REVERIE

 REVERIE

Calmed by its burbling waters

I lie me down beside the creek

Green tendrils gently enfold me 

Wrapped and rapt in the peace I seek.

MONOTETRA

Thursday brings us Poetry Form, and the monotetra is offered by Grace.  The intricate and convoluted rules for some poetry forms simply talk me into stop...something about old dogs and new tricks, no doubt. For all my long years, I've been a "seat-of-the-pants" rhyming poet knowing nothing of proper poetic terms or forms, but no doubt metrical footing more often than not, not knowing what it was!  This is my first foray into monotetra....sort of!  Submitted to dVerse, July 29, 2021

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                                                                     MONOTETRA

A monotetra is our task

Seems to me a lot to ask

Count the syllables, make it neat

Metrical feet, metrical feat

Who can remember how to rhyme

Counting syllables all the time

While garnering the words to use

Stifles my muse, stifles my muse

 

HAND OF GOD

Weekly Scribblings #80  and Rosemary challenges us to write of Sudden Moments … unexpected and memorable moments.  I apologize if this sounds like a travelogue but this was truly the most memorable moment of my life. 

In September, 1999, my travel companions and I set off on a trip to the great American Southwest.  Born and reared on the vast prairie of Illinois, this trip promised my introduction to such sites so unfamiliar to me as Albuquerque, Santa Fe, the cliff dwellings of the ancients, a narrow gauge railroad trip along the Animas River in the San Juan mountains to the Grand Mesa and the Sawtooth Mountains, wending our way to Grand Junction, Colorado, near where I had my “Sudden Moment”.  We’d booked a drive on the Rim Rock Drive of the Colorado National Monument.  For 26 miles across mesa tops and along canyon walls offering the most spectacular views my eyes had ever seen, I was awestruck and speechless.  To this prairie girl, it was like touching the hand of God, and I was moved to tears.   I’ve had many wonderful adventures in my life, seen beautiful sights, but nothing has equaled the majesty and grandeur of that wondrous place.  I will remember it always.  

RETROSPECT

Poetics Tuesday, and we’re asked to consider proverbs poetically.  What fun to tell a proverbial story!  Submitted to dVerse July 27, 2021

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                  RETROSPECT

Among the blind a one-eyed man was king

An empty vessel who made much noise

He blew his own trumpet loudly

Soon he proved appearance can be deceptive

And all that glitters is not gold

A bad workman always blames his tools

And a leopard can’t change his spots

Soon curses came home to roost

And even the blind began to see

Kicking and screaming, he lost his seat

And, unbelieving, denied defeat

The people awoke from the long dark night

They’d learned an empty bag can’t stand upright

HIGH HOPES

Quadrille #132, and our word is "stream".  It's been said all the waters of the world are one, so there's no stream too small to become part of it all.  Submitted to dVerse, July 26, 2021.

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HIGH HOPES

Little stream bubbling along

Enters a creek and makes its way

Into a river roiling and rowdy

       Tumbling through canyons deep           

      Knifing through field and forest         

Thinking at last, "I’m quite terrific    

Lookit me!  I’m part of the 

Mighty Pacific!"

BANG! BANG!

 Writers’ Pantry #80  I wrote this prosery for Weekly Scribblings, only to find it was beyond the144 word limit.  It's a reworked rendition of something I wrote some time ago.  It carries a message about which I feel strongly.  Submitted July 25, 2021

Photo Courtesy of Iowa  EPSDT

BANG BANG!

“Bang.  Bang.  You’re dead”, the voice came through my window. The children in the neighborhood were playing war.  Why don’t they play Rescue 911, I wondered.  Do they ever play scientist, environmentalist, politician or negotiator?

The lilliputian army raged on into my neighbor’s yard, and I was left in silent aftermath thinking about the morning headlines.  “Twelve year old killed in drive-by shooting”, they proclaimed.  Drive-by shooting.  What does this mean?  A young life snuffed out in an instant, a grief-stricken family, a neighborhood terrorized.  Just passing by?  On the way to the Dairy Queen?  Why do we teach our children to play war games?  We indoctrinate them with television and movies that glamorize weapons.  We make handguns readily available.  We make death so easily accessible.  Our children are killing themselves and one another.  Last year an increasing and alarming number of young lives were ended by gunfire.  For every victim dead of gunfire and grieving family left behind, count another youthful victim sitting in a jail cell somewhere, his family suffering,  and all the rest of us paying for his keep. 

We used to teach our children to respect their parents, their elders, their teachers and their peers,.  We not only taught it, we demanded it.  It’s been said a child’s first seven years are the formative years.  Change begins at home…in diapers…and it’s not very complex.  Simple lessons …. Be kind.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Let us pray for the return of strong parenting teaching simple lessons.    

SUNDAY MUSE 170

The Sunday Muse #170   The broken porcelain dolls always break my heart, knowing they were once the treasured companions of happy little girls.  My desire is always to take them back to yesterdays.  So OK, call me Little Goody Two-Shoes.....   Submitted July 24, 2021

Wash my face and fix my eye

I could be as good as new

Just as always, I could be

Great company for you

I’ve kept the secrets you once shared

I haven’t told a soul

They’re just between the two of us

Even as time has taken its toll

But if you’d clean me up and dress me

In the calico I once wore

We could be confidantes once again

As close as we were before.

