free verse

Unfortunate Turn of Events

/ rivrvlogr / 21 Comments

Unfortunate Turn of Events

No one saw it coming.
Hills. Valleys. Bluffs.
They’re not conducive to tornadoes.

Technology changes everything,
showed this one developing.
And so it came.

Middle of the night.
Sirens wailing.
Cars and houses sailing.

Walls in pieces.
Roofs gone.
Ours still over our head.

Close enough to go down
to the corner and see
the damage. Feel lucky.

It’s said they turn
counterclockwise.
This one twisted right past us.

A tornado passed within a mile of our home last night, causing extensive damage in Jefferson City, Missouri. Several homes and businesses were destroyed. There were injuries, but no fatalities.

Image source: fox2now.com – aerial photos of damage
& screenshot of local news

Two Hearts in Love

/ rivrvlogr / 18 Comments

 

Two Hearts in Love

Would rain have made any difference?

What is grass without water?
A maple.
An oak.
Each would welcome it.

Allowed to flow, growth will
follow. A benediction.

Vows spoken in the open air would gather
on each raindrop, bringing life,
as each leaf, each blade, would
gather those raindrops.

Instead, those words were carried
by sunlight that shone on those
who welcomed them into their hearts, all
sharing in the love, this day.

Yet it was not sunlight, nor was it rain
that made this day possible.

It was two hearts in love.

 

Pisces

/ rivrvlogr / 52 Comments

Pisces

With the whisper of waves brushing the skin
of my kayak beneath and beside me,
the dance of a shower on my skin
in the sensuous tease of a long caress,
or immersion at great depth with sunlight
filtered until I am as one with my nature,
both within or without, I am
with water, and I am complete.

The prompt for Poetics: In My Element, from Amaya at dVerse, is to write a poem that explores what a cosmology says about the writer. Of course,  mine would involve water?

Background image: Wikimedia Commons
Sternzeichen Fische (Johannes Regiomontaus – 1512)

Magic of the Oracle ~ magnetic poetry

/ rivrvlogr / 5 Comments

Magic of the Oracle

The light in a breeze.
The perfume of the stars.
With her many voices,
breathing her soft laugh,
she dazzles as she celebrates.
Always, if we listen.

With help from The Oracle at Magnetic Poetry, this poem
is inspired by Merril Smith’s All the Questions.

If you want to try magnetic poetry, you can do it online, here.

Background image: Wikimedia Commons
Consulting the Oracle, by John William Waterhouse

Too Many Variables ~ with audio

/ rivrvlogr / 22 Comments

Too Many Variables

We had a theory, but we took it
for fact. What is a formula,
when there are no constants?

Not you.

Nor I.

There is no resolution
in a constant state of flux,
going forward like standing still,

a clean slate the only solution.

The prompt for Poetics: Theories of Everything and Anything,
from Merril at dVerse, is to write a poem about a specific theory,
or to write a poem that uses the word “theory.”
I chose the latter.

Acceptance ~ with audio

/ rivrvlogr / 13 Comments

Acceptance

All of life is change. To deny so
is a mistake too often made.
We recognize growth in our children.

Why not so in ourselves?
Opportunities arise. Tragedy strikes.
Each has the potential to affect our attitudes,

our outlook on life, those effects
trickling down so that we are not
as we once were, who we once were.

I have not embraced my change, and stumbled,
recovery coming only after acknowledging
that the product of that change is who I have become.

The prompt for NaPoWriMo.net Day 29 is to write “a poem that meditates on an emotion you have felt powerfully.” As suggested, I’ve opened with a declarative statement.