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
As Above
So below. Within a shared pulse
star fields merge to engulf
the depth of myriad layers
always there, never concealed.
Light dances as stars celebrate
a quickening pulse, an embrace.
Image source: Astronomy Picture of the Day ~ © Mehmet Hakan Özsaraç
The Colliding Spiral Galaxies of Arp 274
This is my response to Ronovan Writes Sijo Challenge #45: Embrace.
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
the way you do
pull me under, the way
you pull me under
wave after wave
washing through me
until you resuscitate me
press your lips to mine
massage my heart
the way you do
when you pull me under
This is my response to Twiglet #309: the weight of water.
Image source: wallpaperflare.com
The Intent of Moonlight and Ethereal Synapses
A haze struggles to dim a light traveling
the distance that binds two bodies.
Our growing world of disconnect, challenged
by invisible connections. Clouds shift,
strain to cast shadows, oblivious to the aura
framing them. Different wavelengths of light,
thoughts conflicting, gelling. Powerless
to impede, branches sway their hips to its pull,
the flow from one chamber to the next echoing
tidal forces, defying the disconnect, absorbing
those wavelengths in a way not imagined
but realized. The embrace of affirmation, a kiss.
This is from a reading at The Gumbo Bottoms Single Pot Still Poetry Society … Gumbo Bottoms Ale House, Jefferson City, MO (09 Jan 2023).
First appearing in easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, edited by D Ellis Phelps, The Intent of Moonlight and Ethereal Synapses is now included in my poetry collection, Glass Awash, published by Spartan Press.
taste of honey
I lust for the beauty of your words
trust in the symphony that is your voice
read to me so I may savor
the honey that rests on your tongue
If you want to try magnetic poetry, you can do it online, here.
You can read more of my magnetic poetry here.
Shared with OpenLinkNight LIVE at dVerse ~ Poets Pub
Background image (honey): pngegg.com
Jamais Vu
Should I wake
and fail to find familiarity
in the face beside me
or the arms that surely
have embraced me, know
that I would want you
to hold me even closer,
whisper in my ear words
to wake within me memories
of our moments together,
that I may once more know
the joy we have shared.
This is my response to Reena’s Xploration Challenge #251: Jamais Vu.
Jamais Vu involves a sense of eeriness and the observer’s impression of experiencing something for the first time, despite rationally knowing that they have experienced it before. Jamais vu is sometimes associated with certain types of aphasia, amnesia, and epilepsy.
Here, in My Heart
here
this place
in my heart
belongs to you
now
yours
to hold
tenderness
and affection
ours
when
taken
or given
always leads back
here
This is my response to
Colleen’s Weekly #TankaTuesday Poetry Challenge
No. 280 #SpecificForm: Lanterne.
Within Your Light
“Perhaps I will become a ray of sunshine, to be embraced by your colours.
I will paint myself on your canvas.”
Amrita Pritam
The words have flowed
from the moment I met you.
With paper as my canvas
I paint the words you bring.
From a distant beacon
over darkest waters
to the romantic light
of a candle’s flame.
From the subtle light
of a full moon’s glow
to the faintest light
of the farthest star.
These words of love,
the paint on my canvas,
are revealed to me,
found within your light.
This is my response to Poetics: Woman are people: Invoking Amrita Pritam, the prompt at dVerse Poets Pub in which Punam asks us to write a poem using one of five lines by Amrita Pritam as an epigraph.
Image source: morguefile.com
Finding Koi in the Tunnel of Love
Your hand reaches to hold mine,
pulls back as they touch.
Nerves frayed by discomfort,
the pain that sears your wrist
subsides as you turn it
to stroke my arm, reassurance
that no median will separate us.
https://www.osmosis.org/answers/median-nerve
Image source: needpix.com – Here & Here
Shared with Open Link LIVE: May Edition at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.
Forever and Always
Yesterday, today, tomorrow.
All one.
I’m not going anywhere.
I didn’t travel all this way for nothing.
What was born within
notes of jazz and poetry,
beside blue water
beneath the stars,
knows no end.
The truth, yours and mine,
is found in the Nebulous Collection
and all that has followed.
Forever and Always.
This is my response to Day 18 at napowrimo.net, which is to write a poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is being answered.
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