The Birth of Poetry
A pad of paper and a pen––
when these two meet, new worlds begin.
Born in the head of one who writes,
each magic word many more ignites
until at last, the story’s told,
once more as in days of old.
How many years may it have been
since first a poet lifted pen?
May I invite you to lift your pen to comment below?
The SOCS Prompt this week is “Pad.”
Pendulum
Would passion carry the same voltage
or heartbreak the sting
if from the beginning we knew
that every extreme
brings us a step closer to its opposite?
It is that great pendulum of the I Ching—
that flowing from the yin to yang—
that foretells the fall of great regimes
glorious in their altruism
who, reaching their summit,
must head back again
towards cruel tyranny.
If we’d known this from the start,
each height would become
a day of mourning,
knowing that having reached one apex,
there is no further height to climb to.
and tomorrow, the start of our slow descent
will bring us closer to that other place
where dark will reign.
Part of the power of youth’s sweet ecstasy
as well as bitter heartbreak is that it seems as though
they’ll last forever.
This is the spice of life.
Its tough gristle comes later,
as we recognize that
everything,
everything everything
changes into its
opposite.
The Word of the Day prompt is “Summit.”
Sealed Windows
A progressive woman is something that she’s not.
Way back in the fifties she’s permanently caught.
Travel to new countries? Definitely no.
She won’t let other countries profit from her dough!
She has no curiosity about the human race.
Her interest in humanity ends in her own face.
She sits before her mirror like a window to the world.
Is her lipstick even—her hair correctly curled?
Bravery to her is answering the door.
She walks out to her mailbox, but further? No. No more.
She boils all her bed linen, lest creatures linger there
to creep onto her body and nest within her hair.
All the wounds her life will bear long ago were healed.
She’s a preserved specimen of life, hermetically sealed.
She’ll face no other heartache, no risks of being hurt.
She will not chance a world of germs, bacteria and dirt.
Cats are unhygienic and dogs an equal threat.
A goldfish in a bowl is her single lonely pet.
No companion goldfish to fill its tiny bowl.
Its full attention trained on her seems to be her goal.
All those tight-sealed windows with their draperies pulled tight.
All those single bedside bulbs burning through the night.
Behind each building’s blinded eyes, how many just like her—
sealed inside a bell jar, safe from the world’s rude whirr?
Esther’s Weekly Writing Prompt is “Window.”
Solitude
Borne, then born.
Clothed, fed, shorn.
Housed and cuddled,
brain filled and muddled.
Schooled, polished, allowed to roam,
to make the world into a home.
Later settled, now sedate.
Content to let my life abate.
Find worlds inside and there abide,
to let what happens be my guide.
To try to live with less precision.
To fear less the world’s derision.
Why so hard to be oneself?
Easier when on the shelf.
Now here I pull my world around me,
memories and dreams surround me.
My solitude a crystal jar
that lets me ponder from afar
the current of my life, its tide,
to reach without and pull inside
the things that help me try to see
just where my life has taken me.
I contemplate and sometimes share
the truths that I’ve discovered there.
I’ve come to read, to judge and learn.
I’ve finally learned how to discern!
For RDP: Solitude
and for CFFC: Evening
Senor Garcia is the name of this dormant volcanic mountain.
Easy to admire
but impossible to climb.
One more futile goal.
Career Hubris
Her hems are crooked, her seams all puff,
and if that is not enough,
her fabric’s cheap, her colors clash.
So though her duds cost lots of cash
(because she calls it haute couture)
I fear she is an amateur.
For the Word of the Day challenge, the prompt is “Amateur.”
Scraps of Her
She was the glitter
in our all-too-literal lives.
She left a trail of it,
our littlest fairy.
It was the dust of her,
like that perfume half
school glue and half strawberries.
All these little paths she created in our lives—
the silliness and dainty nylon net of her,
with sand spilling from her overall pockets
and shed-off Barbie Doll parts left like
clues: one tiny shoe, a pink plastic door
from her convertible.
These small reminders once filled our house
and some of them remained when she no longer did.
We find them like the droppings of her
in infrequently visited drawers,
the corners of cupboards
and the hidden pockets of the sofa.
I find her signs as I empty vacuum cleaner bags—
a tail of glitter through the dust that, unaware,
she left like breadcrumbs through the forest of our memories.
Little girl. All grown up.
Off in a different world
that is like a new game of her own concocting,
this house a scrapbook
we would never choose to remove her from.
For the One Word Challenge: Litter
Prompt words for The Sunday Whirl are: spiral craft signal draft shallow rule dense send shell sham slapping laugh
Short Adventure
dog
woman
all
alone
computer
window
rubber
bone
eye-lock
pleading
invitation
one
thrown
bone
brings
jubilation
further
begging
is
for
naught
a
second
later
fun
forgot
For dVerse Poets Open Link Night
Game of Cards
I would pay a pretty tuppence
to invest in his comeuppance.
His smug assurance, his galling preening.
He’s like a babe in need of weaning,
sucking at the teat of fame.
What other mortal needs his name
written on towers around the world?
He’s Ozymandias, stone lip curled
in cruel splendor, sure in his power
reasserted on every tower.
But remember, as he counts each coup,
how all the mighty have fallen, too.
False knights wear armor prone to tarnish.
His Midas touch will lose its varnish.
We’ll laud the day when he’ll be dumped—
That day when he’ll be over-trumped!
The dVerse prompt is Power.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 