#WeeklySmile – Page 4 – Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

Feel the Heat

Heat on hotter heat and water on my brow
I walk and wonder why I left the condo
sunny, sweaty, ever smiling anyhow.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Prompt where Dale offers the theme of “feel the heat”.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile.

I don’t know if you can feel the heat in these photos, but after a few minutes of an hour walk, I felt it. This Thursday I am featuring tercets, especially like those Dante wrote for the Divine Comedy, but when I found out how difficult these were having not only 3 metered lines that rhymed but with no more nor less than 33 syllables for each tercet, I wondered if I could write one. Feeling the heat suddenly the above poem popped out. And I smiled (with relief and gratitude).

Geometric Shapes

So many geometric shapes!
I toss the ones that will not do.
I take the lighter ones with smiles
And these I set in upright piles
As markers for my trail to you.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “geometric shapes”.

Linked also to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. I have long realized that when my poems get shorter and shorter they become more like nursery rhymes. This past week that realization made me smile all the more.

The World In Lockdown

On beaches blocked and empty
Oceans still will drum.
Seagulls once searched on this shore
For bread crumbs. They can find no more.
The sun turns slowly bright
To fix the morning with daylight
Discharging darker dreams of night.
The gulls arise and soar.

Linked to dVerse Quadrille. De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) is hosting with the word “fix”.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “The World In Lockdown”.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. I noticed this past week that the beaches are still closed, but the boardwalks are open. I do prefer walking on the boardwalks’ hard surfaces than on the soft sand, but the sand with bare feet washed by the waves is nice too. Things will change in ways I can’t imagine perhaps for the better and the thought of that makes me smile.

My Summer Space

They didn’t have to hurry
Running through the glen.
Perhaps I didn’t see them,
Nor me, those forest men.

But if you didn't see them
go on, proclaim me mad.
A summer place, a happy face,
Cannot be all that bad.

I may as well be loony.
I’m isolated, too.
I smile and learn to whistle
These lock down summer blues.

Linked to the Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “my summer space”. My summer space would have plants and places to walk.

Linked also to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. I didn’t know what to write for a poem for Dale’s prompt and so I just let my mouth run (which is what I normally do). The result helped me keep smiling and hopefully it didn’t make others cringe too much.

From an Unusual Angle

While looking here
Or searching there
Am I now near
Or now nowhere?

Alone and standing,
Silly breeze,
Trails and landings
Restful ease.

Autumn green
And yellow blooms,
Sunsets seen
From prairie rooms.

After searching did I find
All that's best I left behind?

Linked to dVerse Quadrille. Lillian is hosting with the word “silly”. Also linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar in the final hours of the prompt where I am hosting with the theme of fourteen lines.

I am also linking this post to the Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “from an unusual angle”. I took the top photo on a trail in Colorado Springs. I don’t know why I decided to take a view of the trail while kneeling. Perhaps I liked the railings. It now looks like an interesting angle. The bottom photo was of a prairie in Northbrook, Illinois. I pushed all of the potentially interesting detail to the top right portion of the picture, not how I would normally look at the scene when walking through the park.

I am also linking to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. Some friends decided to continue our monthly breakfast virtually on Zoom. I thought it was odd, but then I have heard of a couple recently who decided against postponing their wedding and instead do it virtually. So I guess it wasn’t all that odd after all. It made me smile to attend our virtual breakfast.

On Thursday at dVerse Meeting the Bar, I will be featuring poems with only one constraint that the poem have fourteen lines like the one posted here.

Food As Art

Pumpkin piles rising high
Pointing to the blue fall sky.
Going up perhaps a mile
Or just enough to make me smile.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “food as art”. I hope those pumpkins or squash taste as good as they look. They are from two different fall displays at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. One unexpected thing happened this past week. I realized I have now re-seen all of the Pink Panther movies including the not so great ones. There’s nothing left to watch. That made me realize that I will have to crawl out of my comfort zone, take a breath of fresh air, and find something else to risk watching. And that made me smile.

Symmetrical

There's symmetry as night greets day
And day greets evening’s light.
The virus flushed our breaths away.
It’s time to win that fight.
If I’m around when years go by
Remembering this time,
I’ll inhale breathing if I may
And offer one more rhyme.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the prompt “symmetrical”.

This past week I also read Kim M. Russell’s Joe and Nelly and wrote an Amazon review. I highly recommend this story about two children and their families during World War Two in London.

Also linked to dVerse Quadrille. Mish is hosting with the word “flush”.

I am also linking to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. Below are two more or less symmetrical versions of me wearing a T-shirt mask. These masks don’t take a lot of skill or materials to make (even I can do it). The broccoli sprouts that failed last week now sprout without molding. And so with two successful projects to brag about I have no reason not to smile.

Birds, Bugs and Bees

There go the birds and busy bees
As I disturb them walking by,
Stalking sometimes on my knees.
They rightly feel the urge to fly.
They know I’m there and don’t care why.
Mosquitoes on the other hand
Come closer and with gusto land.

Linked to the Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the prompt, “the birds and the bees” with “all the varieties of our feathered friends and with all bees, bugs and creepy crawlies allowed”.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. I am trying to sprout broccoli seeds, but they seem to mold in the mason jars. Solution: keep trying! One thing did work. I was able to make a mask (of sorts) out of a t-shirt. I put the t-shirt over my head and then raised it up over my face. I use the sleeves to tie it in place behind my head. And that success, even if the broccoli sprouts so far haven’t worked, made me smile. Thankfully I don’t have to go out much.

Also linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar in the last hour for the prompt for seven-line poems.

They're Not Dumb They Know I'm Watching — They’re Not Dumb They Know I’m Watching

Through an Opening

Those rocks weren’t strong enough to close the hole.
Light kept helping plants not go astray.
Hope refocusing renews its goal
Pursuing evermore without delay.
Arise and praise. Celebrate and stay.
Though nighttime blindness closes sleepy eyes
Truth lifts morning with a fresh surprise.

Linked to the Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the prompt “Through an Opening”.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. There has been nothing special or unexpected this past considering all of the news of the virus. That there is no new reason to fear is my reason to smile.

Linked to dVerse Quadrille where De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) is hosting with the word “close”.

The poem is a Chaucerian stanza. I will be featuring seven-line poems this Thursday on dVerse Poets Pub for Meeting the Bar. The only constraint is that they have seven lines. They don’t have to be Chaucerian stanzas.

Pick a Color – Snow White

I remember falling snow
When flakes of white put on a show.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “pick a color”. I picked snow white.

Also linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar where I am hosting with the theme of final couplet.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. Looking back on my photos for something with a specific color I recalled these walks through Techny Park in Northbrook, Illinois, in November during the first snowfall. I love taking photos while such a snow is falling. It is peaceful and left me with a smile.