Who am I to be? I deign not to ask
A decision not mine to make alone
An ovarian joins to complete that task
I lay dormant in a state of my own
Not yet of flesh, sinew or even bone
I’m half the potential that’s yet to be
For now frozen in anonymity
National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 13 brings hope of life in a Rime Royal
The Rime Royal or Rhyme Royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is ABABBCC.
A year in quarantine has squashed my poor travel bug which is as antsy as a jumping bean right now. Reminiscing/Lamenting past travels brought good conversation and a good question.
Question:
If you had unlimited funds, and instant travelling with you and anyone you want to bring along at your disposal, what would your perfect day (24 hours, live it up) look like?
My Response:
Teleportation and some serious Red Bull/5 Hour Power would be likely needed, but I would bounce around the world.
This is a rough estimate timeline as I have no idea of sunrise/sunset times are for most of the places listed and would have to adjust my schedule accordingly.
* 9am – Breakfast on the Nile, with a tour of the Pyramids and camel riding included.
* Noon – Zip over to Antarctica for an hour of up close wildlife watching because I just have to step foot on that continent, not just see it from a cruise ship.
* 1pm – Warm up on Ireland and Scotland coasts mid-afternoon; I want to personally see the beautiful vistas and at least one of the ancient castles I’ve only seen in movies.
* 3pm – since we’re so close, a quickie bite at the Eiffel Tower (and perhaps a different sort of quickie afterward should I have a S/O by then).
* 5pm – New Zealand, The amazing forest shown in Lord of the Rings I believe was shot there.
* 6pm – Machu Picchu – for the amazing history.
* 7pm – Rio, Brazil, Statue of Jesus and the divers – self explanatory.
* 8pm – Sunset dinner in the Potala Palace is in Lhasa, Tibet. Can you imagine how glorious a sunset that must be at one of the most amazing architecturally impressive structures and at one of the highest points in the world!
* 10pm – Tokyo, Japan – Just to see the only place brighter than Vegas at night – lol.
* Midnight – Tromsø, Norway, Aurora Borealis – self-explanatory.
* 2am – Dubai (UAE) – for some serious late-night night life in an unexpected place, gotta get my partay on!
* Twilight/Dawn – Tonga Island – one of the closest places to the International Date Line – to be on the cusp of yesterday and tomorrow simultaneously.
* 5am – Sunrise on Uluru (Ayers Rock) Australia. For the sheer beauty and reverence of the place.
* 8am – New York, New York – because There’s No Place Like Home.
Slice of Life – Tuesday Writing Challenge
Two Writing Teachers
This is something I need to address
To find the words to make it clear
I want…a way out…of loneliness
Surrounded in the city’s excess
I’m screaming but no one seems to hear
This is something I need to address
My soul, before, I’ve tried to undress
For a solace that does not appear
I want…a way out…of loneliness
And further on me it seems to press
Try as I my might to find a way clear
This is something I need to address
And so, I’ve come here to confess
That death is the only cure I fear
I want…a way out…of loneliness
I long to be free of this distress
Get back to the things I held dear
This is something I need to address
I want…a way out…of loneliness
National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 12
Another Villanelle
I heard the line on loneliness in a video yesterday and Muse flew with it.
Bored ambivalence was the word of the day
Decided I was going to go home the long way
It’s only curiosity, was the cool wind blowing around me
Seemed like a day just like any other one
But then a curve ball was thrown into the mix hon
There she was the new big city kid now in a small country town
Sitting on the fence by the creek, so all alone and looking down
Didn’t take a psychic trick, to see she was homesick
I had passed by, but Fate triumphed and I came back after a while
And the reward I reaped was to see beauty in the light of her smile
Every day she smiles it’s just pure elation
Every hour she laughs I can’t help but laugh too
Every minute we kiss it’s an inspiration
And every second she breathes — I thank the heavens it’s true
I tried to descend from the fence, but my foot wasn’t quit clear
And yeah, she laughed as I fell in the water dead on my rear
But she was quick to quell, any hurt feelings and that was swell
By the time I walked her home as first stars shone bright
I was dry and she knew everything was going to be all right
We became friends who flitted twixt that love or the other
Took two years to learn that we were only meant for each other
The great gift I was to find was to let me live inside her mind
What wisdom knew back then, that one act of kindness from me,
Would ascend to a love for you that’s here for all eternity?
Fate stays unconquered every time on the when and where,
We only knew we had arrived once we got there
Every day you smile it’s just pure elation
Every hour you laugh I can’t help but laugh too
Every minute we kiss it’s an inspiration
And every second you breathe — I thank the heavens for you
National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 11
The space between us
that once only measured with microscope
is now spanned miles
even though you lay beside me
The space in arms that hold myself
where they once held you
in laughter in comfort
or just for the sake of holding
The space in my heart
that overflowed with joy
now filled to the brim
with heartache
The space in our conversations
say more than what’s spoken
we ignore the silence
civil words cannot hear
National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 10
I’m not questioning Mother Nature deciding
That the zipper of my favorite jeans parting
Is the result to my refusal of publicly farting
Father Time’s clock’s jingling, its hand landing
On where my body temp starts its constant revising
Between suddenly dropping and suddenly rising
Miss Clairol’s been looking more and more inviting
‘Cause not a word you say will be convincing
When the grays come in packs, I’ll be rinsing
Elastic is my friend while I’m weighting
And I carry a fan or a cloth for wiping
I’m content for now to cease my griping
I’m in no way catering to the act of aging
I’m simply deciding that the act of coping
Is more preferable than the act of moping
National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 9
I’m taking a trip down the lighter side of life even as I acknowledge that my trip is more like a prat fall – enjoy!
