tears

Rising River ~ video poem

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 41 Comments

 

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

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 35 Comments

 

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.

A Heart That Swells ~ quadrille

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 36 Comments

A Heart That Swells

Sorrow.

Joy.

What is their measure?
Cheeks with traces of salty trails?

I have shed enough tears to fill an ocean,
yet still carry each within me.
Waves of sorrow balanced by waves of joy.
Swells that swallow my heart, yet set it free.

This poem is my response to Quadrille #146: Let’s Get Salty, the prompt from De Jackson at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use a form of the word salt in a 44-word poem (excluding title), with no required meter or rhyme.

love and loss

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 14 Comments

love and loss

love and loss

as hosts, guests,
tandem cohorts intent
on drawing salty trails
in a warm lake breeze

joy at thoughts,
moments no longer
attainable, present
held close for the future

family, friends here
and gone from us,
present still in a moment,
theirs as much
as our own

hearts will gather
never letting go of
what they want,
tears or not

A day of celebration and remembrance.
Image: Photo of Presque Isle Lighthouse, Erie, Pennsylvania (edited)

Sea of Tears

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 15 Comments

Sea of Tears

This sea of tears
before you, here
bereft of hues
I cry for you

Stealing sorrow
that your morrow
be free of fear
I cry these tears

Now set your sights
on joyful nights
horizons far
and distant stars

Let your hopes fly
as your tears die
and leave them here
I’ll cry your tears

This poem meets two prompts, Jane Dougherty’s Poetry Challenge #29: Tears and the The Daily Post/Daily Prompt, which is Hope.
Jane asks us to write a poem using the Odilon Redon painting Tears as inspiration. She adds to the challenge by suggesting the use of five words – tears, horizon, fly, hue and stealing.

Image source: wikipedia