Memories
are made, not with wishes,
but by moments lived, understood.
Let those moments pass untouched
and you will never know them.
Let no one say you can’t take it with you.
Once experienced, those memories are yours.
This poem is my response to Poetics: The Proverbial, the prompt from Merril at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which asks us to incorporate a proverb into a poem.
Stream of Consciousness
Thoughts pass
one to another,
flowing in a manner
that brings to mind
a vision of a stream,
its clarity a marvel
unsurpassed,
its course unquestioned,
revealed in the direction
a mind will take it,
a mind perceives it.
Thus is an idea born.
This poem is my response to Quadrille #132 Your Poem Theme: Stream, the prompt from De Jackson at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use a form of the word stream in a 44-word poem, with no required meter or rhyme.
The Last Word
Nothing I say will change
You say will change
My mind
Yours
Already made up
Down to the last
Yours
Mine
This poem is my response to Misky’s Twiglet #236 – the last word.
Here’s a pause in my travels this month, with a response to a dVerse prompt.
Ride the Waves
Erie Basin Marina, Buffalo, New York
Waves flow in the air that surrounds me.
Waves flow in the emotions within me.
Waves flow in the love found within me.
Above me.
Around me.
Beneath me.
Release me from constraints.
All that I fear
falls to the side.
Fall with me.
Fall freely.
Fall for the love
found in the waves.
Found within me.
Found within you.
Found, never to be lost
as we ride our waves of love.
With Meet the bar with Chant poetry at dVerse Poets Pub, Björn asks us to write a poem in the form of a chant, with the use of extreme repetition.
Kansas
as 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”
like fingerprints
ten years
since we met
first touched
talked, held
walked side-by-side
knew poetry
the blues of sky
and water reflecting heights
little knowing
those heights were ours
the beginning
ten years of moments
impressions
no two the same
riding the waves
that have carried us
to this day
This poem is my response to Misky’s Twiglet #233 – like fingerprints.
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
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.
It is very hard to write this way, beginning things backward…
Ernest Hemingway, The Torrents of Spring (1926)
Long 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
Message from the Past
Welded to the outside-center of a twelve-inch
piece of angle iron, the pulley turns
on the peak of the roof. A steel cable stretches
from the trailer hitch on your 1964 Oldsmobile,
across the roof, and out to the end of a forty-foot tower
reaching from the house into the backyard.
You inch forward, and the antenna slowly rises
as the tower pivots on its base. From a handheld
radio, I coax you forward, my voice tinny
on the car’s CB radio. The tower reaches
a perpendicular, and I call out for you to stop
before I lock it into the base with a heavy pin.
You talked on the radio later that night,
your signal skipping from Buffalo
to North Carolina. Radio was your thing,
not mine, but it made me happy to know
I played a part in putting that smile on your face.
Of course, I remember this on Father’s Day.
