Wednesday Poems: This is the poem

Wednesday, like any day, is the perfect day for poetry. This week's poem is a poem about a poem.


This is the poem

that stumbles over itself
falling at odd intervals into oblivion

It is not
trendy or clever or fierce
It is not much more
than a puff of smoke
from a cigarette

It needs an image
that holds allure--
the left ear of a cat, say
or the crannies in an English muffin--
something it could use
to jump into a universal truism
about love and justice and death

It has no purpose
and the passion which fueled it into being
has been spent,
leaving it with nothing,
a coin in a beggar's pocket--
small change that won't change
anything.

The repository of voices unsung
is populated by poems
like this one

whatever it was they once wanted to say
is nothing more than the echo
of water splashing
in the bottom of a well.

Wednesday Poem: Desert Rose

It's Wednesday again, time for some poetry. Why? Because Wednesday, like all days, is a great day to wax poetic


This poem was inspired, as the name suggests, by my first encounter with desert roses. Desert roses aren't flowers, they are crystal clusters of gypsum and sand. They form in arid conditions, often as the result of salt water evaporation

 

Sandroses photo by Sven Teschke. For more information on this image, please visit Wikimedia

Desert Rose

Emblem of scarce water, you are born
of evaporation and brittle ground,
the child of lack

Bloom of gypsum,
buds of sand,
your garden is corralled by mesas

Ball of string, will you unravel
when rain pours into the arroyo?

Wednesday Poems: Ain't I a Woman

Wednesday, like all days, is a good day for poetry.

This week's poem is one I wrote while listening to Edda James singing the blues.

Ain't I a Woman

Singing a woman's song
in a strong soft voice
that travels limb to limb
and says "leave your worn body here"

Ain't I a Woman, after all
who can flash you an eye
and call your name to the moon?
And the the moon gives a shine,
her fullness illuminating better than any old star.

The moon will tell you true;
 I got shoulders sweeter than honeysuckle
for you to lay your head,
I got arms that spread like the tide
like joy

The moon will tell you
'cause ain't she a woman too? 

Wednesday Poems : Paradelle at Mill Pond

I began my writing life as a poet and as a result, I have a lot of poems. A lot. A whole real lot. So, for a while, I thought I might post some of them here in a new blog I'm calling Wednesday Poems. Because today is Wednesday. And Wednesday, like all days, is a great day for poetry.
This week, I'm posting a paradelle. This is, in fact, the only paradelle I've ever written. It's a form-poem in which the first and second lines are repeated, then the third and fourth lines take the exact words from the first four lines and reorder them. In the last stanza, all the words are reordered.
Paradelle is, to my mind, the most difficult form I've come across. Which may explain why I've only ever written one. Paradelle at Mill Pond is a study, looking to the water after a stone has been cast.

Paradelle at Mill Pond 

A stone tumbled from my careless hand
A stone tumbled from my careless hand
Cast ripples to bend the wavering maples
Cast ripples to bend the wavering maples
My wavering hand cast ripples to bend a stone
tumbled from the careless maples

Even swallows that carry sun
Even swallow that carry sun
Across narrow wings turned to blur
Across narrow wings turned to blur
Carry that narrow sun turned to blur
across the swallow's even wings

Folded leaves floated like rocking boats
Folded leaves floated like rocking boats
In the shallow water
In the shallow water
Shallow boats in the folded water
floated like rocking leaves

Even a cast stone turned to blur
folded wings floated across my rocking hand
swallows tumbled from narrow leaves
like careless boats that carry sun ripples
to bend the shallow maples
in the wavering water

Autumn's Harvest Blog Hop

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 Grand Prize Winners:

Kindle Fire Winner:

Tina B.

$50 Amazon Gift Card:

Sarah L.

Swag Pack:
Lynn Cahoon

 

                                                e-book copy of The Whisper of Time:
                                                                        Cass 

                              A big thanks to everyone who stopped by and hopped this weekend! 

Hi and welcome to the Autumn's Harvest Blog hop! Instructions for the hop said "Write a funny, entertaining, enjoyable post about autumn." Easy peezy lemon squeezy (or is that apple cider pressy?) said I. After all, autumn is a lovely season. There are colorful leaves and apples and...
      I sat down and started to write. A strange thing happened; I began to feel like a pupil in Mrs. McGillicutty's fifth grade classroom. Mrs. McG had just given us an assignment: write a theme about Autumn.  I stared at the empty blue book laid out on my desk, blue lines waiting for words. I chewed my pencil eraser.
     "Autumn? Autumn?" I thought to myself. My mind went blank and I began to panic. I stared out the window for a time. A small bird landed on the chain link fence and flitted away. Poetry! I thought. That was it! I would write a poem! A rhyming poem would impress Mrs. McG!
    I made a list: Autumn, Got em, Bought em, onion. I started to write:

There's apples in Autumn

The orchards they got em

The trees got red leaves on em

We're all out of onions

     Mrs. McG read over my shoulder and shook her head. "Ute, Ute, Ute. The orchards they got em? That isn't grammatically correct. It's barely English."

    I began to erase with my chewed down eraser, leaving skid marks and a hole where the poem used to be. I turned the page and began again. I'd use fall this time. Fall was easier to rhyme than autumn. I made a list: Fall, ball, small, tall, wall, brawl, sprawl. I could've gone  on all day. 

    Mrs. McG took off her reading glasses. "You're going to write a quatrain rhyme using fall? How very hickery dickery of you. If you're going to write a poem, write a real poem." I'd forgotten. Mrs. McG was a bit of a poetry snob. And I wasn't really in the fifth grade.

    A real poem. Okay. What do I associate with Autumn? Death. You know, short days, dead leaves on the ground, All Soul's Day.

              The end is near come, November

the last of the leaves is fallen,

withered and brown

darkness gathers

  Mrs. McG  sighed. "Did you not read the directions? They say light and funny. When did dead leaves become funny?"

     "It doesn't have to be funny," I told her. "It said entertaining."

      "Yes. Readers are always so entertained by depressed poets. Especially during a fun giveaway blog hop. "

     There's just no pleasing this woman. I turn another page. I write:

      I like the fall

the leaves and all

the trees so tall

and onions, too.

I close the book. Mrs. McGillicutty's going to give me an F. I know it.

Thanks for stopping by! Leave a comment for a chance to win an e-copy of The Whisper of Time.

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When fate offers Gwynn Powell a chance to start over, she jumps at the opportunity. Laid off and living with a husband whose gambling problem has eaten through a good part of their savings, Gwynn buys a farmhouse sight unseen, leaving both her marriage and her old home behind.
But fate has more in mind for Gwynn than just a new home. The farmhouse, tucked away in the Green Mountains of Vermont where even GPS can’t find it, is also a step back in time. And Slate Peck, the farm’s caretaker and part owner, is tied to Gwynn’s destiny in ways she never expected.

Be sure to stop by at the other hop stops. Leave comments here and at other stops for chances to win these great prizes: 

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet

2nd Grand Prize: A $50 Amazon or B&N Gift Card

3rd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack that contains 10+ paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!

With one chance at each stop and over two hundred stops, that's over two hundred chances to win!! Even Mrs. McGillicutty has said I'm good at arithmetic!

Blogging A to Z: A

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A is for Alphabet

Alphabet

Each of us is a letter.

It takes three of us to make sun

four to glow

five for peace

more are needed for obligation

and for vigilance

Together we are

the story between covers

beginning, middle and end.

Together we make chapters

of ache and longing

of triumph and recompense

Remember it matters

where you place the O of your wonder

the L of your laughter

The difference between

darkness and light

is a matter of letters,

of where you choose to stand.