Author: Ken / rivrvlogr

Kansas

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 20 Comments

Kansas

Kansasas in not in
anymore
but you are

barely in
KC BBQ
a reminder

wheels rolling
across plains
not so plain

hills rolling
from flint to smoke
at 75 miles per

grasshoppers nod
among remnants of wheat
in fresh-cut fields

destination, family
where words roll
in stories told

heat in the air
nothing compared to
warmth in the tales

with bonds
stronger than the hills
deeper than the bottoms

bonds now stronger yet
make parting
no easy task

hills, once more
until, finally
not there, anymore
 

A weekend trip took us to Kansas, where we celebrated Independence Day at a family gathering.

There’s nothing massive about the Flint Hills and the Smoky Hills of Kansas, but they still provide terrain with a striking view.

(Kansas City straddles the Missouri River and the Kansas-Missouri border.)

More travel for two weeks to visit family (starting Saturday) will means less time checking into WordPress.

Image: Library of Congress “a pumpjack, sometimes referred to as a ‘grasshopper’ oil pump because of its appearance”

Ultimate Destination

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 10 Comments

Ultimate Destination

Distance traveled
along this life,
true values held
and free from strife,
not all that great
as life runs late
while near my dear.

 

Thanks to Ron. Lavalette for introducing me to the Ha’Sonnet, a form of poetry that follows some of the sonnet rules within a short form of seven lines with four syllables each. “The first four lines set up the poem like the first two stanzas of a sonnet. The fifth and sixth line contain a little turn, or volta, preferably unexpected, like the third stanza of a sonnet. And the seventh line a resolution, or turn, like the final couplet of a sonnet.” Rhyming is optional, but one suggestion is “a b a b c c dd with the seventh line (dd) rhyming on the second and fourth syllable.” (as described by Stephen W. Buchanan on his website If You Haven’t Got A Sonnet).

Once Broken, Healed

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 41 Comments

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.
                                                  Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929)

Once Broken, Healed

What is loss, but an empty space?

And what is an empty space,
but that which waits to be filled?

The last generation that was,
at the time of your passing,
was not the last generation.

That which follows holds a place
of its own that encompasses
that which once was, always will be,
you, knowing all that you were
and all that you held.

 

This poem is another response to dVerse Poetics – One True Sentence, the prompt from Lisa at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use one of the sentences provided, quotes from the works of Ernest Hemingway to write a poem.
When my father died in 1993 he had eight grandchildren, aged from one to twenty-two. There are now fourteen great-grandchildren (including two adoptions). All of them know, or will know, him.

Shared with Open Link Night #295 – Midsummer Live at dVerse Poets Pub.

Shadows Vanish

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 8 Comments

Shadows Vanish

Shadows Vanish

Choose a color in the white light
of a stark reality. Blink, and shadows vanish,
hidden beneath layers waiting to be revealed.
There is no mystery when the truth lies
before you. Later, when you realize
you’ll never really know, you can wonder
if you’ve made the right choice. Either way,
you’ll always be in the dark, looking for shadows.

 

This poem is my response to Twiglet #232 – shadows vanish.

Long Past Spring

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 41 Comments

It is very hard to write this way, beginning things backward…
                                                  Ernest Hemingway, The Torrents of Spring (1926)

The Torrents of Spring_coverLong Past Spring

Each passing year,
I think more of my youth.
But what words to write,
when memory grows dim
and tales that come to mind
could be mine or belong
to another? Would the world
know the difference? Would I?

 

This poem is my response to dVerse Poetics – One True Sentence, the prompt from Lisa at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use one of the sentences provided, quotes from the works of Ernest Hemingway to write a poem.
Hemingway’s novella, The Torrents of Spring, is one that I have not read. Ironically, after writing this I read the Wikipedia article about the novella to learn that there is a character who, regarding the protagonist, “enthralls him with her store of literary (but possibly made up) anecdotes.”

Image source: Wikipedia.org