Saturday, August 29, 2020

SUNFLOWER SECRET

The Sunday Muse #123, and our
photo of inspiration is the sunflower,
which holds nature's secret in the spiral
of its seeds.  The Golden Ratio is an
irrational number,   approximately 1.618,
which is prevalent in nature, art, architecture,
and design. (Other Names  for it are golden
mean, golden section, Phi (in mathematics),
divine section, golden number,  Fibonacci
sequence.
Submitted to The Sunday Muse
August 29, 2020
and to Poets & Storytellers United
August 30, 2020
******************


The sunflower stands tall and proud
So beautifully serene
It’s turns its face to the sunshine
And displays the golden mean

Its seeds hold nature’s secret
Within their spiraling chains
Fibonacci's series is hidden there
The hand of God remains

Friday, August 28, 2020

RE-VERBERATION

More fun with noun-verbing ... or is it
verb-nouning?  I couldn't resist
another try.
Submited to dVerse
August 28, 2020
*************
Harriet ladied the fellows
when she dimpled and coquetted
until they were all swained
and Harriet was never forgetted

Thursday, August 27, 2020

ENIGMATED

Meeting the Bar at dVerse
Verbing nouns is the challenge.
My tongue is cheeked.
Submitted to dVerse
August 27, 2020
**********************

She succumbed to his charms
she hadn't fireworked in years
surprisingly she passioned
after only three beers

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

MYSTERIES OF TIME

Wednesday Scribblings #34.  Magaly has
issued the challenge to base our poetics on
the wound "foundation".  My love for the
mysteries of time took me to the cliff
dwellings.
Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United
August 26, 2020
**************

Spruce Tree House on the mesa verde of Utah had solid rock foundation. 
The approximate size of a football field tucked under a cliff overhang, it was
thought to be home to 60 or 80 people.   They farmed the land above and made
their homes in the safety of the overhanging cliff for over 100 years, sheltered
from the desert sun, lightning strikes and driving rains.  What happened to these
peoples  remains for conjecture.   Perhaps drought drove them from the dwellings.
For whatever reason, they vanished, and the cliff dwellings are left to history,
a remarkable monument to the peoples who constructed them.   They left little
else  but for  broken shards and  mystic glyphs to mark their passage in the pages
of time, no scribes to record their journey, a mystery for armchair travelers.

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

The Field

It's Poetics at dVerse, and Grace has
challenged us to write of WHEAT,
which took me to a magic place.
Submitted to dVerse
August 25, 2020
******************

I walked the wheat field at dusk, azure skies dimming into evening. 
Perhaps I wandered farther than I thought, but it seemed a mist settled
over the golden grain and I had entered a Brigadoon, a lilt of
song and laughter far away.  I turned to find the mist surrounded
what seemed an alternate universe, and my homeward path lay
beyond the mist.  Becalmed, the cares of my world a distant memory
I sat amidst this paradise and counted the stars as they appeared one
by one, and the harvest moon  rose high in the sky. I remember naught
til I awoke at dawn, rested and bemused, my path to home before me.
Walk among the nodding heads of ripened wheat, my friend.  You too
may encounter magic.

Monday, August 24, 2020

THE BUM'S RUSH

Quadrille #110....Exactly 144 words and
the key word is BUM or a form thereof.
Please excuse my language .... but it's
such a perfect rhyme I couldn't resist.
 Submitted to dVerse
August 24, 2020
***************


Oh Great Poobah of the Universe
your plan is troubling me
I'm 86 now, on borrowed time
And plenty bumfuzzled, you see
How can I fill these final days
Marking off my bucket list
When you've arranged my sequester   
Leaving me most royally pissed!

Sunday, August 23, 2020

FELINE PHILOSOPHY

It’s Writers Pantry #34 where we choose
to share a poem or prose on a subject of our
choice.  I've chosen to introduce our
resident cats.
Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United
August 23, 2020
******************


Two cats allow us to live with them….an orange male named Destin, and a lady gray
named Tandy.   Destin, of course, is the alpha male, or so he deems himself to be.
He is no athlete, having fallen from the loft railing to the floor below with a mighty
thump, from whence he hid under the table in great embarrassment.   He is
shamelessly needy, and always on the prowl for a lap, any lap, where he will be
properly adored and stroked.