And today’s poetic form I tackle a Tritina
The tritina is a reduced version of the sestina written in iambic pentameter, which uses 3 repeated end-words (i.e. the final word of each line is repeated as the final word of each line in subsequent stanzas, just in a different order) and 3 three-line stanzas with a concluding one-line coda that must contain all three repeated words in order of their original appearance. The pattern/order of the repeated end-words is:
a
b
c
c
a
b
b
c
a
a–b–c
Is a distinguished hearty-har,
More fun than a simple guffaw?
Care to tell a chortler
Their tones are that of titterers?
The ground rule is a simple one:
The volume rises with the fun!
Come point out an open chuckle
From sniggers that burst a buckle.
But pick a laugh it’s yours to call
‘Cause I’m about to slip and fall!
National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 8 brings some giggles.
The days I survive It's the nights I dread When faced with the emptiness of our bed The day I spend madly running to and fro coming home only once I've exhausted every other place to go Under the guise of being busy Under the prayer, I'll quickly sleep Stretched out in a space unnaturally wide I can't enjoy it you're not by my side You're out on the road and not just for a small while I'm faced with the reality of not seeing your smile For each eternity I lay awake gets closer to the tears I'll shed Yes, while your voice on the phone makes the moment feel alright once we hang up, it's just me Just the emptiness, just the night The days I survive It's the nights I dread When faced with the emptiness of our bed
National Poetry Month for 2021 Day 7 finds me pondering the lamentations of a long-distance truck driver’s spouse in free verse.
Sympathy
accord, rapport
caring, recognizing, supporting
compassion, benevolence, singlemindedness, distant
ignoring, unseeing, uncaring
insensitive, blind
Apathy
dVerse Poets Pub — Poetics | Flipping Meanings
Tonight at dVerse Lisa challenges us to play ‘The Opposite Game’ and Flip the Meanings of poems.
I chose to create a poem using the Diamante form which goes as follows:
Line 1: Noun or subject
Line 2: Two Adjectives describing the first noun/subject
Line 3: Three -ing words describing the first noun/subject
Line 4: Four words: two about the first noun/subject, two about the antonym/synonym
Line 5: Three -ing words about the antonym/synonym
Line 6: Two adjectives describing the antonym/synonym
Line 7: Antonym/synonym for the subject
As its name suggests, a Diamante forms a diamond shape when done.
“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
Though often (mis)attibuted to John Lennon, the earliest certain source of the popular quote was by Marthe Troly-Curtin in her novel “Phrynette Married” (1912).
I used this exact opening a couple of weeks ago when I attempted to have a day vegetating. Today I use it response to a complaint.
“God! Every time I call! Why are always writing a story, or working out a poem, or you’re painting something. Pick something, ONE thing and be good, really good, perfect at it. Maybe you could make money off it and stop wasting your time.”
My pithy response: “I write and I paint because I like it and because I have no space for carpentry workshop and a kiln.”
Oh, there was so much to unpack with that loaded statement and her not understanding why I was offended by it.
What is with limiting a person to one form of expression? The whole pick one thing and be good/perfect at it nonsense, is in a word nonsense. Dion Sanders and Bo Jackson excelled in both baseball and football in their heydays. Venus and Serena Williams are both phenomenal tennis players and wonderful clothing designers. Several of Hollywood and UK actors also excel in other creative outlets. It’s Art. You know that thing like beauty is in the eye of? So who determines what’s good or God help us perfect creatively anyway? Who determines its clock value? Is the pursuit of a second passion for pleasure only limited to those those who can afford it? If it’s not making money, it is waste of time?
As I understand it Art students study other art to learn what’s good. Though they both use pointillism, no one is going to confuse a Seurat with a Lichtenstein, but they’re both good. Rembrandt, Warhol, Monet, Max, Michelangelo, Haring, Picasso, Van Gogh, Pollock, are all amazing artists, not one looks like the other and none of them did what they did to be “good.” The artists painted what they wanted, the way they wanted – period. That others cottoned on and made some of them renowned during their lifetimes was a lucky bonus. Some of the names mentioned were not famous, until after their deaths. It likely wasn’t perfect, to some of them. It may not have even been “good” to them, but you know what it was? Good enough to make them happy or they tried again until they were. They did it for they were inspired, because it pleased them. I am 10,000 percent sure someone had said to each them at some point “stop wasting time.”
Why must damn near everything in life sans breathing, and bathroom functions, can only be considered worthy of one’s time if it can also potentially line one’s wallet? Stop that nonsense! Elizabeth Barret Browning, Alex Haley, e.e. cummings, Arthur Conan Doyle, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Octavia Butler, Stephen King, Diana Gabaldon, Andrew Wilmot, Amanda Gorman: none of them wrote their very first stories and poems, because they were out to make money, they wrote because they had stories to tell. It just so turned out that eventually others liked the stories as well. The rest is the luck, ill or otherwise, of the draw. But we know their names in the first place solely because they had a story they needed to tell. The story got told. It was not a waste of time.
We blog, and some of have regular followers, but the mass majority of us are not, nor have any intent to be “influencers.” Still, we blog because we have stories to tell, in words or in art or both.
I create because it pleases ME. The moment it becomes something I have to do to make money, it becomes a job. And knowing me – it will no longer be something I enjoy. I create the ways I do because I want to. I’m not trying to be good, I am having fun. That others enjoy it is wonderful, but is never the impetus for me to type out pixels or pick up my pencil or brush. It is always time well spent, even if I hate the result. On the outside I am an adult exuberantly expressing my creativity through mixed media. On the inside I’m a four-year-old happily making a mess scribbling and finger painting. Ask any preschooler…
…That is never a waste of time.
Slice of Life – Tuesday Writing Challenge
Two Writing Teachers
Raivenne-lations 