Whatever part I’m here to play
I hope I play it well.
Although the vision of the day
With ugliness may get its way
May beauty cast some spell.
Linked to dVerse Poetics. Mish is hosting with the theme “beauty in ugliness”.
Photo: “Ugly Cracks”, above, and “Ugly Fungus”, below.
Here is my post at Prairie Writers Guild.
Harvesting Corn in October
Lines of clouds cross through October’s sky.
Lines of corn mark Indiana fields.
Harvesters remove dried grain and I
Prepare my heart and wonder what it yields?
Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar. Frank Hubeny, member of Prairie Writers Guild, will be hosting at dVerse on Thursday, October 11th, starting at 3:00 PM EST with the theme of iambic pentameter.
Sweet Potatoes
Yuck is such a yucky word.
It closes every opened door.
It claims whatever’s true’s absurd
Demanding always something more.
Demanding something nicer, too,
Nicer than this yucky place.
Demands. Demands. What can one do
Stumbling over old and new,
Stumbling over smiling grace?
Linked to dVerse Quadrille hosted by De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) with the word “yuck”.
Photos: “Looking Down”, above, and “Looking Through”, below”
My circus has the highest tent,
The wildest acts of all.
The tent’s the sky.
The birds up high,
They show the way to loop and fly.
They never fear to fall.
Linked to dVerse Poetics. Sarah is hosting and the theme is circus.
Photos: “I’d Get Dizzy Doing That”, above, and “The Birds Wouldn’t Sit Still So I Took a Picture of This Bee”, below.
After all the pleasures here,
Before new wonders I might fear
Can I feel the present bliss
Donning on the now like this?
Even when fresh hope feels gone
Find there’s hope that lingers on.
Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar. Lillian is hosting with alphabet sestets.
Photos: “Water Plants”, above, and “Vine”, below.
This is linked to dVerse Poetics. is hosting. The theme is to take a post from a year ago and post a revision of it. On September 11th, 2017, I posted a poem called “Free”. Here is a new version.
New Version
I wonder what this fall will bring
When wind caresses me.
Waves come when the oceans sing
Yearning to be free.
Winter comes to freeze my dreams.
There’s nothing I need do.
The hardest lesson left to learn
Is letting love’s warmth through.
Original Version
My heart felt peaceful but constrained.
The wind blew over me.
The waves hit hard. The land complained.
I wanted to be free.
Eventually through darkened night
The waves revised their song.
I assumed it’s now all right
Though some say it’s still wrong.
I wake to thunder and shivers of lightning through the window. The rhythmic sound of rain comes and goes. The sky surrenders with its tears.
Will I find the right words today? I only need to risk a few. Some come to me like soothing rain perhaps through the storm clouds of my dreams. I wonder, will they do?
Today, depending on how long the sky needs, the Sun may stay behind the clouds holding the sky in warm embrace forgiving the sky for all those doubts.
morning thunderstorm
rain weeps summer’s sun away
autumn starts to fall
Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday. Mish is hosting with the theme of “morning”. I am also linking this to Debbie Roth’s Forgiving Fridays.
Tomorrow I will be hosting dVerse Poetics with the theme of frustration and heartbreak featuring Gerard Manley Hopkin’s poem “Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend” and Dionne Warwick singing the Bee Gee’s “Heartbreaker“.
Photos: “Early Morning”, above, “Morning Shadows and Reflections”, below.
News: My poem “Boundaries” appeared in the current issue of The Lyric.
Being cats, being smart, his cats would
Run away since he’s up to no good.
“I’ll try mice! Ah! They squeak!
Now I won’t have to peek.”
Even mice ran when they understood.
Text: Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar. Bjorn is hosting with a call for poems using onomatopeia. I think “squeak” qualifies. Maybe “peek”? Reading Silver Gardenia’s poem “New Tricks” linked to Tuesday’s dVerse Poetics gave me the idea of associating mice rather than cats with Schrodinger.
Photos: “Incoming Storm”, above, “If the Mice Don’t Work Here are Some Geese”, below.
While walking I recall whom I once was,
Some child, perhaps, more often someone who
Did not do what I now would do, because
At that time that was not what I thought true.
Was that child only me or was it you?
Defiled and broken, not worth much at all,
I catch it in my arms and break its fall.
Text: Linked to dVerse Poetics. Jilly is hosting with the theme of giving twisted adages. I twisted the adage “forgive and forget”. I am also linking this to Debbie Roth’s Forgiving Fridays since the poem was inspired by her four-step practice of forgiveness.
Photos: “Rays and Blue Circle on Green”, above, and “Room to Grow”, below.
Long after graduating I would have dreams where I could not find the classroom nor the administration building to get a schedule of the classes I was taking and the semester was coming to a close. This wasn’t a nightmare, but a delightful confusion.
Blooms have won.
Dream away
Summer sun,
Autumn day.
Then I wake up.
Autumn day,
Summer sun
Dream away.
Blooms have won.
I wonder what that dream was trying to tell me, but not for long. Like summer passing into autumn I forget I even had it.
Text: Linked to dVerse Poetics where Amaya is hosting with the theme “school”. I wrote the poem as a way to practice writing reverse poetry where part of the poem repeats but with the lines in reverse order. I will be featuring that form at dVerse on Thursday.
Photos: “Blooming’s Done”, above, “Final Blossoms”, below.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 