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An Evocation
Your life catches in its static house.
Nothing but the lightest footfall betrays its presence.
The door to escape, the ocean’s edge,
tempts you to leave yourself and enter.
This echo of the ocean is the dove in you
that carries the message that you want to fly.
Motionless dove, I want to flush you
to the crack of sunrise—to its flower.
Forget your lone compulsions.
Leave your comfort.
Desert the logic that has frozen you.
If you could let this sick time pass,
you might grow less diverted as your distance from it grows.
Time’s ricochet might drive you to the canyon’s rim,
revealing to you that you no longer fear the fall.
The stress of guilt slows down and if you choose to let it, lags behind.
You will pass and repass it on your round journey,
until its memories finally fall away.
Time will devour your guilt, no matter how grand its scale,
revoke its sentence and set the guilty free.
This poem, much edited since I first wrote it five years ago, is a “distilled poem.” The distilled poem can have any line length or meter, rhymed or unrhymed. The only “rule” is that each stanza must have one less line than the stanza before it. If you want to play along, send me a link to your poem.
The prompt word today is evoke.
for the dVerse Poets Pub
Village Doors, La Manzanilla, 2018
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Undulations
The constant undulation and the murmur of the waves.
The crashing of the breakers as they beat against the caves
carved out by the chisel of the water making hives
at the edges of the world that ensconced our busy lives.
It craved us as its audience. It pulled us to its shore.
It calmed our petty grievances with its might roar.
When it chose to rage it could wipe away our world,
sweeping us away as its anger came unfurled.
At other times it lapped at us, assuaging all our pain.
That’s why we returned to it, over and again.
Walked along its edges, pierced its salty deep,
uncovering the secrets so long within its keep.
Every morning it brought treasures to our waiting hands
to examine as we walked along the morning-evened sands.
Dollars from the ocean depths, stars out of the sea––
left there to be taken or to be let be
for the next beachcomber to claim them for their own
to treasure on a mantel what the sea had thrown
like necklaces at mardi gras, cast blindly and for free
for denizens of dry worlds to collect on bended knee.
What we cast back on the waters determines ultimately
what the sea will one day give back to you and me,
and if we do not listen to the truth the tides may tell,
the music of the waves may be our funeral knell.
The prompt today is undulate.
This is more information on Veils, Halos and Shackles. In this time of increased awareness of the need to stand up against violence toward women, this book beautifully chronicles the stories of how women have both endured and overcome violence. The poems themselves are a form of empowerment in women. I’m honored to have one of my poems included in this remarkable anthology.
By Shikhandin
16th December 2017 came and went. With barely a murmured remembrance. That’s five whole years since Nirbhaya, the name this brave girl, Jyoti Singh Pandey, was hailed by, the one who fought her attackers and then fought to survive in hospital. Ultimately she could not overcome her grievous injuries. So what happened? Why are we still not enraged? Have we slipped into our usual drugged sleep of forgetfulness?
Sometimes protest becomes still. We lose heart and start to despair. I like to believe that it is during times of stillness that protest gathers steam. During that still period, we need poetry. The poetry of protest. That is why I dare to visualise Veils Halos & Shackles in the hands of not just random or selective readers but anyone who wishes to become more conscious across societies, across the world. Even those who are not diehard fans of…
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For Cee’s Flower Prompt
Five years ago, in January 2013, Charles Ades Fishman and Smita Sahay conceived of Veils, Halos & Shackles, dedicated to ‘Jyoti Singh Pandey, Nadia Anjuman and the uncountable number of other women and girls who have been victims of gender violence’.
This is a two-part feature consisting of the book review and an interview with Charles Fishman and Smita Sahay. Today we carry the review to be followed by the interview tomorrow.
By Shikhandin
Title: Veils, Halos & Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women
Edited by Charles Ades Fishman and Smita Sahay
Publisher: Kasva Press, 2016
Buy
On the night of 16th December 2012, in New Delhi, Jyoti Singh Pandey was raped and tortured – which included the removal of her intestines with a metal rod – in a moving bus, and thrown out. She and her friend lay on the road…
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My Brilliant Career: How I Found My Proper Place in Film and TV
I got bitten by the film bug when I lived in L.A.
and did some sort of movie work most every single day.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, I always had a class.
The U.C.L.A. campus is where they came to pass.
I studied film production and took screenwriting, too,
but my class in documentaries was where I scored a coup.
We made a documentary. In fact, I helped with two,
but I knew by the end of them I hadn’t found my place.
I simply didn’t have the balls to run the movie race.
Then I studied acting at an actor’s studio.
I really did the best at this, but still, it was “no go.”
When it came to trying out for parts, I didn’t have the nerve.
Once again my movie plans took another swerve.
I worked as an apprentice at a Hollywood agency.
From all the other candidates, they selected me.
They had me reading novels and sitting in on sessions;
and this was more exciting than my former classroom lessons.
I met some famous actors and tried to be real cool,
and writing out readers reports was easier than school,
but still I knew that in my heart it just wasn’t for me.
After all this time, I didn’t know who I should be.
I’d been in California for three years by then;
and although I hadn’t found my place, still I had the yen.
But I’d run out of money. It was time to find employment
that would involve a paycheck and not just my enjoyment!
I’d heard of a position where I thought that I could cope
as publicity assistant for none other than Bob Hope!
So I wound up in production: typing, phoning, organizing.
The people in my Rolodex were frankly quite surprising.
I set up radio interviews with the famous Bob.
To read the National Enquirer was required in this job!
I went to filmings of the shows, sent out his Christmas gifts,
ran back and forth to N.B.C. and soothed some office rifts.
But all-in-all though it was fun to be there on the fringe,
to be completely honest, I was not a vital hinge.
And so when I was married, we decided to move north.
I left my life in filmdom and boldly sallied forth,
moving up to Santa Cruz to live by doing art—
never really finishing what I had tried to start.
I had adventures plenty and saw much of the scene
and I enjoy remembering everywhere I’ve been;
but all-in-all, the truth is that there’s one place I’m most groovy.
When it comes to all the skills that go into a movie,
the only place that doesn’t make me sort of tense
Is center row and half way back, in the audience!
When I originally wrote this piece three years ago, the prompt was: “The Show Must Go On–If you were involved in making a film, would you want to be the director, producer or lead actor? You cannot be the writer,” but the prompt today that also fit it was simply the word brilliant.
This is the photo I was looking for when I did an earlier response to the prompt. I just found it so need to publish it. Another gorgeous auricomous find:
She was hanging out at a favorite restaurant that has an herb garden in back. She is looking sort of grumpy, probably since they have adopted all 5 of her kittens out since I was last there. Poor Mama.
https://bopaula.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/thursdays-special-pick-a-word-in-january-y3/