Tandy, on the other hand, is an independent lady. She likes to find exclusive
hideaways and disappear for hours at a time.  She does not require much attention,
but at such times she feels it  necessary she will announce her presence with a soft
meow.  She’s very fastidious, however, and at such time as the litter boxes need
attention she is known to have a more insistent meow and an intent stare that makes
her point,  Destin and Tandy have their own room under the stairs, which has a
special cat door for entrance to their private club.

My bedroom is in the hall beyond,  and I’m fond of telling people, for shock value,
that my bedroom is behind the cat house.  We live companionably here, grateful
that they allow us to share their home.



Saturday, August 22, 2020

The Sunday Muse

The Sunday Muse #122  where
the photograph encourages dreams
of faraway places..
Submitted August 23, 2020
**********************


In my dreams I follow my muse
to Mt. Olympus and meet with Zeus
on to Eldorado, where I’m told
the lake is full of buried gold

Perhaps I’d like to travel on
to the hanging gardens of Babylon
for a bit of mystery, I guess
I might make a visit to Loch Ness

Next it was Shangrila’s remote paradise
a visual treat for my wandering eyes
the knights, of course, I haven’t forgot 
in the magic land of Camelot

of course we went before we were through
to the mythical land of Xanadu
and we made the trip, my muse and I
under a butterscotch moon and a buttermilk sky

we found all the names, or so it seems... 
the names that were ships to carry my dreams.

Thursday, August 20, 2020

CORAL

Submitted to dVerse Open Link Night
August 20, 2020
*************

nestled on the ocean floor
spiked fingers appearing
to reach upward
for the warmth of sunshine.
hiding its razor edges
from careless swimmers
home to underwater denizens
guardian of sunken ships
and mysteries of forgotten cities
wonder of the deep.

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

WHERE DID IT ALL GO WRONG?

Weekly Scribblings #33, and Magaly
asks us to include the phrase “swallow
screams for dinner”.
Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United
August 19, 2020
*****************

Where did it all go wrong?  The
days filled with laughter and nights
filled with passion disappeared like
snowflakes falling on sun-warmed
earth.  His gaze, once mirroring hunger
for her, was now cold and distant.
She pretended all was well for the
sake of the children, but terror of
being discarded and alone with
three trusting babies and no income
left her sipping the bitter taste of
despair and swallowing screams for
dinner. Where did it all go wrong?

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

SEND IN THE CLOWNS

Meet the Bar at dVerse, and the theme
is “clowns”, a term which has certainly
changed in meaning since the last political
election in the U.S.  Somehow clowns aren’t
so funny any more!
Submitted to dVerse
August 18, 2020
***********************

I guess I’ll always wonder
just exactly why
some listened to “Send in the Clowns”
and thought it a political battle cry
they mounted up their bandwagon
and sure as adultery is sin
we all lazed on our couches
while they voted the monster in
it’s time to get off our arses
and show some sensible clout
by mail, by foot, by wagon train
let’s vote the clown out!

Mountain Memories

Prosery Monday at dVerse, when we're
asked to write no more than 144 words
to include a phrase given us by Merrill,
"when it is over said and done, it was a
time and there was never enough of it".
I turn to my memories.
Submitted to dVerse
August 18, 2020
************************

We bonded as young housewives and mothers. When our children were small
we started a long weekend getaway in the Great Smoky Mountains.  It was our
time to unwind with long, lazy mornings on our deck over the babbling Little
Pigeon River, and afternoons of nosing through shops,  For more than 30 years
we honored the tradition, our friendship honed by life experiences, sharing
laughter, victories and sorrows, never once considering when it is over, said
and done.

It was a time, and there was never enough of it. Children grew and left home,
 our husbands passed on, and still we clung to our cherished tradition,  But
the moving finger writes, and now I alone remain, the memory of our happy
times and laughter stored in the library of my brain. Yes, it was a time,
and there was never enough of it.

Sunday, August 16, 2020

BIRD TALK

Submitted to Writer's Pantry #33
Poets & Storytellers United
August 16, 2020
***************

So much we could learn from our feathered friends
They come from different directions
They are of different color
They don't speak the same language
and yet they gather companionably at the feeder
enjoying the feast provided.
The exception, of course, is the occasional rabblerousing
bluejay or grackle 
They arrive with great bluster and disrupt the companionable setting
with raucous comment and irritating demeanor
These, I muse, must be the politicians of the avian world......

