Everyone _______________

Day 25 of the poem-a-day challenge – the prompt is to write a poem beginning Everyone __________.

Summer (The Green Hammock) Sir John Lavery

Everyone Needs a Hammock

Take the stress of the day and
lie down with it
in your hammock.

Swing softly with the breeze.
Watch the clouds, or stars,
the branches above,
or twittering birds
or playing children,
or read your book.

A tall glass of lemonade
in the summer.
Warm cider in the autumn.
A cozy quilt in the winter.
A Roger Tory Peterson book
in the spring.

And maybe a cuddle with
someone you love…
sure, the kids will all fit, too.

More hammocks,
less worry.
That’s what everyone needs.

The Hammock – 1844 Gustave Courbet

Beyond

The prompt for day 20 of the poem-a-day challenge is to use the word, “Beyond.”

This one took some time and thought. I’m not sure I’m quite happy with it yet, but this is what I’ve got.

Beyond the Ramparts

If I look beyond the ramparts
and down into the valley,
beyond all my father’s vanguards,
to the place we go to dally.

I know father would be so angry
if he knew where I sometimes go
but I find myself longing and hungry
for what father does not know.

So I get my basket for flowers,
my cloak and sturdiest shoes,
and go wander the valley for hours
looking for flowers and you.

And sometimes, if so fortune favors
we will find each other there.
We kiss, as the friendliest neighbors,
and you pull the pins from my hair.

And oh, how the time swiftly hurries
as over the hillsides we roam
We often forget all our worries,
until it is time to go home.

My father is getting suspicious.
He’s starting to have me watched.
The thing is, he’s also ambitious,
and the last match he made is all botched.

If your folks would have a discussion
with father, maybe he’ll deal.
If he learns of the repercussion,
my pregnancy, our love we’ll seal,

Then perhaps he will reconsider
his senseless antipathy,
selling me to the highest bidder.
Perhaps he will give you to me.

I am ________

The prompt was to fill in the above sentence, to use “I Am ____” somehow. I had fun with this one!

The Storn – Pierre Auguste Cot

Who am I?

I am
the voice in your head
that tells you to run.

I am
the whisper in the dark
that makes you look over your shoulder.

I am
the moonless night
that gives shape to your nightmares.

but

I am also
the idea that wakes you
and makes you write down that new poem.

and I am
the adrenaline surge
when you’ve gotten that scene just right.

and I am
that moment you get chills
because someone else loves your work.

I am your imagination.

If you never let me go,
I will take you to
every time
every place
everywhere
you can imagine.

 

 

Arrival

Today is the first day of the Aprili poem-a-day challenge. I will, as in past years, post at least one poem per day this month. Some years are more difficult than others, depending on how busy life gets!

The prompt for this first day is to write an arrival poem. I wrote this triolet with a sideways look at arrival.

Spring Request

Mermaids, pixies, banshees, sprites and elves
The world won’t see your revels more
For spring this year, please just bring yourselves
Brownies, nixies, dryads, sprites and elves
Tales of old from dusty books on shelves,
Dreary the thought: you are gone from this shore
Hamadryads, satyrs, sprites and elves
This world will not see your revels more

***

The second and last lines were inspired by a line in Jane Eyre when she and Mr. Rochester are discussing faerie:  ” I don’t think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine on their revels more.”

And if this poem-a-day thing sounds like a fun challenge, do join us! Follow this link for the rules: April Poem-a-Day Challenge  Guidelines.

And this link to dive right in! April 1 – April PaD Challenge

Walking II

Here is the second for today – a little piece of Stephen King fan fic. ^_^

***

The Walkin’ Dude

Randall Flagg,
they call him here,
though he has so many names,
other monikers from all the other places
he is known.

The clocking of the worn down
heels of his scruffy cowboy boots on
wet pavement (though whether it’s water from the
weeping stones, or something far more sinister is questionable)
is also known.

You feel that spike of dread
at his avid grin, the skulls of fire dancing
in his eager gaze, and though at first you might think
you’ll be okay, in truth, the outcome of this encounter is already
known.

And all that is left for you now,
is to hope that something, anything at all,
distracts him from what he is probably intending to do to you
right now (oh god) but it’s too late because here (have mercy) God
is unknown.

Knocking Wood

The prompt for today’s poetry challenge was to write a Knocking Wood poem. It is a superstition, in case you didn’t know, that is supposed to prevent ill fortune. I have seen otherwise reasonable people make certain of their luck by knocking wood surreptitiously. ^_^

I did this in the Pantoum form, just for fun.

***

Knock Wood

Fire, plague or for common good
or to prevent some calamity,
and amend our misfortune, knocking wood
will help to preserve our sanity.

In the event of calamity
there’s only one thing we can do
that helps to preserve our sanity,
touch or knock wood (or bamboo).

It is true, the one thing we can do
if we do not want a catastrophe
touch or knock wood (or bamboo)
to stall pain or sorrow or bankruptcy.

We don’t want some kind of catastrophe
fire, plague or something not good.
So stop pain or sorrow or bankruptcy;
to amend all misfortune: knock wood.

Resolved

The poetry prompt today was to write about resolution in some way. In my instance, we had a problem resolved; our cat, Suzie, went missing around Christmas.

I have my theories on what happened to her and where she went. Below, find my Roundel on the subject. ^_^

I just wonder where my cat went.
We found she was gone at meal-time.
(To her to miss meals was a crime
yet, we missed her hungry lament.)

