The dVerse Poet’s prompt today is the word “flush.” The poem is to be a quadrille—-exactly 44 words, not counting the title.
Shelter in Place
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Category Archives: Poetry
Empty Spaces
Empty Spaces
The world has stilled its hectic pace, although its clocks tick on.
We stand at windows peering out, imagining what’s gone.
Rapid passings night and day, our reachings and attainings
have made way for the meantime to leave us our remainings.
There is a little secret the Swiss learned long ago
that has to do with leaving space—the worth of going slow.
Their cheese that is the richest is full of empty spaces—
its flavor made the tangier by what nature erases.
The holes are not just emptiness, for factors that have made them
create a richer cheese than the cheeses that evade them.
The blocks with larger spaces have a better taste.
In short, the empty room they leave is anything but waste.
Perhaps it is the same with the new spaces in our lives.
Perhaps the empty spaces are where the meaning thrives.
Note: Holes in Swiss cheese are created by the bacteria which change milk to cheese. Propionibacterium uses the lactic acid which is produced by other bacteria, and produces carbon dioxide gas; the gas slowly forms bubbles which makes the holes. In general, Swiss cheeses with larger eyes have a better taste.
Prompts today are Swiss, hectic, attain, secret and clock. Image by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Leavings: NaPoWriMo 4/19 2020
Leavings
Do I walk the long kilometers of beach
to look for the next shell
or stand stable, like that woman
casting and recasting her hook,
patiently waiting to pull her world in to her?
I’m gathering things
that I’ll collect into stories–
pinning them down to use like words.
Nothing wrong in finding meaning
through a piece of driftwood, a stone or shell.
Objects are only things
we cast our minds against
like images against a screen—
a shadow glimpsed crossing a window shade.
My shadow cast in front of me
is such a different thing
from one I cast behind.
In the first, I am constantly hurrying
to catch up to what I’ll never catch up to.
In the other, I am leaving behind
what I can only keep by walking away from it.
I take this place along with me in clear images–
not as they were, but as my mind has cast them;
so every picture taken of the same moment is different,
each of us seeing it through our unique lens.
We cast these things in bronze or silver-gelatin,
stone, clay or poetry.
A grandma holds out pictures of her children
and her grandchildren. See? Her life’s work.
And then this and this, without further effort on her part.
I share stories of children I don’t know
who gently unwind fishing line from a struggling gull,
of a minefield of jellyfish found on the beach
or other treasures nestled in a pile of kelp.
I find my world in both these findings and departings—
the leaving each morning to go in search of them
the part I find most exhilarating,
perhaps teaching this woman
of the death-themed night-terrors
not to worry,
that leaving is just a new adventure.
People forget and let me slip away
when I would have held on, given any encouragement,
yet fingers, letting go,
flex for that next discovered treasure.
Life is all of us letting go constantly—
taking that next step away from and to.
A white shell. I have left it there
turned over to the brown side,
so someone else can discover it, too.
The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to take a walk and collect objects to turn into a poem.
Rebuffing Human Nature
Rebuffing Human Nature
Nature is overwhelmed by us, regretting what we’ve cost.
We’re clouding up her atmosphere and melting all her frost.
She’s showing she’s indignant now by arming every gun.
Before we even see them, I fear that they’ll have won.
Her armaments are minuscule, but nonetheless they’ll beat us.
Weapons need not be visible in order to defeat us.
Determining their actions, our leaders often stumbled.
They find it hard to face they’ve been outstrategized and humbled.
When this mess is over, one more mess will be presented.
Mother Nature will not quit ‘til mankind has repented––
cleaned up all its messes, ceased drilling for her oil,
stopped polluting water and messing with her soil.
If we do not listen and stubbornly persist
in annoying Mother Nature, we may cease to exist.
Prompts today are overwhelmed, indignant, now, determine and frost.
Ode to Morrie
Ode to Morrie
Oh you ball of energy, you little ball of fluff.
When it comes to hugging you, I cannot get enough.
Your hair so black and curly, your teeth so sharp and white
that it is an honor when you choose to bite.
Your flair at ball retrieval truly has no equal.
However many thrown for you, you always seek a sequel.
