The first 30, and now Number Thirty-One! we’re on a roll here poetry people! Keep up the good work!

—
The theme for the next Poetry Book(#32) will be

‘ Tables & Happiness ‘

Due byJune 30th

Sent your Poems to [email protected]

—

And now… Book#31 ‘Emotions & Pen’
Happy reading…

– The Cedar Bark Poets

And this is it for 2019 National-Poetry-Writing-Month for the Cedar Bark Poets, we hope you have enjoyed 30 Days” challenge for National Poetry Writing Month

Each day we have  been following the prompts from
—-> NaPoWriMo
-] http://www.napowrimo.net

Tune in again next year for more NaPoWriMo.

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Day 30

The final prompt for this year! I’d like you to try your hand at a minimalist poem. What’s that? Well, a poem that is quite short, and that doesn’t really try to tell a story, but to quickly and simply capture an image or emotion. Haiku are probably the most familiar and traditional form of minimalist poetry, but there are plenty of very short poems out there that do not use the haiku form. There’s even an extreme style of minimalism in the form of one-word and other “highly compressed” poems. You don’t have to go that far, but you might think of your own poem for the day as a form of gesture drawing. Perhaps you might start from a concrete noun with a lot of sensory connotations, like “Butter” or “Sandpaper,” or “Raindrop” and
– quickly, lightly – go from there.

—–

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Day 29

Todays prompt – Write a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, on an emotion you have felt powerfully. You might try including a dramatic, declarative statement, you might try addressing your feeling directly, as if it were a person you could talk to. There are as many approaches to this as there are poets, and poems.

—–
Cast in Resin

Thinking outside of the box is easy, getting out is hard, getting in near impossible,
figuring out why you’d want to sometimes
Indiscernible

Block
The sharp corners
Uncertain mass

The thing sits
Unapproachable, Yet
still

Unscalable
Even proportions
Odd feelings invoked

Feared
Yet now inactive
Terror contained

Look closely, The pattern veined
Far reaching
terror

Held
It’s not the box, but the contents
Never content not to try to peer inside, but it calmly resists

There are corners in the mind, corners that hide boxes, of boxes without locks or keys,
sharp corners un-dented, that turn, churned into points,
climax

Surreal walls of boxes, beige
Mazes within the grey of mind, of changes in time
Navigated

Packed away and harmless, we let them slip away into the back of our mind,
Lacked caution of causation in the untucking of box flaps
sealed

Here in lies the Black cube,
entombed in detritus, bubble wrap and scrunched up newspaper
Contained

Moving
of, the boxing of the old, no longer needed
Change comes to all things, next steps come

Resonates
the strange black cube,
of moments, places, meetings, plannings, we have left behind

the startings of startling new things underway
now the ‘beginning’ terrors packed away
ongoing

Past, sweating of palms, pacing, endless glances at the clock
moving to the middle, past starts, new
Challenges

Come to, and must remember resolutions
of present solvable woes, as was
past

Panic
of the moment, confusion, will not last
no matter the concussion of things around us that seem to blast

boxed
Past hesitations and doubts
Should act as packing slips, proof that we can fight our way out

push
Through madness with passion and solid reason.
out of chaotic winter, to spring to the next season

Drive
onward out of the box,
dive into the next thing that blocks

Past past doubts
the reminder cast, set forward touts
confidence

Cast in resin
Past, the set fluid madness of flailing reason
Cubed

– W.B.

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Day 28

Todays prompt – Write a meta-poem, Which are poems about poems

—–

Is this a grocery list or a poem?

Avocado, three onions, Sponge cake
if the list you even remember to take

A rhyme here and such and such there
words don’t even need to a wine pair

a reusable bag, meal plan, or just plain wing it
there are endless things into a poem about meals to pit

Should poetry make you hungry? or fill you up
Could all the rules be reversed
like all hors d’oeuvres and an overflowing cup
or should words be main course, poised and pursed

Like a meal of herbs devoid,
and are there ingredients with which you plain become annoyed

a favourite meal, just plain, just plain, just plain repetition
just plain, just plain, just plain, just plain, just plain, until interdiction
seven days a week, a habit now, or a superstition

three courses set, following a set length
alternately ending the same each time
Patterned the same, onward to the same strength
Same message, set to run again to mime

I ponder all this, waiting in line, poetically preparing to double bag in kind
perhaps I just am hungry with a meal on my mind
But also I crave poetry, and its many variations I find.

so is this a poem, or a grocery list
shelves full still, of all the poetic devices I’ve missed
carting off if only a few, of poems or Groceries, I think you may know the gist.

– W.B.

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Day 27

Todays prompt -ReWrite a Shakespearean sonnet, I’d like to challenge you to “remix” a Shakespearean sonnet. You can pick a line you like and use it as the genesis for a new poem. Or make a “word bank” out of a sonnet, and try to build a new poem using the same words (or mostly the same words) as are in the poem. Or you could try to write a new poem that expresses the same idea as one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

—–
the XLIII

most the day, directed shade would shadow
show dreams bright blessed clear, When in heavy sleep
show How fair form day shines thy sightless dark,
when happy with looking on unseeing
clearer look would sleep, When unrespected
But form to dreams on eyes made light To wink!

thy imperfect nights whose much living day
then darkly say mine eyes How, I do see
bright night in stay, dead view When things best so.
For the shadows Through days doth see Then nights,
And in thy days bright, thee make shadow’s on
eyes, mine doth see bright, they By thy shade me,
All are in thou, And I, when all they be;
I do thee, thee eyes are thee! till to I

– W.B.

XLIII (-the Original)

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow’s form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

– Shakespeare

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Day 26

Today’s prompt is centered around repetition. Write a poem that uses repetition. You can repeat a word, or phrase. You can even repeat an image, perhaps slightly changing or enlarging it from stanza to stanza, to alter its meaning. There are (perhaps paradoxically) infinite possibilities in repetition.

—–
There is in the middle a center.

