The End — Collaboration Jeren/Frank

This is a collaborative poem using the form “Interlocking Rubáiyát”. The first eight lines, in red, Jeren Nazuto wrote as part of Jilly’s August Casting Bricks Challenge. I added the last eight lines and decided to also link this to dVerse Poetics hosted by Lillian since my half contains the word “shade”.

​The world, burning around me
All the lands and the sea
I weep in streams and rivers
Over the fallen world tree

From the sins, the fire delivers
The earth’s misguided caregivers
And all the pain and suffering
Fueling my body shivers

All this pain I’m here to bring,
My offering, this mindful thing
Obscured by all the shade we’ve made
As cloaks of shadows wrap us, cling.

Who knows where we can turn for aid?
Tomorrow may these fires fade.
May heat with flames and misery
Leave fresh, cool waters where we’ll wade.

Photo: “Red in Yellow” by the author and linked to jansenphoto’s Tuesday Photo Challenge with the theme “Golden”.

Birds

Birds line up near the water’s edge to watch the sunrise on the beach. So do a few people although not in such nice lines. Workers collect garbage from trash containers. Others drive tractors smoothing the sand roughed from yesterday’s play. Unintentionally they make raked Japanese Zen gardens, but without the stones. They are so perfect they need delicate footsteps. So much order also wants to be beautiful.

BIRDS OBSERVE THE SUN
ROUGH WAVES SOOTH THE WINTER SHORE
WALK THROUGH FRESH RAKED SAND

Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday.   Victoria C. Slotto is hosting with the theme Wabi-Sabi, the art of imperfection.
Photos: “Sunrise Watching” above and the collage “Bird Tracks on the Beach” below both by the author.  These are linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the theme “Birds and Bees”.
Come join us with your photos and haibun!

Bird Tracks on the Beach

What Flowing Water Makes Possible — August Challenge Half-Poem

What’s neither dry nor frozen hard
Makes circles red with bliss
And green takes form to guide and guard
Metamorphosis.

Linked to Jilly’s 28 Days of Unreason Day 18 regarding Jim Harrison’s quote preferring to move water than ice.
Linked also to Jilly’s August Challenge. Consider this the first 4 lines of a 8 line common meter poem.
Photo: “Indoor Plant” by the author linked to Floral Friday Fotos.

Blaming the Moon

I have my doubts about the Moon.
The tides, they rise and fall.
Lovers gaze upon its face.
I wonder. Is that all?

Do nutty people know the Moon,
Go deeper when they see?
Am I the loony one who won’t
Let moonlight brighten me?

Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar. The topic will trimeter and I am hosting. In the above poem I use trimeter, a line containing three feet, in the second, fourth, sixth and eighth lines.  The challenge is to write a poem with at least some lines written in trimeter.  The pub will open at 3 PM EST.
Linked also to Jilly’s 28 Days of Unreason Day 14 with a Harrison quote about blaming the Moon.
Photo:  “M is for Moon” by the author.  Perhaps I should clean the keyboard.

The End

The good thing is I can forget
The tasks I’ll leave undone.
Another whom I haven’t met
May stop to pick up one.

It does not matter in the end
When time looks frail and tossed.
Let’s make amends, my passing friends,
Since only love’s not lost.

Linked to dVerse Poetics where Paul is hosting on the theme “The End”.
Photo: “From Behind” by the author.

My Imaginary Friend’s Three Imaginary Fears

“I fear that should you read my mind
You’ll find my mind ain’t there.
I fear I’m holding you behind.
Don’t leave to run off where
Nighttime’s dreamings cannot stand.
I must not hesitate.
I fear I’ll reach my outstretched hand
Too fashionably late.”

Linked to dVerse Quadrille hosted by Victoria Ceretto-Slotto with prompt word “fear”.  The pub opens at 3 PM EST.  Come join us!
Photo: “Three Uprights” by the author linked to K’lee and Dale‘s Cosmic Photo Challenge with theme “three”.
It looks like jasenphoto’s Tuesday Photo Challenge also has “Three” as a theme. So I am linking this as well

The Wind — #writephoto

When harsh winds blow some whine, “How the wicked wind oppresses me!” Others wonder how they could make money off that wind by grinding grain or generating electricity. One turns it into poetry. The other turns a profit.

The Little People dwelt in the windmill. Like everyone they loved good stories. The Big People owned the mill. They tolerated the Little People because they bravely fought the Hungry Mice who wanted the grain as much as they did. “Get your own grain!” the Little People shouted. As a reward the Big People let the Little People have enough for their needs and internet connections.

Everything trended nicely, but the problem with trends is people forget once something goes one way long enough that it could go the other way. So most everyone confidently predicted everything would stay the same and every time it stayed the same their predictions came true. True, there were some who feared the end was always near, but that’s how their minds trended and they were usually wrong.

One day Wicked Wind joined Raging Fire and burnt whatever was dry including the windmill. The Big People were no longer big. They looked little and the Little People had no home. Even the mice were unhappy.

Illnesses popped up out of nowhere. The mice were blamed. The homeless Little People were blamed. The formerly Big People were blamed. The poetry and stories went dark and conflict trended.

The mice, who could not access the windmill, quickly recovered. Meanwhile the wind stirred the People mixing the big with the small as their generations sailed through birth and death until they rewrote their stories and survived.

Linked to Sue Vincent’s #writephoto Sails.
Photo provided by Sue Vincent.

Sue Vincent's #writephoto icon

While looking back at Jilly’s 28 Days of Unreason, I think this post fits Day Six about the “violent wind”.