Your eyes luminous marbles, your nails a lovely shape
from running over terraces to stem a squirrel’s escape.
Your hairy little jowls would put Borgnine’s to shame.
So many little mysteries for which you aren’t to blame.
What creature eats the birdseed spread out on the wall?
What other creature has your leap? What other dog the gall?
You give the cats their exercise and what possum would dare
to stray into a garden given to your care?
Oh brave little caroler when interloper passes,
Your mighty barks belie your size. No burglar tests your sasses.
At night you serenade me with your howling croon
accompaniment to ambulances or the rising moon.
My revered alarm clock, my companion after dark,
as now and then throughout the night I celebrate your bark.
Each day I laud thy energy, thy beauty and thy voice.
When I contemplate your dogginess, I cannot but rejoice!
This ode of praise I write for thee, I cannot help but pen it.
If there had been a dog messiah, my dear, you would have been it!
(Click on photos below to enlarge and read captions.)
That’s bird seed for the birds, Morrie. Since you knocked their bird feeder down and broke it, it’s the best place for me to see them feeding.
Yeah. Good boy, Morrie. Thanks for cleaning up the birdseed I spilled!!!
For day 16 of NaPoWriMo we are to write an “Over the Top” poem of excessive praise for something.
Also for: dVerse Poets.
NaPoWriMo Day 15: Jazz Riff
For NaPoWriMo, they want us to write a poem that copies the style of a favorite song or type of music. I chose Jazz.music
Every Flower: NaPoWriMo 2020 Day 11
Click on flowers to enlarge photos.
Every Flower
Who dares to press a flower to one meaning?
When one is in love, every flower is full of passion.
When love dies, each flower listens to your grief.
They pick up your thoughts by some telepathy,
soak up meaning through the air,
are watered by your grief or joy.
Hope, regrets, solitude?
Flowers do not signify.
Flowers only serve as balm.
Any flower head in a baby’s fist, held out to her mother.
Hibiscus petals strewn across a reunion table,
rose petals on a marriage bed.
When I die, do not look for the me in the roses
blanketing my grave or the bougainvillea
fallen to the ground in which I lie.
Look for me in the blue thunbergia,
hearty and profuse and growing ever upward,
insisting on being seen. Me, here! Me.
To read another poem on the significance of flowers and memory, go HERE.
TheNaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a poem about the meaning of flowers.
Also, for Cee’s FOTD.
Memory Management: Prompt Poem, 4/10/2020
Memory Management
I’ve finally calculated the amount my head can hold—
sorted, classified and filed, folded, stacked or rolled.
It’s just enough to get me by and leave room there for me.
If you want to learn some more, you’ve got to leave space free.
Don’t jump to the conclusion I don’t prioritize.
One’s got to be selective in what they memorize.
Keep the best stuff handy in your mental cache.
Put some stuff on a higher shelf and throw away the trash.
Heads do not get bigger like hips and waists and ears,
so if you are forgetting things, let me calm your fears.
It’s nature’s way of making room for more important thought.
Emphasizing what we are, erasing what we’re not.
Prompts for today are finally, head, jump, cache and amount.
A Tropical Illusion
Building Paradise
A Tropical Illusion
They’ve spiffied up the island. It was a piece of cake.
No one will ever know that the volcano is a fake.
No amount of protest would stay them from this action
even though of course there was a non-supportive faction
who thought the former real grass was better than the new
which never needed mowing and was such a lovely hue.
The battle raged throughout, but in spite of it, by June
They had all the equipment for the holographic Moon.
They’d planned their big Grand Opening and advertised online.
From all the folks who liked their ads, they knew that they’d do fine.
They’d made their Island great again. Not one guest disagreed.
Every problem engineered, there was no lack or need.
An homogenized vacation, a prefab honeymoon—
Every month of every year went by the name of June.
Ships came in and ships went out and zombies came and went.
on simulated adventures where life was just for rent!
Prompt words for Thursday are cake, ship, island, battle and amount.
Set in Concrete
Below is a collage of concrete poetry I’ve done over the past six years. Please click on images to increase the size and read the poems.
The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a concrete poem. Here are a few.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 