There is a forest in the middle of the trees
Of evergreen trees in the middle of a deciduous ring.
Straw birds nest, sits in the middle, with two bright blue eggs,
On sticks and straws in the middle sat, a leg to either side.
Overhead, cloudy sky, in the middle one darker, menacing
a somewhat mid tone, in the middle of greys I’d have to say.
Drifting, in uncertainly in the middle of moods,
Rain or merely shade, in the middle of deciding.
Blustering wind across, in the middle of overriding,
as the blue clearing sky in the middle sliding,
filled out and took over in the middle of the afternoon.

Half way across dashing, in the middle of a stride the eyes shift,
A dashing fox stops to look in the middle of the clearing,
A small Purple flower sits, in the middle yellow stamens sure to stain,
lazy bumble bee circles in the middle, working his ways, of dusted pollen, strays.
The fox watches his ways, in the middle of a daze,
Transfixed and captivated in the middle of his way.
Dozens of times before in the middle of the month
he’d just run on through in the middle without a care,
today, is a bee buzzing in the middle at which to stare.
Of pollen it took a share, in the middle of it all hurrying to finish,
this flower, then the next in the middle of its route.
How he looked the brute, in the middle of kicking his legs out to scoop
But the quick old fox, lost in the middle of his day dreaming,
of bees, flowers and flying, in the middle now, of mid day,
had got lost in the time, and in the middle of being led out of his way,
now dashed off quickly from in the middle of the forest.
To a canopy of leafs where, in the middle of each a stem, divided, a line drew,
and somewhere this morning in the middle of dripping branches, ran a drop of dew.

A low flying bird, back to its nest in the middle, somewhere,
With a twig firmly in beak, held in the middle, darted between branches,
under a clearing sky of blue in the middle, singing a song in tittle.

There is center here, holding in the middle, the hub of nature,
in the middle it radiates from in the middle to dazzle the birds, foxes, and bees,
Even the now blue sky seems in the middle to freeze

From a center point held fast in the middle to please.

– W.B.

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Day 25

Today’s prompt -Write a poem that:

Is specific to a season
Uses imagery that relates to all five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell)
Includes a rhetorical question.

—–
Transpiration

The blinding smell of seeds.
The pungent sound of budding flowers.
Velvety weight, heavy feeling, of unfurling leaf.
Flavourful colouring in stones under a runoff stream.
The shiny look in lightness of air.

The odour of the sound of spring,
warming feel of flavours of things soon to again sing,
rain showers, fogged behind the last due dew of winter

What sense do you have past the last hour of winter, into the first of spring?

– W.B.

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Day 24

Today’s prompt -Write a poem that, like “Dictionary Illustrations,” is inspired by a reference book. Locate a dictionary, thesaurus, or encyclopedia, open it at random, and consider the two pages in front of you to be your inspirational playground for the day. Maybe a strange word will catch your eye, or perhaps the mishmash of information will provide you with the germ of a poem.
—–

X 6426-6427

From Dusty shelf, piled at the end

Harmsworth’s Universal Encyclopedia Vol.X ‘Pensn-Rotti’

Somewhere in the middle,
Opened Pages, 6426 – 6427, of Volume Ten
From the days past, when you had twelve volumes of anything
from the Q’s,a page to spring

There is a nobility in the small print, justified
Top of page ranges,
6426 Quadrat to Quagga
and facing
6427 Quai D’Orsay to Quantock Hills
Underlined, the Importance of words

Fine inline illustrations in greys,
of Quadruplet, Sir Richard Quain, Quail, and Quake Grass
Spread across pages inline to stay,
adding another element of class

Quadrat, Quadric Equation, Quadratrix, Quadrature, Quadrilateral, Quadrilateral, Quadrille, Quadrille, Quadrireme, Qudroon, Quadruplane, Quadruple Alliance, Quadruplet, Quaestor, Quagga

It sounds like an incantation when spoken in time, incantation 6426
words off the tongue flicks.

Flip to facing, 6427,
Quai d’Orsay, Quail, Quain, Sir Richard, Quake Grass, Quaker Girl -the musical comedy, Quakers, Quality, Quality Street, Quamash, Quantification of the Predicate, Quantity, Quantity Surveyor, Quantock Hills

Quality quantity of words here to make you all but ’Quake’, but oddly not here.

From Quai d’Orsay in Paris, beside the Seine, to Quantock Hills in Somerset England, the words are crystal clear.

Printed between embossed fancy covers, a family of twelve,
23,500 Illustrations, into to delve

The brown bound, black lined set, on a shelf set,
in lieu of bookends, the first, and last, three, turned to stack at ninety degrees

– W. B.

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Day 23

Todays prompt – Write a poem about an animal.

—–

Raise to the Menagerie

The Oryx

Oh the Oryxes, I had never seen,
African, arid loving Antelope
Herd nearly never heard again, or been
Drinking melons, like me and cantaloupe

The Quoll

Cat like, short legs, white spotted coat, pink nose
Sitting poised , eyes steely, marsupial,
No idea, by night, where to he goes
Solitary, with ears perked, nocturnal

The Raccoon

Greyish fur, adaptability, lies
Ringed tail, Climbing fence, dexterous front paws,
Facial mask, Black band. Whiskers begging eyes
Without fear, constant pleading for its cause

The Ferret

Attentive little thief, slender and long
secreting away little items, quick
Sleeping mostly until dawn to dusks gong
Dance, frenzied sideways hops, leaps looking slick

The game is on, ‘It’s Friday’ is the phrase
Foursome, unlikely nightly poker game
Ante up, to the menagerie raise
Party animals, raising stakes the same.

– W. B.

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Day 22

Todays prompt -Write a poem that engages with another art form – it might be about a friend of yours who paints or sculpts, your high school struggles with learning to play the French horn, or a wonderful painting, film, or piece of music you’ve experienced – anything is in bounds here, so long as it uses the poem to express something about another form of art.

—–

Ode of Terroir

In the countryside,
Of views far and wide.

In descriptions of colours and shade,
of posts pegging down the hill as it laid

Of the expressions of silty soils,
and how light lime green climbing tendrils around wire coils

Of Weather, Moisture levels, Sun and Temperatures, that would peek to new highs,
of seasons, birds flying off for the winters, and their goodbyes.

