conquering hero or
into a bullfighting ring
or into the garbage bin at the curb
when the love has gone sour.
Off to the landfill or maybe,
plucked from the top by
someone with an eye for discarded beauty.

Grief

Grief
“…love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” – Kabil Gibran

It has been a long day –
a day of grief.
I wonder –
do our dead pets care where they are buried?
do they care that we don’t bury them under
the rose bush where they spent their days?
do they care that we don’t bury them
under the free stars in the field
where they ran daily?
do they care that we don’t bury
them by the oceans or in the forests,
or scatter their ashes in the garden
or keep their ashes in an urn?
I have pondered these questions today,
as we lay my mother-in-law’s faithful dog
to rest by the creek he loved to splash in,
does he care?

Rags to Riches

For Sunday Muse Blogspot

Rags to Riches
“The smallest feline is a masterpiece.” – Leonardo de Vinci

he was born in an empty cooler
in a crammed garage,
the only one of his siblings who survived.
his weak mewls attracted the attention
of a human who lifted him from his nest.
she bottle fed him until he was old enough
to eat from a saucer.
they adored each other
the cat and the human.
from poverty to riches,
from loneliness to friendship.
Sir Kitty Rufflekins –
first of his name.

 

Sunday Muse #54

Sunday Muse #54  Thank you Carrie.  Come back Wednesday for Wednesday Muse!

Little Corbin
“As the crow flies a popular and picturesque expression to denote a straight line.” William Henry Maule

It fell from its nest hidden in the old magnolia.
I am surprised it didn’t die from the fall.
But mama crow didn’t want the baby anymore
so I became its mom.
It’s the only child I ever had.
It was hard letting little Corbin go.
I tossed it up to the sky
and it began to fly,
flapping it’s wings and giving a triumphant caw.
I miss Corbin.
I still have some of its feathers
tucked into a book.
Baby Unpictures for memories.

Flower Truck

For Sunday Muse #46 http://thesundaymuse.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-muse-46.html

 

 

Flower Truck
“The Earth laughs in flowers.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have a truck full of laughter.
I’m gonna plant it everywhere in my yard.
My neighbors think I am crazy but I don’t care.
I am gonna plant a flower everywhere I had an animal die
and I buried.
I think that will be fitting.
They gave me so much love and laughter in my life,
I can let them know how much I love them still.
Yeppers.
I’m gonna plant the whole damn truck full
and go and get some more.