Category Archives: Just Me, Being Me

Every Way The Wind Blows

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They marvel at your skill
How lifelike I appear
As though I could fly
Every way the wind blows

They know not your dark secret 

A twirl in Sol’s gold
Coiling in Luna’s silver
Diaphanous and solid
Every way the wind blows

How your majik sealed me within

Lighter than dandelion fluff
Joyful wings ever airborne
Yet never take flight
Every way the wind blows

A statue admired as so alive

The ethereal made corporeal
To this post ever bound
In eternal dervish motion
Every way the wind blows

I scream unheard in living death

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Today at dVerse Lillian invites  us to pick a piece of art and tell a story from the view of the artist or the art itself.  I recently saw this wonderful piece of kinetic art and have been completely enchanted by it.

I promise this started out on a much happier note, wondering about the unknown artist who could create such a delightful thing. But as I watched the video again, I thought what if this isn’t the magnificent work of a very talented artist, but of magic, dark magic that trapped a faerie playing with a dandelion.

Perhaps the statue looks so alive because she is….

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics : Chisel Me A Conversation

The First Step

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Calf and tendon and shin

What used to be remembers
The road left behind
With an ease born and
Taken for granted

Muscle and sinew and bone

What cannot be learns
The path is the same
Only how I travel from
Here to there has changed

Plastic and wires and metal

What will be anticipates
the trail untraveled
the way ahead
I’ve yet to roam

Two wood beams

What is now knows
the first step is
the shortest I’ll have to take
the furthest I’ll have to go

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My muse takes the view of a person in physiotherapy, looking up at the balance beam, embarking on the very first step using artificial legs, learning to walk again.

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Today at Real Toads Kerry is encouraging us to pay a visit to to a Word Family. Using family synonyms or antonyms for that which is walked upon, parts of the appendages used to walk and the distance walking.

Real Toads | Kerry Says ~ Let’s Visit the Family 

senseless

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Nine and seven years
You abandon us here
In this world
Mad with anguish

Skipped to the words
Take them
Spoken in hate
Go away and die
Because of him

The need to spite
Mattering more
Than to live for us
Your own daughters

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A week before Mother’s Day. Trying to make sense of the senseless. She had been saying for months that if he kept pushing her she’d leave him permanently. We were all praying she would. None of us thought it would be like this. Leaving a note and two daughters.

From some of the comments below I see I need to clarify something. The above poem is from my muse, taking the view point of the two daughters. The pain feels real to you, because it is real to me. This past Monday night/Tuesday morning,  I lost a friend, the girls lost a mother to suicide.

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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille 8: Skip

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The Daily Post | Abandoned

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Real Toads : The Tuesday Platform

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Slice of Life Writing Challenge : Two Writing Teachers

Princely

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It’s after 11pm, the train pulls in at 34th Street and two men get on. They were young, no more than 25.  One has his iPhone connected to a Bluetooth speaker, loudly playing Prince’s Little Red Corvette.  As the doors close behind him, the one with the iPhone turns the volume down. As the train pulls out of the station, it was clear he could barely hear the music anymore. Addressing everyone and no one he asks: “Ladies and gentleman, I don’t want to be rude, but my headphones are broken and I can’t replace them until tomorrow. But I really need to hear me some Prince right now. Is it okay if I turn  this up and share it with you?”

This was Thursday night, hours after the news of the death of Prince has shocked the world. From the outpouring of positively to the young man’s question, one would have thought the pastor  just asked the church for an “Amen!” after a good sermon. I am guessing most of us on the train were still reeling from the news, I know I still was.  The reaction was about the same, so he turned it up just as the opening lines of Let’s Go Crazy was coming on.

“Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
To get through this thing called life“

He wasn’t just listening to the music, but part quoting/singing along with it. Once it reached the part of “Go crazy”  a good portion of us on the train had joined in with him. It was an impromptu mini-concert/singalong for quite a few stops. It was continuously amusing as the unaware boarded the train and were thrust pell-mell into the ad hoc celebration. Luckily most joined the fun, or at the very least nodded agreeably with the contained madness.  And contained madness was exactly what it was until Purple Rain came on.

It seemed, as one, we all became quiet as the opening chords played. It was penance. It was salvation. It was redemption. It was church. It was a reverent moment of silence, just listening to him…

“I never meant to cause you any sorrow
I never meant to cause you any pain
I only wanted to one time to see you laughing
I only wanted to see you
Laughing in the purple rain“

And again, as one, we came out of that reverent trance to sing the chorus together. Some with heads down, but hands waving slowly in the air, feeling it. Yes, there were some people crying and it was alright. I could not help, but think Prince himself would have liked that. He would have enjoyed that moment of oneness among strangers over his songs.

“Thinking about how we mourn artists we’ve never met. We don’t cry because we knew them, we cry because they helped us know ourselves.”

— Juliette (Elusive J)

A Lil’l Dab A Doo Ya

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Ya needs you sumting fo’ dems chills
Yous lookin’ likes ya needs sum care
I’s jus’ da ting ta cures ya ills
Lemme put summa dis dere

Dis’ll warm ya likes a sweatta
Feelin’ real good to you, yah?
Imma makes it all betta
Jus’ open wide and say ah

When yous sick ain’t nuttin like Mama’s luv
Wid sum chikin soup and Vick’s vapa rub

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So today on Real Toads, we are asked to feel free to write a poem containing some kind of local vernacular, slang, or pronunciation. My poor, poor spell check!

