Author: Ken / rivrvlogr

Tiny House ~ American Sentence

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 26 Comments

A tiny house is only as small as the minds that are within it.

Our travels continue and will take us through Labor Day. Ten days ago, we were in Philadelphia and had the pleasure of spending an afternoon at the historic Valley Green Inn with Claudia McGill and Merril Smith. The tiny house that is pictured is a wonderful gift that I received from Claudia.

This American sentence is shared with Open Link Night #322 – Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

The American Sentence was created by Allen Ginsberg
~ loose American form of haiku, with 17 syllables
~ represented as a sentence
~ reference to a season is not required
~ similar to senryū
~ read more here & here

New Day

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 28 Comments

New Day

First break of light, senses keen
for any trace of change,
I greet the day, eager
to meet any challenge, knowing
what I face will not daunt me.
Each day is a new beginning.
No hurdle is too great,
this morning or any morning.

This is my response to #Quadrille #158: Morning Has Broken, the prompt from Linda Lee Lyberg at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use a form of the word morning in a 44-word poem (excluding title), with no required meter or rhyme.

For My Benefit

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 40 Comments

For My Benefit

Would I be that person again?
Am I not, still?
You speak, perhaps to me.
I am here, yet I was there,
then. But this is now.

Separation. Time.
Analog or digital, there is familiarity
in all you say, all you do.

The fourth wall cannot prevent
memories from surfacing
as I watch them unfold before me.

Starting this weekend, I’ll be away for a couple of weeks, traveling. My writing in the past week has been limited by a particular preparation for the trip. I have more than 50 hours of home videos on VHS tape, some from as far back as 1990, that I am converting to digital. I hope to share some of that with my children when I see them at a family gathering that will be a part of this trip.

Hopefully, 3,00 miles behind the wheel will provide some inspiration.

Shared with OpenLink LIVE at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.

Fourth Wall

Ode to Last Flight

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 18 Comments

Ode to Last Flight

Don’t think we don’t appreciate
the fare that’s offered. We do
queue up from time to time,
but food trucks really aren’t
our thing. We’re here for the beer,
and you do know how to brew.
Few craft brewers bother
to have a dark beer on tap,
favoring IPAs, but your selection
is the best. It’s about time
we had a quality brewery in town,
so your fare is just fine with me.
We’ll take a flight of your finest.

This is my response Poetics: At the restaurant…,
the prompt from Merril at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.

With Resolve ~ with audio

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 24 Comments

 

With Resolve

Would I be that person again?
Am I not, still?
The anger that stewed within is gone,
resolved with understanding. Loss
weighs heaviest when dismissed.
Recognized, accepted, it still lives
within me, an empty space
never to be filled yet always holding
those who cannot be replaced.

This is my response to Reena’s Xploration Challenge #241, which offers this line as inspiration: “The only ghost that scares is a past version of you.”

Shared with OpenLinkNight #321 Blast Off!

Missed, in Any Weather ~ memoir poetry ~ with audio

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 40 Comments

Missed, in Any Weather

The farthest thing from my mind
when I’m chipping away
at the frozen layer on my driveway
on a chilly, mid-Missouri February morning
that, as usual, has as much rain as snow
is to wish for more of the same.
But here I am on a ninety-six degree day
in August crossing a Target parking lot
as I wade through heat waves
rising from the asphalt that remind me
of that Vegas hospital parking lot
in early June of ’93 after visiting Dad
and thinking he’d be flying home soon –
we know how that worked out –
wishing I could have one of those
ice-crusted snow days. Or better yet,
just one more minute working beside Dad
at Overland Express back in Buffalo
in the ’70s with the snow blowing
between the trailers and across the dock,
his face just as red from the cold
as it would get if he were here with me
on this hot, August Missouri day.

This is my response to Twiglet 290: ice-crusted snow.

As it happens this also meets the challenge for Poetics: Sometimes August isn’t recognized, the prompt from Sanaa at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.

Prismatic Pragmatism

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 12 Comments

Prismatic Pragmatism

Absent the agony of your companion,
the white heat of pain temple to temple,
my pleas for mercy falling on ears deaf
to everything but a ringing magnified tenfold,
you were a welcome distraction,
courting fascination with the pulsation
of lightning through a prism.

That you are now absent as well,
I wonder. Should I miss you?

This is my response to Twiglet 289: lightning colour.

For years, I was plagued with sinus headaches, often several times a month, that would start with a pressure buildup behind my eyes. A migraine would follow if I didn’t immediately treat the headache with ibuprofen and pseudoephedrine. These days, those headaches are few and far between, and I haven’t had a migraine in many years. I can’t say I miss them. On the other hand, sometimes I would have an ocular migraine, an arc of light with a prismatic effect in my peripheral vision, very seldom accompanied by any discomfort. Those could be fascinating. The last time I had one I wrote about it, here.

~ click image for larger view in new tab ~

Effortlessly ~ sijo

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 30 Comments

Effortlessly

It seems I only see you
       when you come into my dreams.

I hear words, conversations,
       remember what I learned back then.

Lessons never seemed to be lessons
       when working by your side.

This is my response to Ronovan Writes Sijo Wednesday Challenge #19: Dreams.

Sijo (a Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka)
~ three lines of 14-16 syllables each
~ a total of 44-46 syllables
~ a pause near the middle of each line
~ first half of the line contains six to nine syllables
~ the second half should contain no fewer than five
Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure.
Modern Sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.
Read more here: Wikipedia

Shared with OpenLink Night LIVE at dVerse ~ Poets Pub

Visions of Absence ~ fractal poem

/ Ken / rivrvlogr / 12 Comments

Visions of Absence

In darkness filled with the light of memories,
I call out in a voice that carries no weight.
The silence of your response echoes
in scenes that play out before me,
moments always out of reach but never
far from my mind, even in waking dreams
when I know you are gone but always
with me. The separation of decades
knows no distance, whether dreaming
or awake. Day and night are the same,
your absence all the difference.

 This is my response to dVerse – Poetics – Fractals, the prompt from Lisa at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to write a poem using “fractal poetics.” Alice Fulton describes this as exploring the structure of free verse as “a dynamic, turbulent form between perfect chaos and perfect order,” here.

Image source: shutterstock