Saturday, August 15, 2020

Prairie Sonata

Sunday Muse #121 wherein we're
 to be inspired by a photo.
Submitted to The Sumday Muse
August 15,  2020
*************

Crop rows seeming to reach infinity
revelled in sunshine
now thirsty for rain
rooted deep in fecund soil.
A hush falls over the prairie
awaiting promise of dark clouds
whose bellies hold precious gift of life.
A sentinel tree
watches the scene unfold
yet again


Thursday, August 13, 2020

IDLE THOUGHTS

It's Meet the Bar at dVerse, and Grace
has asked us to create a stream of
consciousness poem. It's surprising what
surfaces!  This was fun.
Submitted to dVerse
August 13, 2020
*********************

I wonder why I’m drawn to abandoned houses
and falling down old barns
and why it is my mind wanders to 
how life must have been 
who was the last person who lived there
and why did they leave
Am I an old soul, wandering aimlessly
in this generation, as if transported
by some mysterious time machine
taking with me the memories
of that time and place in the pages of time
what does it mean to be an old soul
and is there such a thing as reincarnation
Karma seems to make sense
when I wonder why bad things happen
to good people, and if they are
paying back big time for wrongs in some past life
 if we are to learn a lesson in each lifetime
 what am I to learn in this one.
have I learned it or will I have to
do this all again.

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

VOYAGE OF THE MARY KATHERINE

Sarah enchanted us with a recount of
her narrowboat trip, and challenged
us to set sail in poem.  I'm a total
landlubber with a fascination for tales
of the sea and her mysteries.  This
poem is loosely based on an actual
ocean mystery.
Submitted to dVerse
August 11, 2020
**************


In 1870 on a summer’s day
set sail a brigantine
its cargo destined for a distant port
she was known as the Mary Katherine
All was well as the ship set sail
skidding the bounding main
but captain and crew, so the story is told
were never to be seen again
Aye, the ship was seen, a phantom ship
in quite an abandoned state
When she was boarded there was no clue
as to how they met their fate.
All their belongings were left behind
and nothing seemed awry
It was as if they simply vanished
and none could fathom why
To this day it remains a mystery
their fate has never been learned
and the brigantine Mary Katherine
is known as the ship that never returned. 

Sunday, August 9, 2020

I DREAMED OF ANYWHEN

It's Writer's Pantry #32, equivalent to
the free spot in Bingo.  I'm offering what
might be a case study (of me!) or plague
poetry (most likely)....just a bit of
wordplay and nonense.
Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United
August 9, 2020
**********************
Once I dreamed I was in the anywhen, 
the anytime before time,
transported on a wisp of rarefied air
in a stratospherian starmobile.  I was
fleet of foot and keen of eye, acknowledged
ruler in the anywhen.  My weskit,
made of ear of Peruvian yak and hump
of Egyptian camel  protected me from
marauding starchasers and I explored
from the somewhy to the anywhy, taking
notes in my hand-held keeptracker.  It
was a glorious spacetrek until a rogue
rocket wrecked my starmobile and I
fell kerplop into my bunk bed.  
SIGH

Saturday, August 8, 2020

FOREST DRAMA

Sunday Muse #120 wherein
we’re inspired by the photo provided.
Submitted to The Sunday Muse
August 8, 2020
***************

She saw him there in the copse
tall and proud, arrogant and egotistic
Isn’t that just like him, she thought,
to think he holds the world in his antlers.

She had fallen for him once
when she was young and naïve
but now she could have any buck in the forest
and she was wise to his duplicitous ways.
He was always looking for a new, young face
and once he’d conquered them
he bounded off looking for newer and younger.

Now his reputation was tarnished, and
all the does regarded him with nothing but disdain.
Once he was a much desired young buck;
now he was just a ragged old has-been
with a pair of tattered antlers.