Picturesque hill sides, landscaping,
and new paths and levels reshaping

Wiring, Drip emitters, Mulching and post
of spring birds again to spring, and around clouds to coast

all of these things form pictures, paintings, poetry and stories
The narrative of it all can turn out incredible works and great glories

But all are editable, retouch-able, rework-able pieces.
even if they start to go bad, there are certain releases

But what of the vineyard, wine produced
there is, until too late, not ever really any way of even knowing if it’s quality has been reduced

There is a unique form of each Terroir grounded
That must be in each batch of fine wine be carefully founded.

With only one single chance
you have only a few chances to get it to dance

On the pallet, and off the nose
there are a thousand decisions of which direction best goes

The committed art of wine making
more that a mere thirst to be slaking

for there is less satisfaction, for Grape Juice, grape skins to be breaking
so much to take for granted, so much information for the taking

Elements bottled
and all the issues and processes that need to be throttled

And finally in the art of patently waiting
for reviews by critics stating.

– W.B.

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Day 21

Todays Prompt -Write a poem that incorporates wild, surreal images. Try to play around with writing that doesn’t make formal sense, but which engages all the senses and involves dream-logic.

—–

Does it Bend, or Break

Pages turn, not over, but in content in kind, when put away, or read by another
Worlds there in reinvent themselves, plots refine and details redefine
The March of letters, march off to new adventures, come back to record the details of undone deeds done
Never Booking off, Bookcases cover for the absence, knocking over or the pushing off others,
The world is in motion, only seen when we still move against it
Covered for in story, exposed, changing when unseen
Is there gravity when you sleep, as in the floating slumber
May words worm off to change before tomorrow comes.

The dawn brings illumination of that that the sun did not glint off last night, in the setting.
Garden Gnomes, become trusted by commercialization, friendly things that alter surrounding by night, moon powered mischievous things, that softly sings, trouble in delight, trouble by morning light
Garden Gnomes, with implements rusted, March not ever onwards, oddly trusted
Marching never past garden fixtures trussed
Walking, waking, through un-dreamt gates slaking.
The hose, the hose.. did you leave it uncoiled?…
In chase, or league with, something over ground unspoiled.

Do you remember, from above, the line, ‘of the book spine’ from before
Can this change you simply ignore
will by the end these lines be anymore….

Dream, notice not as unusual, the Beaver that comes for your nickels,
nor the Fish that asks you if you are alright, note that he doesn’t seem out of sorts in doing so.
But are you still awake, woken to an assertion that you were out of pickles
or dreaming still, un-woken by the tickles, untouched as you go

.

Gaps, gaps? lapses?

..

Money brings time, and time will not buy you space, but space will give you no credit, and Money does not make change.
Where slim wallets are heavy, and giant bulky tiny purses float, yet there will be nothing given for getting on the boat.
The trip to a sunken shore, where footsteps raise in a sunken sand, and the path behind you builds up into mountains, walls of popular paths, to stop you from going there again.
The smell of scentless-ness-ness pervades, into borders that smell bad wafting into solids
Sinking into sinking evergreen trees, roots branching into the sky, and leaves that leave to delve back into the earth.

Bands of blue, trap madness, in stagnant earth, Happy Garden Gnomes denoting sadness?…
A tale of, written, in a book knocked over
Of floating hose, recoiling from the imprint, in a field of clover
Dimes sail by, across an insomniacs dreamy sky to fly.
Unwavering, in a world of change,
Of unwritten laws and bills,
That flutter around the flying carp that harps, on serious questions asked on a lark
Who nose what smell next is to be unknown,
or what things, in wrong directions grown.
Smaller now, than then, will it shrink enough to one day end, only to have to begin again.

all mannerisms sum, the maths add up, the equations done
but life is variable, and the variables make it run
you just need to work out, a simple estimate of just how stout is the pun
of just how much it does it bend, or break, is it by dream or by a reality, a madness spun.

– W.B.

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Day 20

Today Prompt – Write a poem that “talks.” What does that mean? While it isn’t a monologue, it’s largely based in spoken language, interspersed with the speaker/narrator’s own responses and thoughts. Try to write a poem grounded in language as it is spoken – not necessarily the grand, dramatic speech of a monologue or play, but the messy, fractured, slangy way people speak in real life. You might incorporate overheard speech or a turn of phrase you heard once that stood out to you – the idea here is to get away from formally “poetic” speech and into the way language tends to work out loud.

—–
Say “What!”

“How long… They left at Two forty five, remember, it’s the last turn on the left.”

— It’s gibberish, its all gibberish

“Right”
“No, left, last one on the left”
“Got it”
“Right”
“Right”
“No? Left is right… err, correct”
“Three forty five”
“No, two”
“Two?”
“Two forty five!”
“Can I scream Now?!“

— It’s gibberish, its all gibberish

“$17.99 for flowers, and wilting ones at that!”

“The head is not always in conversations, not when romance takes over as the dominant driving factor, there is, you know… the haze of heart taking away weighting, Words lose their balance and… a haze of heart fogs the way,”

“Is that what they used to say. Surely there has to be something to do,”

“Fog horn, really loud bloomin foghorn, I mean thats going to be your only chance really, but really, probably you’ve already figured it out.. I mean, your either on the rocks already or drifting out to sea, and! It’s bloody ice cold out there.”

“It’s almost Three, are we gona make it?….”
The other half of the statement was silently, implied
“Questions and answers, Questions and answers,” Questions and answers,…

— It’s gibberish, its all gibberish… ‘unless you know better’, they’d said that before, I don’t think I got that, but I’m sure it’s fine.

“Their replies may not be exactly what they are, Time wires us together you know, the unseen expressions heard”
“Does any of that even make sense?….”
Pauses, Pauses,… “Pause?”
“Pause? do we really even have the time anymore…”

— It’s gibberish, its all gibberish

“There are conversations you have with yourself right,… one sings in the shower,.. everyone sings in the shower right?… and there are place to have conversations out loud, thoughts that need to reverberate through air, echo off surfaces, safely contained in private areas where there is no one around, possible with a white noise of a soundtrack playing in the background…right…?”