No hair we found, or sign or scent.
We called and searched the alley grime.
We found she was gone at meal-time.
I just wonder where my cat went.

Back home after eight days, nose rent
and scarred, hungry, fur-begrimed,
No sign of where she’d spent her dime.
To Narnia? To Time-Lord lent?
I just wonder where my cat went.

Tardis

Glosa — November PaD, day 18

Golly, this was a strenuous prompt: to write a “Glosa.” I have taken the description directly from the prompt:  ”This involves an epigram of 4 consecutive lines from a favorite poet that the challenge participant believes they can write successfully to. Then, write a poem consisting of four 10-line stanzas where the final line of each stanza is a line from the epigram, in order. Within each stanza, lines 6, 9 and 10 must rhyme.”

Complex, yes?

And I was traveling all day, to visit my son at Ft. Huachuca, so I did not get to this until late.

I took the last four lines of a poem by Maya Anjelou, Women Work.

***

From Woman Work
by Maya Angelou

Sun, rain, curving sky
Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone
Star shine, moon glow
You’re all that I can call my own.

—

I want to run and just pretend
that I have suddenly become a child
again. I want to carelessly leave my
belongings scattered, and never turn off
a light. I want to stay out playing ‘til
dark, and pretend I cannot hear you cry
my name into the dew speckled darkness,
until I am too tired to play tag,
and, guilty, finally, tell my friends goodbye.
My day complete with sun, rain, curving sky.

I want to live that carefree life once more
To have my mother or father tuck me
safely into bed, checking carefully
for monsters underneath the springs or in
the closet, tinkling the hangars with
their frightful claws or teeth of sharpened bone.
I want the whole scenario, complete
with bedtime story and glass of water
and on to dreams of Neverland and mer-
maids, lost boys, mountain, oceans, leaf and stone

And then I want to waken when I want
with no alarms or overly-cheerful
morning show on the local radio
station. I want to wake when I am no
longer sleepy, to stretch, luxuriate.
To hop up out of bed as spry as though
I really were a child again, no aches
or stiffness. And to breakfast where I eat
a meal like a Norman Rockwell tableau,
and our faces beam like star shine, moon glow

I want to be that child again, if just
to more completely recall how it was,
to see my folks as their younger, joyful
selves, before the pain and anger and loss,
before the agony of the divorce,
before the love that we had known was flown.
Regret and loss aren’t all I have left,
You, memories, I have a few of you.
You, lost memories are what I bemoan
Yet you’re all that I can call my own.

 

Stuck – November PaD, day 14

Half-way there, the prompt today was to write a “stuck” poem. I went with a “stuck-in-a-state-of-mind” thought, and the result is below.

Mirror, Mirror…

A Trap of the Mind

(Who is the Fairest of Them All?)

The evil queen in the Snow White tale
wants to be the fairest of them all.
And for years she keeps that title (by
hook or by crook) until the day young
Snow White reaches her maturity.

The queen should have known better than to
compete with someone at least twenty
years her junior, but she is stuck in
a state of mind that ties her worth to
how beautiful and youthful she looks.

What happened to the days when a
woman was content to live her life:
(Maiden)
(Mother)
(Crone)
and happily
be what she is with all of the at-
tendant pros and cons to each estate?

What happened to our world where women
sincerely believe they are only
worthwhile if they are young and pretty?
And so many buy into that mindset,
men (trophy wives) and children too.

There is more to us than that.
There is more to life than that.

Poor queen, stuck in that peculiar
mind trap, she finally has to change
herself into a crone at last to
bewitch Snow White. But Snow White’s time as
a maiden has come, and so she is
rescued and the queen fades away in-
to obscurity and finally, death.

How much better would it be to just
accept and embrace what comes with age:
wisdom, surety, peace, love, grace
humility, and the knowledge that
the maiden today is the mother
tomorrow and finally, eventually,
the most beautiful of all, the crone.

Technology – PaD day 12

Today’s prompt was to write about a piece of technology that SHOULD exist, or one that now DOES exist that was dreamed of by writers.

So. Many. Books.

I though I would hate you,
my little e-reader,
I thought I would never
get over the fact
that you don’t have
actual paper
pages
and covers
and that smell,
that old book smell.

But then
I discovered something
lovely.

Once I was used to the way
the pages turned
(at the press of a button,
and not the flip of a page),
I realized that I could hold
my entire
collection
in just one hand.

I have everything from
Patrick Rothfuss
and Agatha Christie
to Williams Shakespeare.
From H.G. Wells
and E.A. Poe
and Arthur Conan Doyle
to Janet Evanovich,
J.D. Robb, and
Isaac Asimov.

Asimov and Heinlein and
Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury
would all be thrilled to learn
that the idea of having a computer
full of books for use on
long space missions
came far earlier
and easier
than they imagined in their books
(that I also have safely stored away).

Now, I can carry my library
in my handbag.

I can sit at the doctor’s office
and read that 600 page novel
without tiring my wrists at all.

I can plug in my headphones and listen
to audio book, or to any music
I care to download to my e-reader.

I can read my favorite magazines
in color
without contributing to any landfill
anywhere.

I can switch books on an airplane
without digging through my luggage,
and can get the next volume
in a series from the car seat
in the middle of nowhere.

We live in the future,
and I am a happy resident
here.