61 West Superior
I was beside myself
when I first met you.
I am so to this day,
with you beside me.
And as an American sentence:
I was beside myself when we first met, and so I am to this day.
This is my response to Reena’s Xploration Challenge # 266, using one of the photos she provided.
Shared with OpenLink Night #331.
And this is where it all began (at the library of The Poetry Foundation, in Chicago):
How I Knew I Was a Poet
Photo by Alex Batonisashvili on Unsplash
To deny the opportunity to listen, to read, is a crime.
This American sentence is my response to Meet the Bar with Aphorisms,
the prompt from Björn at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.
I recently visited the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis. One of the exhibits was in regard to Vonnegut’s dedication to the right of free speech and the fight to end censorship and the banning of books in schools and libraries. On one wall were boards with statements arguing for the right of free speech. Markers were provided with an invitation for visitors to leave their own comments in regard to this principle. In the photo below is the statement that I wrote, which I have revised for this prompt. (Click image for larger view in new tab.)
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
Even a minuscule moment can be a source of inspiration.
This American sentence is my response to
Eugie’s Weekly Prompt – smattering – May 17, 2022,
with the photo provided by Eugenia.
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
A lone mask wearer in a crowded store walks amid iconoclasts.
Iconoclast [noun] – a person who attacks cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, etc.,
as being based on error or superstition.
This American Sentence is my response to two prompts:
Reena’s Exploration Challenge #214 – Iconoclasm
Worth scaling any height, comfort found in kinship is no small matter.
A threefold trio of tiny people arrived today, from good friend and artist Claudia McGill, and Rose couldn’t be happier. It’s hard to believe that Rose has been with me for three years. I know she appreciates having some friends from her home world. Claudia is such a creative artist, and it’s an honor to have her tiny people in our home. Thank you, Claudia.
Love sometimes leads us from reason while giving us reason to go on.
This American Sentence is shared with OpenLink Night #303 at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.
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
Image source: pngwing.com
Curses, to those determined to find skeletons in every closet!
This American Sentence is my response to dVerse Poetics – Halloweeny Humans, the prompt from Lisa at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which which asks us write a poem speaking to a human attribute that is particularly irritating, using a Halloween or Samhain theme.
Image source: clipart-library.com
Heartbeat of America
A well-oiled machine does not have to mean a well-oiled environment.
As a citizen of this great land, it’s your right to dig your own grave.
Opposites may attract, but not so much when they’re at each other’s throats.
The intent to bring harm upon others is not an oath worth keeping.
The heartbeat of America is sadly in need of CPR.
The prompt at Meet the Bar with the Cadralor + Nobel Prize, hosted by Björn at dVerse ~ Poets Pub is to write a Cadralor, a poetry form co-created by Lori Howe, Christopher Cadra and Mary Carroll-Hackett. The rules of the form, as stated at Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor:
“The Cadralor is a poem of 5, unrelated, numbered stanzaic images, each of which can stand alone as a poem, is fewer than 10 lines, and ideally constrains all stanzas to the same number of lines. Imagery is crucial to cadralore: each stanza should be a whole, imagist poem, almost like a scene from a film, or a photograph. The fifth stanza acts as the crucible, alchemically pulling the unrelated stanzas together into a love poem. By “love poem,” we mean that your fifth stanza illuminates a gleaming thread that runs obliquely through the unrelated stanzas and answers the compelling question: “For what do you yearn?”
My poem probably is shorter than expected, and I suppose I’ve stood the form on its head by using an American Sentence for each of the stanzas.
Image (layered): surefirecpr.com & vectorstock.com
The path that once was is no longer, yet it was always meant to be.
Thanks go to my friend, Bruce Anderson, whose photos inspired this American sentence.
The location is in the Northern Sonoran Desert near the base of the Catalina Mountains,
near Tucson Arizona. (Click images for larger view in new tab)
~ The American sentence is a form created by Allen Ginsberg. Read about it here. ~
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