“There are conversations that you have, and they just seem to fill in the blanks”
“There are these conversations that you have where I fill in the blanks, and wonder if I just had it alone, I wonder if was I alone… or did I just have it for you, were you even there at all… “

“Did I say any or all of that out loud? Say what!…

“What?”
– Wait,.. am I just thinking this, or saying any of this Gibberish out loud….

“Excuse me?” was that a Question? “Were you talking to me?”

“What?” !

– W.B.

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Day 19

Todays prompt – Write an abecedarian poem – a poem in which the word choice follows the words/order of the alphabet. You could write a very strict abecedarian poem, in which there are twenty-six words in alphabetical order, or you could write one in which each line begins with a word that follows the order of the alphabet. This is a prompt that lends itself well to a certain playfulness.

—–
An Up and Down, or across Zig-Zaging

Anyone know where or when the Zebra
became obsessive of his Youth?
Changing up his stripes like a bad Xerox
dramatically, Thinking he was upping what he considers his worth
Every moment contrasting his self virtue,
for a Zebra can not change his stripes underneath,
great efforts aside, as he might try
he will ultimately be sorrowful
in that he will no doubt rue
just about every line and thing he tried to hide or redrew, as his self demands started to Que.
Keeping him unsatisfied and unable his wants to placate,
leaving little outward
modifying, line by line neatly,
neearly into new lines thinking himself moulding.
Off to fit into greener pastures, thinking to contently, confidently lay,
pushing ever onward for new ground through, hopping fences like a kangaroo,
quash doubt by leaving behind questioning jurisdictions,
running by lines of shadows, strobing black and white inked,
stubbornly unwilling to look back, only forward to hoof
trying along the way to not to look too aloof, failing greatly.
Undeniably, on him grating going forward,
virtue always seemed over the horizon, ever elusive
where ever he found himself for the night dreaming, or daydreaming.
X-ray like stripes revealed his innermost self, by caught.
Yielding to patterns of self torment wrought before
zags of stripes, slowly as they were, he came one day to adore.

– W.B.

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Day 18

Todays Prompt – Write an elegy, one in which the abstraction of sadness is communicated not through abstract words, but physical detail. This may not be a “fun” prompt, but loss is one of the most universal and human experiences, and some of the world’s most moving art is an effort to understand and deal with it.

—–
O Leaf De-leaf

Green, yields to brown, to skeleton of frame
delicate ribs and stem, fade to the earth
no longer to shimmer in winds that came
ornamentation lost of a trees worth

Serrated edge, to slice into the wind
capturing the suns rays, feeding the world
holding onto branches, offset pairs twinned
peeking out between flowers to unfurled

Tree sustained, another seasons refrain
feed a ring, branch for perched bird to sing
one of a kind, never to be again
your time to shine like a jewel, crowned a king

O De-leaf

Green leads to brown, to mottled brown, to bare skeleton of frame
cleft leafstalk, sits down now on exposed roots
I shall not, my dimmed skyward view, any longer by you be blocked
Yet I shall not have your purview in my view any longer, so it’s all rather blandly moot
But I shall miss your curved form, and dipping tip, the delicate ribs and sturdy stem,
as they slowly to fade, fade as you return to earth

to see no longer you to shimmer, dance around in stiff breezes and strong crosswinds that came

the bare frame now, now that ornamentation has been lost, a certain loss of a trees worth
the bareness of my days that I must winter though bitter fall

for all the days of the months to watch as your serrated edge, bit, and moved to slice into the wind
Turning it back on itself in self defeat
Twisting tracking, capturing the burning suns rays, a delight of joy feeding the world
joyfully holding onto gnarled bark of branch tips, dancing in offset pairs in synchrony, of maneuvers twinned

Peeking out between buds, and as flowers unfurled
a counterpoint overlooked, oh how my love tapered towared your tapered form and where you curled

A mossy crooked tree sustained, by green another green seasons refrain
I know soon the past memories of joy will bud to ease my pain

Of that you fed for a year a ring, and grew a branch for a perched song bird to sing
flying as a flag fluttering in tune on the wind.
You were one of a kind, growing with your siblings in a line, but a singular singer and singular all around, and never to be again
Of joy, heavy branches to bow in the wind
It was all your time to shine, like a jewel, in the crown of a tree, crowned as a king.

– W.B.

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Day 17

Todays prompt – Write a poem that presents a scene from an unusual point of view. Perhaps you could write a poem that presents Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery from the perspective of the apple. Or the shootout at the OK Corral from the viewpoint of a passing vulture. Or maybe it could be something as everyday as a rainstorm, as experienced by a raindrop.

—–
The Life…

There is nothing on the TV, till Channels I flick by
in a dim room, the light illuminates
Running down halls and through rooms
To ninety seconds worth of microwaves, into popcorn to explode
Click of a phone being hung up on a telemarketer
Another email processed lands in an inbox
clock to tick over another minute
Coffee brews
Wired, spinning down again.

In the blink of an eye, all these things done
a thousand times, pulled away
Jumping form one task to the next
Dysfunctional nuclear family I pull away from
a negativity that drives me away
into electrifying adventures
running, nucleus to nucleus to play
The power, the light, phases of emitting
right down to a simple heartbeat as you are sitting.

I do it all, where ever I stray,
Jumping from one point to the next
flowing power to the world, across what ever conductive path lay
In batteries stored up,
in generators vortex vexed

An obstacle course before, pushed, pulled, held
Cumulated, dissipated or converted
in analog or digital,
Amperage or volts,
I find solitude of Ohms.
You never think of all the things I run through, or just how much work it is that I do.
all the little junctions jumped to near conjunctions
Every time you use anything that functions

I run your life, I know all
every time you switch on anything, I come to call
watching, as I race by, every time for electrons you trawl

This is the Life of an Electron

– W.B.

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Day 16

Todays prompt- Write a poem that uses the form of a list to defamiliarize the mundane.