With a flick of her flash she was off and away
and he was left just where he deserved to be …
Alone

Thursday, August 6, 2020

PERSPECTIVE

Open Link Night at dVerse.  This was
written some time ago, thoughts on a
long jet flight inspired by the sight
below.
Submitted to dVerse
August 6, 2020
********************

I flew on the great silver bird
high aloft in the sky
my importance merely illusion
reminded how small am I

Looking down on a crazy quilt landscape
spread richly to left and right
I pondered that all of life’s spectrum 
must lie there below in my sight

Somewhere hearts were happy
as they shared the miracle of birth
while other hearts were saddened
as a loved one passed from this earth

Some were amassing great riches
others were struggling just to survive
some were plotting suicide, 
others were rejoicing to be alive

Somewhere babies were crying
young folks falling in love
and farmers were tilling the soil
I viewed from my seat high above

I said to myself “Remember,
when you question the path you’ve trod
others are facing life’s challenge
you’re but one of the children of God. “ 
************

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

BACK YARD

Grace asks us to take a photo of the
view outside our window, and to
write a poem about it.  Our back yard
ends at the tree break for a walking
trail which runs behind our house.
Once close enough to read the plaque
that sits on the windowsill, you cannot
see the window, but the view is of our
"bird buffet".
Submitted to dVerse  August 4, 2020
********************************

So much we could learn from our feathered friends
They come from different directions
They are of different color
They don't speak the same language
and yet they gather companionably at the feeder
enjoying the feast provided.
The exception, of course, is the occasional rabblerousing
bluejay or grackle 
They arrive with great bluster and disrupt the companionable setting
with raucous comment and irritating demeanor
These, I muse, must be the politicians of the avian world......



Sunday, August 2, 2020

THE MAGIC BOX

Writers’ Pantry #31, and quarantine carries
us into August.  I’ve chosen to share a fiction
story, and I beg forgiveness it’s a bit overlong.
Submitted to Poets & Storytellers United
August 2, 2020
**************************

The box sat on the corner of his desk, as it had for all the years since he’d opened his law office.  His grandfather had crafted the box for him when he was a child.  It was made  from the old walnut tree that had stood in the back yard of his grandfather’s home for years until it was struck by lightning.   It was a simple box, corners carefully mitered,  sanded and polished to a warm glow.   On the front was a brass button which, if pushed, his grandfather had told him, would trigger the mechanism to spring open the lid.    Joel Harmon sat lost in thought as he looked at it, remembering his grandfather’s words.   This is a magic box, Joey. It holds a very special magic.   There’ll be times you find things too hard to accomplish. When that happens, here’s what you do.   On the night of a full moon, you rub the box three times, say “I can do it” three times, and you’ll find you can accomplish that thing that had you stumped.   But remember, don’t open the box, Joey, or it’ll lose its magic.”   

When he was a boy, the box sat on the stand by his bed .  He remembered when he was six and got his first bike. Every time he tried to ride it, it wobbled and he fell.  Every  night he looked out the window of his bedroom at the moon.  It seemed he took a hundred tumbles before finally the moon was full, and he turned to his magic box, rubbed it three times and said “I can do it” three times.  Morning brought excitement, and he quickly gulped his Wheaties and ran outside.  He’d rubbed the magic box, and he knew he would be able to ride without falling  And he did. 

Through the years there’d been other times he’d turned to the box, the last of which had been before he took his bar exams.  Oh sure, he’d smiled when he rubbed it and thought of his grandfather;  thought it really was meant for childish fancy; but somehow, as it had through the years, the box worked its magic and he felt a confidence that carried him through. 

Now he had a successful law practice, and a six-year-old son of his own.  It was time, he thought, to pass the box on to his son.  But, before he did, just once, he wanted to push the button and spring the lid open to see the magic his grandfather had put inside.  He drew the box to him, and pressed the brass button.  The lid sprang open and he peered inside.  The box was empty!  But, on the underside of  the lid, in the burnished wood of the old walnut tree, he saw the carefully carved word BELIEVE.   “Grandpa”, he thought, “you sly old fox.  You knew the secret to accomplishing something is to believe we can.  You wisely gave me the most important gift of all.”

DREAMTIME

Sunday Muse #119, when we are asked
to write a poem inspired by the
photographic image provided.
Submitted to The Sunday Muse
August 2, 2020
*******************


Speak to me Sister Owl of the dreamtime*
and the songline of my people.
Take me back to my belonging place,
to the everywhen before the stolen
generations of my clan.  Fill the emptiness
in my soul.  Sing me back to my beginnings.
****************

*Some terms here are taken from the language of the Australian aboriginals.