The prison key of precious jade
Locked doors of duty finely made.
Love arrived, revised the spell.
The doors survived. The walls though fell.
Linked to Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday and Debbie Roth’s Forgiving Fridays.
In the end when truth must be told only the love stories matter.
Linked to Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday.
Black and white with sky cloud-gray
Easter morning starts today.
What bright blooms will brighten Spring?
Love and praise light everything.
Text: The form of the poem is a tanaga or common meter.
Photos: “Naturally Black, White and Gray”, above, and “Sunlight Through Trees”, below, linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the theme “Easter in black and white”.
Although the sky comes dressed in clouds
The Sun remains above.
Although the blue stays far away
There’s nothing there but love.
Text: Linked to dVerse Open Link Night where Grace is hosting and Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt.
Photo: This is Sue Vincent’s photo for use with her prompt.
Winter locks the door on Spring
Frigid in the sack.
There’s snow and trees without their leaves.
Clean white suggests a lack
Unless it’s looking back.
Text: I am trying a variation of Japanese tanka that William N. Porter used to translate the The Hyakunin-isshu in 1909. He used five iambic lines of 8-6-8-6-6 syllables with an end-rhyme on the shorter lines. There should be a pivot of the meaning at the third line separating and then reconnecting the top and bottom two lines.
Photos: “Snow Capped”, above, “Love of Winter”, below, linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the theme “the look of love”.
Change is what will never change.
There’s some new change tomorrow.
Let street and alley rearrange
As joy takes turns with sorrow.
There is no randomness to see.
There’s nothing that was forced to be.
The choosers chose and choice arose.
The dancer ever on fresh toes
Spins on with Love eternally.
Photo: “Courthouse Viewed from an Alley” by the author linked to Tuesday Photo Challenge — Alley.
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.
You can say something new about love forever and still have something new to say.
Linked to Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday.
Two lovers lie upon their bed
Made from a tree. They rest their heads
While in the distance there is strife.
They safely rest, imagine life
Without those worries and it’s then
They find their love alive again.
But when to them the fighting nears
They arm themselves in spite of fears
And fight defending what they know
Of good, of truth to help them grow.
Whatever happens that is when
They find their love alive again.
Linked to Sue Vincent’s #writephoto prompt Peace.
Sue Vincent provided the photo for the prompt.
Let us climb these well worn stairs,
Light above and peace throughout.
Heart tells mind, “Don’t worry here.
Love will show us all about.”
Linked to dVerse Open Link Night hosted by Björn.
Photo: “Going Up” by the author. Linked to jasenphoto’s Tuesday Photo Challenge where the prompt is “steps”.
I am also linking this to Jill Lyman’s July Challenge. Consider this an eight line poem of which I’ve written only the first four lines.
I’m exploring medieval lyrics. I think the above might be called “trova romantica” with form and style related to the troubadours. I’m trying to use the Portuguese Redondilha maior meter, a seven syllable line with the last syllable accented, but I might be missing something.
The Spring issue (Vol 97, No 2) of The Lyric Magazine, “the oldest magazine in North America devoted to traditional poetry”, arrived in the mail. It contains my poem, “Chutes and Ladders”. I am grateful to the editor, Jean Mellichamp Milliken, for selecting it.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 