—–
There

There are 4,528 Pennies left
There is little room left in the jar
There in the corner
There dust sits over the edge of the lid
There saving, because it has built up from it not being opened
‘There fund’, started a life savings, misspelt because it was long ago written by two small children
There in red crayon, because red was all there had been
There it had grown
There to all whom walk by shown
There was a pride in accomplishment
There another jar started beside
There had been a dispute
There it was decided that each should have their own
There, unknowingly it was raided by a sibling
There she went when she needed bubble gum and shiny things
There was sometimes a repayment, but not always
There, a spot of wax to seal was added
There a daily check, and measuring of level started
There where shinny sat next to dull
There one could dream of what one wanted to buy
There of change, day to day was little changed
There still tucked into the corner, a side table square
There sat four thousand five hundred twenty eight faces
There in every direction out to gaze
There for the counting on rainy days
There for catalog items wanting to be for paid
There all change had to come to stay
There of pockets emptied into, before laundry hamper
There waiting to bank
There only bringing interest in the form of intense staring
There, crude knurled slot, centred in lid
There to swallow coins
There to stop them being shake-d or snaked out again
There in hiding, sailing ships, worth all of ten cents
There to sail seas of copper, with beavers swimming around too
There also paddles the occasional Moose
There was nothing loony way back then
There became the need, the slot to extend
There is nothing that jar can not buy, given enough time
There is frustration in stores, from people waiting in line behind
There comes delays in counting it all out
There, the realization dawns, that the bank becomes a better option
There, to pool larger, Childhood dreams that would grow
There, from soon to be relocated, as on a high counter I lined up change, rolled in rows
There a maturing portfolio, of that that had outgrown a simple jar
There though was only the journeys end, the jar still was the start
There today still Four thousand five hundred and twenty three dated pennies lay
There sitting still, as growing as I grow still
There only on a blue moon now, another found stray penny to come
There now, mostly nickel and dime-ing along, as lonnies and toones seemed to be immediately re-spent
There until I unscrew the lid in moments of week will
There sitting all these years under my window sill
There cashing in on left over money
There There, my jar of change
There nobly waiting another clink,
There of another new coin, to the bottom to sink

– W.B.

====================================================

Day 15

Todays Prompt -Write your own dramatic monologue. It doesn’t have to be quite as serious as Browning or Shakespeare, of course, but try to create a sort of specific voice or character that can act as the “speaker” of your poem, and that could be acted by someone reciting the poem.

—–

S/He?
What is this world?
When choices are different
Just upon fact of birth
Born either
Boy or girl!
Seems slight
Of hand
To understand
The seeming
Privileges
To be a man
Across the globe
For young
Or old
Us fems
This fem
Continues to demand
Equality
For you
For me
Balance in all things
We be
I hope for those
Still being born
We all can matter
Just the same
Cuz gender discrimination
Remains very lame!

– Katheren

—–
A Moonlight Soliloquy

Tyranny of gravity, will not relinquish its hold on me
Tightly I am held, no matter how I plead!
The night gives me chilly reception, clouds mock me by their very conception, darkness hovers overhead as far as I can see
I know the moon is still there, it’s shifting glow illuminates the blocking clouds from behind as I stare
Slowly melting through to show bare
Gravity draws me, but of another, the tug of the moon, near causes me to swoon

But this blue pearl, and encapsulating clouds that around swirl close in, in a curl, to hold me,
But can not stop tides of torment that rack me from within, as down to this world I find myself unwantedly pinned.
Overhead, in part, the machine of the skies cratered cog, turns without turning, stitching across the woven black fabric of the night sky, pulling from afar as it traverses by.
Stirring the very sea, beneath it to lie. Into a distorting mirror of sky
But across them both I dream to fly, even space to pass by.
And to the moon, in opposition of foul gravity! I must decry
But why this idea, must pull at my eye
I need to make the leap, to the moon, I simply have to try.

There are of course stories of flight, and sunspots icky blight, of, of course Icarus and his last half flight, the story of suns and wings bound of wax, but I’d never pay attention to any warning so lax.

Besides the moon is too cool, to ever fall onto like any old fool
The moon, has me entranced by perfection, even with all its flaws and cracks
Even if someone has already walked there, I still dream of following in their tracks
But gravity, my body down heavily tacks
Unyielding foe, it tries my foolish ways to stow, but onto that monochromatic sphere I feel I must go.
If but gravity would just leave me be, I could, this crusty boundary, flee.
Float across to the moon, would the earth even notice my loss
But over absolutes, and rules, it will simply not gloss
It just has to show me the complexities of whom is the boss

The moon drifts away, to be lost into another day
Yet still with me the pull will still play,
Deep within I feel it lay,
As somewhere it goes to sleep, where ever it must stay
But it still pulls at me all the way.

The moon I wish to tuck in, but the earth will not let me toward it splay
Trapped here under a sky slowly turning an unremarkable gray

The moon fades out, and back in again through overlapping cloud
In quiet breezes of wind, and gusts exhaled loud
Pulling at me all the while in the crowd
soon too far of the horizon to be too proud

I shall beseech, and I shall not just watch as it slips back into its shroud.
But by gravity I shall not, into submission, be cowed.
I shall not accept that it is unbreachable
Unreachable, is not a word I will let bound me
I shall keep trying, until the moon wholly surrounds me

– W.B.

====================================================

Day 14

Todays prompt -Write a poem that incorporates homophones, homographs, and homonyms, or otherwise makes productive use of English’s ridiculously complex spelling rules and opportunities for mis-hearings and mis-readings.

—–

Sin Crony

Bach’s back
Bench pressed
Keyed up
Butt composed
Weighting notes
His bent bee
Oh pus peace’s
Nun Bea
Rocket rolls
Witch bean
Awl eye new
Kneaded
Moor thyme
Fine alley
Eye herd
Grate fingerlings!
Muse sick
Four soothe
Wee classes

– Katheren

—–
Discount

The english language, in effect, is greatly about affect.
To muse, bemuse and even amuse.

At first sight one has to cite councils that have long counselled from positions of loose morality and lose objective and subjective perspectives over climactic climatic waves that crash over sites of great battles and arguments of words, sentences and paragraphs, their ability to weave together words to waive all responsibility. To breach through arguments and counter arguments, eyed firmly from a breech.

Evening minute battles, to compose shallow compromise comprise, to digest, and digress of overly long digests. settled in less than a minute in late evening .