Real Toads | Open Platform

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National Poetry Month – Day 19

We  we cure what ails you with the Ravenfly.

The Ravenfly is a nonce form that consists of two quatrains and a couplet
with syllable count of of 8/7/8/7/10/10. The rhyming scheme is abab cdcd ee

There are no metric requirements.

Twisted

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This is how you want me?

Twisting myself
Inside out?
Just for you.

Dropped into the vortex
All these parts of me
Churning,
Tearing apart!
For you!

My death
Custom made
Sustenance

For your desire
Of the sweetest kind

I hope you get
Brainfreeze!

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My milkshake brings all the boys and girls to the shoppe, I guess.

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Today, Brendan at Real Toads challenges to write a poem with poetic surprise. I suspect something a little more highbrow was on the plate, but the ol’ muse ain’t biting any of it.

Real Toads | Turns of the Tale: Poetic Surprise

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Meanwhile, in a serendipitous turn, Grace at dVerse inspires us to write a Quadrille with a Twist. Twist being the word for the day, to be included in the write, in any of its usages.

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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Quadrille #7

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National Poetry Writing Month – Day 18

In lovely coincidence I happen to be up to the letter Q as I tiptoe through my alphabetical tulips of poetic forms – so today I do a dance of a Quadrille. A short poem of exactly 44 words, not including the title – no more, no less.

Year of Loving Dangerously

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You warned of this sun solstice start
In you, I should not place my heart
Fault mine, to cry piteously
For soft like autumn leaves I fell
A spark winter kindled to swell
I did not heed seriously
My heart grew sore, as spring returned,
With summer’s kiss, I now stand spurned
Year of loving dangerously

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Today the idea of this challenge is to substitute words of our own into the well-known titles of novels or movies and write a poem from there. I played with The Year of Living Dangerously by Peter Weir.

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With Real Toads | In Other Words

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National Poetry Month Day 14

Today I write dangerously with a Nove Otto.

The Nove Otto poetry form  is a nine-lined poem with 8 syllables per line. The rhyme scheme is as follows: aabccbddb

Pages Left To Turn

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Waiting for the day when I was too old to scold
Not knowing such a time would never come my way
My younger years once spent being reckless and bold
Those pages burned away in such furious blaze
In fantasia that thirty is considered old
Oh how the numbers changed as I added on days
Now I’m the one telling, instead of being told
Back then are not the words I’d thought so soon to say

Now I wonder if I will reach a point of sage
To look back upon the times of my days before
Some tales I have told in this pen and pixeled stage
Some tales are only known in memory to store
Should older me still have plenty of time to gauge
This life I’ll live from babe to days of hoar
I’ll fill these lines with joy before I turn the page
‘Till the pages left for me to turn are no more

My dossier holds Raivenne-lations nevermore

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Today I have something of a trifecta:

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1. At dVerse Lillian challenges us to create a poem that includes the word fantasia, phantasia, or fantasy. The word can be used in the title or the body of the poem itself.

dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics – Fantasia

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2. At Real Toads Kerry provides us the side inspiration of writing about living through the years.

Real Toads | Open Platform Tuesday

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3. National Poetry Writing Month – Day 12

It is still NaPoWriMo and today’s form is: The  Lucubration

The Lucubration is a form by Amanda J. Norton. It has two octave (eight line) stanzas, followed by a single line for 17 lines all together.

It has a rhyme scheme of abababab cdcdcdcd d.

The poem’s title must be a 5 syllable title. The two octave stanzas have 12 syllables per line. The final line must be 12 syllables in only 5 words and in italics.

This Is What It Sounds Like

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I woke early this morning to birdsong. But not the trills that come with morning light. This was a lone note deep in the darkest before. I waited as the call went out. Then I waited some more.

Avian fantasia surrounded me as the bird voiced itself again. For somehow I knew it was the same lone bird and same lone note, perhaps calling out a name. Or was it a call awaiting response? I wondered if it was a mating call. Was there was a partner to answer?

Or was that the cry of the forlorn?

Try as I might, it sounded like crying; the gut wrenching sob of one trying to hide the pain. Is this what it sounds like when doves cry? I felt as though I was somehow intruding on something private, by just listening. As my alarm went off I rose knowing I was listening in vain. I did not hear the call again.

Just the memory of that note in the dark of night lingering on my psyche in the light of day.

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Let’s see how others are slicing it up today…

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Slice of Life Weekly Challenge | Two Writing Teachers

In Deep Repose

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Dressed in Luna’s glow
Fingers following her thoughts
Loving in deepest repose
Where Sol cannot see

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National Poetry Writing Month 2016 – Day 10

The Jue Ju

This Chinese style poetry is one of the oldest of the Chinese patterns and in the 3rd century AD the Jue Ju was very popular. Jue ju meaning curtailed or frustrated verse, does not aim to tell a story, but to create a mood. Often carrying “suggestively erotic themes” it does in the most frugal way imaginable, and with a high tone.

A jue ju is only four lines of five or seven syllables each where lines should be same length and is
often erotic.