BRIGADOON

 Weekly Scribblings #79.  Since I first saw the musical in the 1970s, I've been fascinated with the idea of Brigadoon...a magical place.  Submitted to Poets and Storytellers United, July 22, 2021

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BRIGADOON

I long to have a Brigadoon

That magic village

Where there are no cares

And all is joy and laughter

Wouldn’t that be great

Isn’t that what we’re all after?

Alas there may be no

Magic village for me

No escape from cares

No surcease from my tears

For Brigadoon only appears

Every one hundred years.

Every one hundred years.  

CASTLE SHAMEWORTHY

 Writers' Pantry #79    Some dark fun with forgotten and found words (thanks Dylan Thomas), capped by a senryu.  Submitted to Poets and Storytellers United, July 18, 2021

There was much disenchantment in Dark Meadows about the new neighbors.  He was naught but a snollygoster, engaged in contumelious brabble with his dust-tongued, scythe-eyed cohorts  She was a muffle-toed, dark-vowelled, hare-heeled she-bird.  They were a match made in the dank chamber of misfits, deep in the bowels of Shameworthy Castle.  The castle itself stood deep in the woods where fog shrouded forest paths and small creatures burrowed deep for safety while gonnagetchas snuffle and growl and evil settles over all like blackstrap molasses.  The sign at the head of their rutted lane read WELCOME TO SHAMEWORTHY CASTLE

A meeting has been called for the HOA of Dark Meadows this evening.

forest mystery

dare we answer the welcome

evil may be within

STARRY NIGHT

 Sunday Muse 169

I think of you

I feel your touch

Remember when

Our passion flared

It seemed the moon

Was ours alone

The world was ours

We  had it all

The years have passed

Time come and gone

But passion lingers

And now we know

We did indeed

Have it all   

GONE

Meet the Bar   We're challenged this week to write chant poetry.  "A chant actually doesn't even need words, it can be nonsense words or sounds.  You only need the energy and drive of repetition".  My somber poem is submitted to dVerse July 15, 2021.

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GONE 

Friend so wise and loyal

Gone now, gone

Friend filled with wit and laughter

Gone now, gone

Friend who loved card playing

Gone now, gone

Friend and travel companion

Gone now, gone

Friend and talented artist

Gone now, gone

Pearls in the necklace of my life

Gone now, gone

My heavy heart acknowledges

They're gone now, gone.

FAMILY

Weekly Scribblings #78.  We're challenged to create a form of micropoetry.  I chose an elfchen in honor of a recent trip out of state to be with family not seen since before Covid.  Submitted to Poets and Storytellers United, July 14, 2021.

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FAMILY

gathering

long awaited

my heart rejoices

these are my people

family 

                                                                     

JUKE BOX DAYS

 Quadrille  #131   Welcome to Brian Miller who invites us to write a quadrtille of exacty 44 words using the word JUKE.  Ah, memories!!

Well now, isn’t that a fluke

That our quadrille word is juke

Ah, let me count the ways         

                        

A nickel in the juke box

Saddle shoes and bobby sox

                            Those were the school days                           

Juke joints and dancing

Careless romancing

Cigarettes and smoky haze 

ROOTS

Writer's Pantry #78.   I spent the holiday weekend visiting family in Illinois whom I had not seen since before Covid....a gathering with my brother's children and grandchildren.  My niece's son, who is now grown with a family of his own, hugged goodbye, thanked us for coming, and said "You know, when you're young it's all about you and your friends, and as you grow older you realize it's all about family.  Family is everything."  I was touched, and it brought to mind a poem I wrote long ago when my parents were living.   It says so much about the importance of family....and perhaps the reason my nephew has come to his conclusion.  It seems worth sharing today.

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                ROOTS

Two people from different backgrounds

Your lives joined and you began

A family of various people

We now lovingly call our clan.

These days our numbers are many

Our paths scattered far and wide

But we remember the lessons you taught us

As we walked in the fields at your side

“If you can’t say good about someone,

There’s no need to speak at all”.

“Tis not ours to judge a fellow

For his sins and shortcomings and all”.

“God gives us different ways and faces

But we’re all equal in his sight”.

“You can’t stray far from happy

If you remember wrong from right”.

Special times we still come together

In our high heels and shiny boots

To learn still at the seat of our knowledge

In the home where we have our roots.

Grandchildren and great grandchildren

Eyes all sparkling and bright

The table groaning with bounty

Our hearts filled with simple delight.

I sit and look about me

And I think God has planned it thus

We must pass on to those who come after

The gifts you  have given to us.

BRAIN ATTIC

 Sunday Muse #168

Airports and hotel rooms

Lonely nights in strange cities

Briefcase full of details

Employee negotiation

Manager meetings, client greetings

Keep smiling, make nice

Speak once, think twice

Software training, employees complaining

Remember, you’re the face of the company 

…..and it will one day be only memory

  stored in the attic of your brain.