It complements by compliment where it assumes to presume bizarre facts that come to bear, laid bare, as if some odd bazaar duel between dual meanings that faze at every phase. Formally formerly formidable formative words, to honed statutes back home, of noble figures honoured in statue, as some sort of naval bust, oddly just from the navel up, to practical practicable peaks to peek at, while not succumbing to parody, or pique of the lack of parity.

– W.B.

====================================================

Day 13

Todays Prompt -Write a poem about something mysterious and spooky!
Your poem could be about something that is mysterious and spooky in a bad way (like a witch), or mysterious and spooky in a good way (possibly also like a witch? It depends on the witch, I guess!) Or just the everyday, mysterious, spooky quality of being alive.

——

Eye Twitch

At birth
Switched
So tall
So fair
Completely unaware
One day
Calm lake
Single look
Forsake
My ‘Clan’
I ran
Away
City
Town
But alas
Spell cast
1000 years
Since passed
2 worlds
Unfurled
Mean lumped
Tears clumped
I jumped
Oh fooled!
Back the trail
I followed
Truth swallowed
Heart hollowed
Soon entered
Forest deep
I knew the way
Slowly return
Tho stomach turned
Here at least
I am known
Full grown
I will teach
Peace
High reach
For Human
Fairy
Preach
To stop stealing
Babies
From each other
‘Hello Mother’

– Katheren

—–
A Number of Spooky Horrors

Numb,
An unknown horror sits inside…
Held fast within, but only by two staples…
Many boxes,
Some eerily highlighted!
Lines strung between some of them
I think to trip you up
carefully you try to figure it out…
Almost otherworldly, the strange language
Incomplete, full of gaps that make it difficult, if not impossible to read outright.
Eerie floating numbers punctuate the mystery.

Even more mysterious instructions offer no further help,
a creepy crinkling sound as you turn the pages.

Flipping back and forth, the numbers change before your eyes
Disbelief grows…
A cold shiver raises in your spine as the number again higher goes
Spilling over, box after box changes before your very eyes
In motion, varying still.
BAT LIKE FLUTTERING!, suddenly takes flight, spills out, caught by the light!
You futilely give chase, only to loose it as it lands somewhere just out of reach under the back of the couch
TOO many unknowns there to go after it?… But it must be caught!
You can not let it escape, or it will bring Doom!
DOOM!
So you circle the room, trying to find it’s hiding place,
But alas, it stays concealed, mysterious enigma, perhaps redundant, maybe no longer needed!…
it has no way out, as you stand guard over its only escape Route, but it’s location still not revealed

Of defence, to the last line, without it, you have little.
The vast lines of evil within,
plotting escape, at your expense.

Trapped! the hidden trigger, or perhaps it will be caught and bring salvation.
Found finally under the coffee table, discovery bring momentary elation.

A last, T4,
To slot into a box on line 3314 (or some other number you’ve come, by repetition, to deplore), but certainly not one to ignore!
For there is nothing more Spooky and Mysterious, to bring shadows of grey to the fore
than a tax package,… filled with red tape to the core!

But will it bring a good end or evil, I wont know till over far more numbers I pour!
over all the unknown, mysterious things it still has in store.

– W.B.

====================================================

Day 12

Today prompt -Write a poem about a dull thing that you own, and why (and how) you love it. Alternatively, what would it mean to you to give away or destroy a significant object?

—–

Soapstone or Granite

How faithful
So common
So seldom noticed
Tattered and
Old now
Only some random
Doctor cares!
Looks in and checks
Much more often
Then I
God given
Felt it grow large
Other times shriven
Strong
steady
It was home
Before each
Is ever, even born
Given away
Hoarded
Servant
Lorded!
Ignored
Crushed
Broken
Still..
So faithful
Ever grateful
This journey
Of my heart
From finish to start!

– Katheren

—–
A plain thing, worn Matt

I’m not even sure what it was,.. or is
In it’s simplest sense it was garbage,
But, chance, I came upon it
so I guess I could also call it lucky.

Carefully machined, the ribs and lines catch the light,
Bolt holes and pins, though I do not understand it’s ins,.. nor outs
I can see its long history through wear marks and nicks.

I envision it’s rhythmic operation, its rhythm, like an old song pulsing
It could be a paper weight, or door stop
yet it is neither of those things.

It sits in a corner, Casting shadows
This part of a part of a former thing

We all have our broken pieces
and the things we have worn through.

Its a dull thing, a worn piece of metal
Found scrapped, in an oily rag wrapped

it is a mystery,
a commitment to some operation, I shall probably never know or understand
Designed, refined, machined, cleaned, maintained.
Each detail, a function?
a supporting feature of another bit?
Mounted outside, or deep inside to sit?

it is a worn dull thing, hard worn with use and age.
Ground down in places, where time has taken its tole
seemingly uninteresting in its whole
but it no doubt has it’s individual story out to roll

And don’t you just have to love all that!

– W.B.

====================================================

Day 11

Todays Prompt -Write a poem of origin. Where are you from? Not just geographically, but emotionally, physically, spiritually? Maybe you are from Vikings and the sea and diet coke and angry gulls in parking lots. Maybe you are from gentle hills and angry mothers and dust disappearing down an unpaved road. And having come from there, where are you now?

—–

Land of Freedom
Kanata

My country is a symbol
For all:
Good and true
But underneath the shiny gloss
Corruption
Runs deeply through
No where seems safe
Village,city, town
True justice seldom found
Many work to lift
To build
To stand
Reach for policy,laws
Yearn across our country
Rights and equality
Much more healthier lands
First Peoples suffer most
Others not far behind
One by one
We rise- we rise
Hope eternal shines
From peoples eyes
Soon -soon
Working truth
May we all find!

– Katheren

—–

Multi plane

Two buildings, another slotted between
On the hill side. By things downhill slide.
Brick building, stucco, Laundry line between strung,
the balance hangs,weighted, to one side to lean
The small windows from past behind between.

