Tag Archives: writing

Hoarding Pennies, For The Sunday Whirl Wordle (Wordless?) 734

The rain lies hidden in the clouds, ready to rinse from this day my guilt for all of those words I imagined I would finally foster––drawing them out from that thick thicket of memory where they have hung for fifty years, waiting to explode. Sorted  one-by-one into piles, each lies like a single undetonated bomb, barely ticking after all these years, ready for me to sink into them to stage that final act by which they will earn their freedom. I am a criminal of omission––that fake author of the lessons they might teach. Fearing their truth or perhaps their half-truths, I hoard them  now like worthless pennies in their stacks. Too late, too late I fear, to spend them.

Below is a photo of the manuscript I started 50 years ago, at its present stage. Behind are piled the research, letters, notes and timelines I have assembled to attempt to bring the manuscript up to the present. I have come to an isolated spot in Quintana Roo for a month to do so, but I fear the daunting deed might go undone! Laziness or an inability to face the truths and to deal with them again, after all these years? Three weeks to go. Time will tell.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle 734, the  prompts are: rinse days still thicket bomb fake criminal imagine foster lies sky sink First two images done aided by AI, third photo my own.

The Meeting Place (for Dverse Poets)

The Meeting Place

What are you waiting for––
divine inspiration?
Do you think Shakespeare waited for his muse?
And if your muse came,
would you even recognize her?
Will she wear long white flowing robes?
Will she play a lute or will your voice
be her instrument?
Will she whisper in your ear or speak to you
though your mind?
And will she be beautiful or will that even matter?
As you age will your muse age with you
or is she perpetually young?
And what about wisdom?
Will it be your own acquired wisdom or hers
that will make your words cut like a knife
though the soft texture of days,
that will give them purpose
when those around you
fail and fall
into the magnetic cloud
of forgetfulness or boredom?
What if as you sit there
waiting for your muse,
watching reality TV
or doing crossword puzzles,
your muse is waiting for you
in the keys of your computer
or in your pen point?
What if she has been lolling all these years
in the pages
of that lined notebook
sitting empty on your shelf?
I keep telling you
that every day I see her
pass behind you
as you pine for her,
always looking
in the opposite
direction.

 

For dVerse Poets–a poem about a muse.

Stories Told by Silence

Stories Told by Silence

Silence has a language unique to every ear.
Anyone can hear it if they choose to hear.
Do you listen to your silences? The various tales they tell?
I’ve listened to them my whole life. I know them very well.
Their insistent voices burrow through my thoughts,
trail their separate stories and tie them into knots.

Some seek out yarns in chaos: carnivals and bars,
rodeos and festivals, parades and speeding cars.
But there’s drama in the silence as it gathers round—
stories waiting patiently for you to hear the sound
of voices in the quiet. Hush now. Do you hear?
They’ll settle on your shoulder and whisper in your ear.

Silence owns no copyrights. It’s there for you to steal.
Unsort its separate strands and then spin them on your wheel.
The fiber of your silence can be woven into tomes.
Weave them into novels, storybooks and poems.
Stories are out there waiting. Hush and you might hear them.

Reach out and grab one for yourself when you venture near them.

 

Prompt words today are silence, tell and insistent.

Why We Write

And looks like I’ve changed my mind about not writing about this.

We write to share that part of us that might not otherwise be shared. The page is like a Fibber Magee and Molly closet where we store all those leftover parts of ourselves. Open the page and everything comes spilling out: organized, disorganized, jovial, sad, rational or irrational. Everything gets crammed into the page. We may not be lionized for it. Our words may be stolen and presented as someone else’s, but the important thing is to write them. Words are like a pressure valve, freeing pent-up emotions. They furnish a release that is somehow part of the solution to the problems they describe. 

A page written by Cervantes.

Prompt words today are write, lionize, share and jovial.

Work in Progress


 ForgottenMan gave me permission instructed me gave me his blessing said it might be a good idea … to inform you about the project I’m working on. He added this photo of me in Ethiopia in 1973. The book I’m writing is about this period during which the Ethiopian Marxist revolution was brewing. My friend Leslie offered to come over for a three day intensive where we would both work only on our books. It worked so well that we’re doing it again for four days, starting tomorrow. Here are a few shots of last week’s session. I’ll see you on Monday! (Click on first photo to enlarge all and read captions.)

 

Story Conference

Isidro and I met at Viva Mexico to discuss illustrations for our next book. He now has three of my children’s books stacked up to illustrate. This one is entitled “I Really Want A Puppy.” It’s quite a job as he needs to come up with at least 7 different puppy characters as well as a family of six: two children, Mom, Pop and grandparents as well as friends. (Click on the first photo to enlarge photos and see captions.)

Lake Chapala Attracts Writers Like Moths to Light, reblog

The Lady of the Lake is a Muse

Read about the truth of this here:

https://riberasauthors.com/2018/09/02/attracts-writers-like-moths-to-light/

In the Rough

Yesterday I talked about writing the Tin Man poem in my hot tub.  Today I showed Forgottenman my originals, scrawled in the drink. He urges that I should show y’all and although at first it seemed pretentious, it occurred to me that I loved looking at original drafts, with corrections, back when we all wrote by hand. So, I’m showing them to you, water drips and all.  It actually shows my process pretty well.  Line-by-line, making lists of rhyming words, choosing one and working toward it in the next line. Crossing out, moving lines. If you enjoy this, why not show me yours?  You can see the finished poem HERE.

IMG_2002IMG_2003

Rhyming Violation

The prompt word today is rhyme.

 

Rhyming Violation

There is a reason and a rhyme
to the word they chose this time.
For though I am not in my prime
and don’t play tennis, do not climb
or stoop too low to conquer grime,
In any terrain, any clime,
my mind spins like a twirling dime.
If over-rhyming were a crime,
I’d probably be doing time.

 

(If you are a glutton for punishment, yes, you can click on these to enlarge them.)

 

Leftovers

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Leftovers

New words fly at me in a swarm.
They do not mean to do me harm,
but still I feel beaten and battered.
They might feel they haven’t mattered
if I do not use them all,
and yet I feel the beach’s call.
The dog is clamoring to be fed
while I am writing this instead.

The guilt of it cuts like a knife.

I’ve got to go and have a life!
I save the words already used,
and lest the others feel abused,
I leave them on the page as well
to tell the stories they might tell
If I had the time to use them.
I hope you’ll take time to peruse them:

fife  strife excel tell bell yell cell

The prompt today was swarm.