Tag Archives: Poetry

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

In The Back Woods

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I’m raised deep down in the country dues
I’m all chicken and gravy and liquor and blues
Don’t trust no man who know nothing ‘bout muddy shoes
It’s all good, in the back woods

We still a got general store back here the sticks
With saw dust on the floor ‘bout a half inch thick
‘Cause if it’s broke ’round here, it’s ‘round here we fix
For it’s all good, in the back woods

Some of us work the farm, some work at the factory
‘Till sundown comes or the ol’ mill whistle set us free

Seems like from the first cries announcing my arrival
It’s been one hand on my work and one on hand my bible
Dusk to dawn working on the land and my soul’s survival
But it’s all good, in the back woods

Oh, I work somethin’ hard and hard’s how I play
Takin’ a roll in the hay, spinning wheels in the clay
Lord knows I wouldn’t have it no other way
Naw, it’s all good, in the back woods

With its skyscrapers, and noise, and streets all gritty
I tried the living, but I ain’t cut out for no city

So it’s tailgate down, under the stars, when my day is through
Or swinging on the front porch with the fam for a spell or two
I’m gonna drink me some cold ones, yup that’s what I’ll do
Yeah, it’s all good, in the back woods

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At dVerse guest pub-tender Stacy Lynn Mar invites us to write our own folk poem.

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dVerse ~Poets Pub | Poetics : Folk Talk 

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National Poetry Month – Day 21

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.

The Trinity

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The stretch of lives as we understand
That are pulled from chaos into strands
Then placed in care of three pairs of hands

Clotho gathers many strands to spin
Strands clean and pure without a sin
Into the threads where our lives begin

In the slips and slubs that’s sewn our way
Lachesis holds forth the role we play
Threads strong or weak are hers t0 say

Deigned to be neither our foe or friend
Whether worn smooth or with snags to mend
By Atropos’ shears we reach our end

Woven deep onto Life’s tapestry
Come all of the things that are to be
Under the eyes of this trinity

In this tapestry so tautly gripped
Where our twisting lives are woven, slipped
Thus our threads are spun, measured, and snipped

Nornsweavingarthurrackham

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Today at Real Toads, with today being the third Sunday of the month, Hedgewitch challenges us to consider the idea of three. I took on the trinity we tend to refer to in the singular: Fate (The Fates).
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Real Toads | Poetry To The Third Power

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National Poetry Month – Day 17

In honor of Hedgewitch’s celebration of three, I break my alphabetical run through poetic forms to do something original, original to me anyway.  I’m calling this the Monoterce.

The Monoterce is simply a mono-rhymed tercet (a three line stanza), of nine syllables per line,  done in multiples of three. It has to have a minimum of three stanzas to qualify, any following stanzas must be in multiples of three (3, 6, 9, 12… ).

The Memory Remains

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Those old shoes that we lived in on the dance floor
The pretty dresses that could not worn anymore
All the old things we packed from times before
It was all boxed away in the attic to store

All these things are gone now, yes, that is plain
Burned to the core, only the memory remains

Old letters so brittle with time they would decay
The things we can no longer put out on display
May be old but in our hearts new is how they stay
Were all here, but in a moment all burned away

All these things are gone now, yes, that is plain
Burned to the core, only the memory remains

In the aftermath of flames barely left any trace
All those things gathered to be held in their space
Pieces of the our past that cannot be replaced
I am grateful – there go I, but for saving grace

All these things are gone now, yes, that is plain
Burned to the core, only the memory remains

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Today Karin challenges to write about what remains, however we envision it.
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Real Toads | In The Remains

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National Poetry Month – Day 16

I give you what remains in a Pendrangle.

Stanzaic: Two or more of quatrain couplet pairs
Refrain:  The couplet is a refrain repeated throughout
Isosyllabic:  Hexameter (12 syllable lines)
Rhymed-   mono-rhyme throughout: aaaa BB cccc BB…

Ivory and Coloured Glass

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In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Are memories of then now gathering dust
Just one touch and in memories I’m thrust

Swift as the stirrings that came to amass
A moment’s surrender, I do remember
Those fleeting firsts uncovered in the grass

Wandering the world with equal lust
Fill vials of ivory and coloured glass

But vials of ivory and coloured glass
Needed a home with some stillness to trust
That our nomadic lives could not adjust

Allowing one last half-formed thought to pass
How it descended, bitterly ended
I pull myself from memory’s morass

Oh but for one more tryst in wanderlust
For vials of ivory and coloured glass

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For today’s prompt Angie challenges us to utilize T.S. Eliot’s complex and very long poem “Wasteland” in either a Fibonacci or free style poem. The only caveat being the write can not be about death, numbers, money or taxes – as it is Tax Day here in the U.S. A few lines random lines caught my eye, and my muse took over from there.

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Real Toads – Tax Day

 

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National Poetry Month – Day 15

Not knowing this was coming I already did a couple of Fibonacci Spiral poems just last week and did not want to do another one so soon. Free style is easy, so I’ll stay in keeping with my alphabetic run through poetic forms challenged myself to an Octain.

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

The Sacred Dead

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A pointed gaze, a look askew
A hex, a curse, an ancient brew
A casting old, known by scant few
A spell anew, a spell anew

My wont to horde secrets and lies
My will now met in cold disguise
My turns do rise and hide the skies
My laugh derides, my laugh derides

Treasures to me your rise, your fall
Treasures – your cries to me are small
Treasures – your deaths culled in these halls
Treasures them all, treasures them all

Upon this room that’s now gravestone
Upon here where my power’s honed
Upon mandibles now made throne
Upon your bones, upon your bones

The site that thrives on horrors spread
The pause that gives from things once dread
The faith that rose here in its stead
The sacred dead, the sacred dead

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Having a bone to pick indeed. Mama Zens prompts us to let the walls speak for themselves.
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With Real Toads –  If These Walls Could Talk

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National Poetry Month 2016 – Day 13

Today’s faithful morbidness is brought to you via the Monotetra.

The monotetra is a poetic form developed by Michael Walker.  The form must be written in tetrameter, either iambic or trochaic, approximately 8 syllables per line.  Each stanza is a quatrain (four lines), that is monorhymed. The fourth line of each stanza must be a dimeter, or 4-syllable phrase, that is repeat twice.

The stanza structure:

Line 1: 8 syllables; A1
Line 2: 8 syllables; A2
Line 3: 8 syllables; A3
Line 4: 4 syllables, repeated; A4, A4