All life runs down hill
to water, to laundry, to practical things.
All life climbs mountains,
to lay foundations, of villages higher up.
Rivers and Oceans to cross, new beaches across to mill
beachheads to rally, to new views uphill

In forests, across vast grassy fields,
Dotted by tiny trees, life, you can wrap your fingers around.
Cool shadows and ferns. In time, of limitless imaginations, a possibility burns
Of other far away seas, Expanding under blue clouded skies, plowing, shadowing growing fields.

Two houses, another slotted between, of green grass and a view, a scene.
A marbled pool in the back, far from here, other side, mountain set, foot of stream
All water comes to one, to fill pools, or just drink, and water crops.
Milking in rewards of travel and hard work past, unseen

Drive back to the shore
commute, Traffic lights to dispute
Yet one lives conveniently, just blocks from the store
in flat land, built up. Instabilities, built up to shore

Of memories of other tiny tree dotted expanses, life, you could wrap your fingers around.
Now overgrown, and getting cut down.
Changing faces, of remembered old places, cutting down to build up
it is never the same town, as you look around.

But of all the places they have been, the balance hangs, weighted, to one side to lean.
All life climbs mountains, In forests, across vast grassy fields,
milking in rewards of travel and hard work past, unseen, in flat land, built up. Instabilities, built up to shore
It is never the same town, as you look around. As back over the edge to look back you lean…

This is the past, with it’s angled planes, this is where I have been
This is where they came from,
this used to be the scene
I am still in me, a part of everything that they had ever been….

If none of this helps you, try to find photos, mountains and valleys of old,
old foundations, tree forts and foot paths, that lead to places more bold
From far away places, and hand build spaces,
in shadows cast of bright shining lights, of lanterns tarnished and old.

– W.B.

====================================================

Day 10

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that starts from a regional phrase, particularly one to describe a weather phenomenon. You may remember one from growing up.

—–

Fishing for a Chinook

I tire of the wet winds treading around me
the cold ones deflate my soul
Turning, the storm drives again under eaves, pelts the windows

For the clouds are fluffy white,
the cold rain drops are blue.
One comes from the other,
but the meteorologists don’t seem to have a clue!

It was supposed to be a very nice day out Eh…
that means rain, just aboot the time you get outside.

But stereotypical Canadian weather never keeps us in doors
even when it just outright pours.

But some days I want to escape from drizzle,
leave the streams of cold rain, and in sun somewhere sizzle

Perhaps I should take a ride, go up to the mountain side,
on the oft chance that down, a Chinook may slide.

A warm wind to dry, and towards an end of cold, damp, winter guide.
Net that better weather, that about, that forecaster lied!

It’s either that, or sit here overcast on the window sill still, and for spring wait my time to bide…

Or just get on and go aboot my Business, in the fishy weather outside

– W.B.

—–

Cat’s and dogs

Off the roof
They did fall
Unto the ground below
What they were doing
Up there anyway
Perhaps we’ll never
Know

Tales of old
Roofs were thatched
A place to keep
Small critters warm
Slippery
It all became
When
Weather turned
To storm

Frogs,snakes and fish
Have also fell
From a golden sky
Scooped up by chance
By
Mother Natures hand
Like a terrible
Ne’er do well!

I carry an umbrella
For one never knows
What the sky
Might drop on us
Other then
Rain or snow!

– Katheren

====================================================

Day 09

Todays prompt for the day asks you to engage in another kind of cross-cultural exercise, as it is inspired by the work of Sei Shonagon, a Japanese writer who lived more than 1000 years ago. She wrote a journal that came to be known as The Pillow Book. In it she recorded daily observations, court gossip, poems, aphorisms, and musings, including lists with titles like “Things That Have Lost Their Power,” “Adorable Things,” and “Things That Make Your Heart Beat Faster.” Today, I’d like to challenge you to write your own Sei Shonagon-style list of “things.” What things? Well, that’s for you to decide!

—–

> Morning Joys

Waking slow
Luxurious
So warm
Safe
Smell of pre-set coffee
Percolated
Hot
Bird song
Chirping
Whistling
Awake
Whether or not
Sun creeping
Over the rise
Drumming
Greet the new day

> Dislikes unavoidable

Meeting bitter angry folks
Spewed views
Politics
Oh those damned teenagers!
Discourse on addicts
Bomb this area
Let them all die!
The whole world is terrible
Judgment, judgment
From glass houses!

> Happy times

Meetings with friends
Artwork and poetry
Good food
Lovingly prepared
Bargains and discounts
Start the car!
New movies
Songs
Neighborhood children
Playing outside
Hopscotch and laughter
Calls from family
Good news
We can share

– Katheren

—–

The new life of a pillow book

Lists of change, dated elements in need of change, or things oft to be stuck with unchanging
The start of a new season, or day 9 of a journey to unknown results. The retouching of things, the recollections of things you wish to remember as depicted

Things to clean up after
-Marigolds, beloved racing pony
-The dog, it’s not my dog, but the dog that seems to think this is his front yard!
-Uncle Bob, and the trail of muddy tread marks, from a lawns edge that he didn’t feel a need to stay of
-a bed of tulips, that used to sit at the edge of the lawn…
– years of neglect

The rewards of an empty space, just cleaned
– a newly turned flower bed, it’s black compost waiting for seeds, smelling of earth
– a shiny shovel just hosed off, and the old wood grain of its ash handle
– a clean shed, freshly emptied of things , as all its contents are scattered about the yard for the season
– a taped room, trim tucked under a band of masking tape, waiting

The following of a ladder, in the picking up of small things knocked over

One forgets how many things one owns, or to what degree one cares for them until they become under threat. Dotting counter tops, shelves and niches that you forget to even notice in the course of everyday life, imperilled by first and last rungs most particularly, as when carrying a ladder one can only pay attention to one end at a time in transit.
The swiftness of action and lightening fast reflexes is a testament to the human machine. A fast ranking in aftermath of the durability of items you have come to collect, and prioritization of relocation to safer spots before the ladder make a return journey later.

New colours to paint things, and contrasts of trim
-A fire engine red
-Cobalt blue
-The colour of a seagull’s beak, and the futile attempts to describe that colour
-Shadow line of dark grey under, to bring a colour to fore
-That left over can from… something, I mean it’s here, it’s only half full, so it had to be from something…
-Large wooden planter, brightly painted in three coats to stand up to the weather, and possibly Uncle Bob’s bumper, if still not seen.

