My response to Monday’s Prompt from Lisa at dVerse ~ Poets Pub,
Quadrille #185 – Brush the Dust Off , is now a video poem.
Video Poetry
Living for Now, and Then
My small part in an evening with excellent poets
at Barb’s Books in Belle, Missouri, 16 Sept 2023
…from my poetry collection, Glass Awash (Spartan Press)
Go with the Flow
Go with the Flow
Blood flows,
knows
where it should go,
sometimes goes
where it wants. Take my PFO.
Please.
That hole in my heart
that lets blood flow
where it shouldn’t
sent a clot to my brain,
the strain minor.
This time.
Or the bruises
on my arms.
Everywhere.
Spatial orientation
gone to hell
since that TIA.
The blood thinner
to stop those clots?
It whispers to my blood.
There’s fresh air
beyond that skin.
Go for it!
And minor cuts, or
just plain scratches?
Let’s just say
I’ve used more band aids
in the last year
than I have
in the previous 69.
Like I said,
blood knows
where it wants to go.
It’s been a busy day, and this is a last minute post for a-poem-a-day for April. I wrote it earlier today and read it at a poetry reading this evening at Barb’s Books in Belle, Missouri.
Special Thanks to Osage Arts Community, Jason Ryberg, & John Dorsey.
Shared with Day Eight at napowrimo.net (off prompt)
Fragile Resilience
Fragile Resilience
(for Jennie)
You stood for so long,
buffeted by a Wyoming wind,
no desire to be put out to pasture,
yet wounded in a way
that would wear down any soul.
Hearts and hands
extended by those who care
went unanswered,
independence your mantra
and your wounds now ours.
I’ve been away for the past week attending to family matters, but I should be back home by the end of the month. Meanwhile, I get to experience a Wyoming winter.
Driving with Miles
Driving with Miles
Rain falls, steady, and I say so what.
Wipers try in vain to keep the beat,
but this combo is too tight.
The bass just layin’ it down,
horn and sax sparring.
There’s a fog rolling through the hills,
tellin’ the rain
hold the ice, this is just too cool.
Bare branches, with pines the only green
in a landscape of white on brown.
Wait! A lone birch like a ghost that knows.
As blue as this feels,
there will be no blue sky.
And that so what refrain slips in
and out.
Narrow roads now,
winding through wet grass
lined with granite and marble.
A memorial among memorials,
some barely legible.
Everything here is blue,
except the pines, white now with big, heavy flakes.
Country roads skirt the mountains,
Snow, now powder, hangs in the air
like a fog. Roads slicker than the music.
Hands tense on the wheel.
Piano eases through me, slowly
levels out, brings me back to the lake,
out there somewhere,
blue asleep within the white.
This is from a reading at Spine Bookstore & Café, St Louis, MO (12 Mar 2023).
Driving with Miles is included in my poetry collection, Glass Awash, published by Spartan Press.
Shared with OpenLinkNight at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.
The Intent of Moonlight and Ethereal Synapses
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.
Rising River ~ video poem
Rising River
The crash of calamitous
rainfall creates a beast of a river
that batters its banks.
Scoured by trees with trunks
twisted from their frail grasp,
gouged beyond recognition,
swallowed as waters rise,
the shores silently succumb
to a watery wasteland.
We wonder what will be left
when the waters finally recede,
the banks far from their former place.
This is my response to the prompt from Björn at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, Meet the bar with dissonance, where dissonance may add an unsettling emotion that may be crucial to describing unpleasant topics, perhaps by using harsh consonants, breaking up assonance with various vowels, etc. I’ve decided to use some harsh sounds and an excess of alliteration, as well as what could be an unsettling topic. I returned home from kayaking to find this prompt and thought, hey… why not?
Tear Drops ~ Crown Crapsey
Tear Drops
Tear drops,
when held back,
seep far into the soul,
the well that is deep inside us,
waiting
Waiting
for the moment
when it is essential
that our innermost emotions
be known
Be known,
that expressing
the passion within us
must not be considered shameful,
ever
Ever
should we believe
our emotions, when shared,
do not diminish our stature.
Never
Never
easily shed,
and never taken back,
they are always a part of us.
Tear drops
This is my response to MTB: Crowning Crapsey,
the prompt from Laura Bloomsbury at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.
The Crapsey (or American cinquain) is a form of cinquain first written by Adelaide Crapsey. It’s 5 lines are not rhymed, and have a syllable count of 2-4-6-8-2. A Crown Crapsey, then, is a sequence of five cinquain stanzas functioning to construct one larger poem, with each cinquain being a Crapsey. As it happens, my last stanza came to me first.
Shivering Brief(ly) ~ quadrille ~ video poem
Shivering Brief(ly)
The wind blowing across the river
whips my face with a cold spray.
My monthly weather report
and update for those I love complete
and my camera safely stowed,
I turn my red cheeks towards
home, warmth returning
with each stroke of the paddle.
Today was not a typical cold January day. But hey! That’s winter in Missouri!
This poem is my response to Quadrille #144: Shivering, the prompt from Merril at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use a form of the word shiver in a 44-word poem (excluding title), with no required meter or rhyme.
Brilliantly Blue ~ video poem
Brilliantly Blue
I have found a light,
like an oasis amidst a landscape
that might be confused with darkness.
So brilliant is her light
that the world around her
is dimmed by comparison.
In it is music that stirs my soul,
thoughts that wake my mind from a slumber,
and a passion that echoes my own.
I follow her course intently
as she moves through the landscape before her,
offering assurance that her light will see her
through the shadows that lie in her path.
The warmth of her light offers me hope
of sharing her brilliance
as she emerges from that darkness.
Written/created ten years ago. Still true today
Shared with Open Link LIVE — November Edition at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.
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