Stinking stench of solvent

Even when not used, its the brilliance of man, and his eventually coming up with low odour paint, the strange bit of memory that still make you smell it when cleaning brushes after all these years still… The quarter jug of thinner, still in the garage, even though you never use it anymore for anything… just in case… only to be found to be dry.. when finally found that is. The mystery of why, as you don’t need it, as the paint cleans up with soap and water…?

Rows of pictures that refuse to hang straight

-Scratching freshly painted walls with their sharp corners in trying to get them to obediently set onto hooks
– each a degree off each way to the opposite side from level as you shift them
– beloved Marigold, giving you the eye, framed
-painting of flowers, leaning in the wind, well I could claim, if not for the canted frame
-equally canted family in the photo, or at least some of them
– the arm of uncle Bob, not all of a family fits into a frame you know

Seven items taken off a shelf, yet only five of them fit back on….

-the lack of recollection of what order they had been in before,
-realization that if you can’t remember, it really can’t make all that much of a difference
-dawning afterwards of the reason why it made a difference, and that you don’t have time to rearrange everything again
-the misplacing of the last two items when you finally think of a good place to put them
– the eighth item that might have been on that shelf, but you instead just now threw to spook that dog off your newly planted flowerbed before getting down to business.

Life is far more boring in its whole, than the minutia of its anarchic parts
the messy bits, and things that stink, but you just have to do to make the whole thing sing.

– W.B.

==================================================== Day 08

Todays prompt – I’d like to challenge you to think about the argot of a particular job or profession, and see how you can incorporate it into a metaphor that governs or drives your poem.

—–

$2.00 Maximum Bet

Casino Blues
Black Jack
Merely a worker
The ‘pit boss’ though
All up-town!!
Strutting like a crow
A wheeler and dealer
At times we see
That long nose grow!
More like a penguin
Dressed black
White
Builds self up
No matter the fight
Like one who
Owns the joint!
So sure it is their
Money
We all playing with
Tells me I must
In emergency
Cover the dough
Not worry about
Possible
Harm
To Me
Are you crazy!
These rules
Seem shady
Next I worked
In a cafe
Oh the Chef’s!!
Bossy
Too proud!
I need self employment
Don’t do well
In these crowds!

– Katheren
Station Cat: Similarly, the ‘Station Cat’ is the officer who wanders around preening themselves like an arrogant tomcat, finding any excuse possible to avoid work

—–

Wholly Sidelined

In the path of life,
navigating, rather than preferred avoidance, of strife.
Unless hiding in the hole.
Waiting for the crackle of a radio, waiting to be told to go,
There is only forward, there is no point in going back.

But what of standing still in the hole?
Head down, I stay on track,
red board sat upon,
until opposing has gone.

The black cloud comes,
Slowly creeping across the horizon.
It comes, hovers overhead, passes on,
a clacking thunder rolls by as a storm,
Gathering speed and intensity,
shakes the ground.

I look on for a sign
The storm can not last forever…,
though it seems as if it already has.

The sliding of time on the side lines of a siding,
as by another train, and the hands of a clock, endlessly by fling.
Sitting here listening to the idling engine sing,
waiting for a highball to go again riding.

– W.B.

-In the hole: This is a word for the siding where a train waits for another to pass
-Red board: Stop signal
-Highball: Signal made by waving hand or lamp in a high, wide semicircle, meaning “Come ahead” or “Leave town” or “Pick up full speed.”

====================================================
Day 07

Todays prompt- Write a poem of gifts and joy. What would you give yourself, if you could have anything? What would you give someone else?

—–

Megaannum

This place remake
Share together
A peaceful world
Fair give
Fair take
Fear never to be known
A planet of love
Food and health
Organic and home grown
Already we have
But we forsake
This natural wealth
All we truly
Need is here
Garden of our time
Miraculously sown!
One day soon
Will our Mother
Reclaim her own
With a Goddesses mirth
Her beautiful earth
Wiser re-set
Re group
Will we start again
End the same?
Begin a new game
Of life
I offer my hand
Out firm
Strong
For all to take
As together
We journey
Space time long
At least to know
We hold
Each other
Need
Truly we
Are Sister & Brother
Family
Understanding and true
So hard sometimes
The day and nights
Be lonely
If only I knew
You
Were my friend
Held me tight as well
Id never need wish
More
Smile into
The beginning
The end
Love is the
Answer
Never release!
Join me Please
Pass the popcorn
Start the show!
Here we go

– Katheren

—–
No thing = Nothing

Of all the things, it was the nothings I loved the best.
The tiny memories from the dark,
in shadows of rocks and trees,
a long burned candle from the bees.

Bared twig, fallen blossom, or tiny things that had gotten comparatively big.
Flit leaf, bit of bark, corner of a paper; creased,
colourful cloth, knotted string,
simple bell to ring.
Paper crane, shell, polished rock. Little gifts found of, to take stock.
No, things to over look, no nothings to be mistook.

Small bits of bigger things, possibly with a slight crook,
sits on shelfs; at ends of stacks of books.
No, no things,
These are a precious gift
into special little places to lift.

Trinkets and bits,
given to make the pulse ping.

Anything, but no thing, more than to make the heart sing,
these are the power of no ordinary things.

– W.B.

====================================================

Day 06

Todays prompt -write a poem of the possible. What does that mean? poems are squarely focused not on what has happened, or what will happen, but on what might happen if the conditions are right. Today, write a poem that emphasizes the power of “if,” of the woulds and coulds and shoulds of the world.

———–

Family

At least 4 archaic
Species
Of classic upright man
Neanderthal,Denisovan
Hominid and x
(one we still don’t understand)

If people lived across this earth
Thousands years prior to recorded time
How could we say we Know
We know!
Old journeys
Ancient plans?

Should we make assumptions
Hide away new fossils finds?
DNA is telling tales
New stories
What we thought ‘cavemen’
Archaeology reveals
New glories
Stretching modern minds!

Old majestic ruins
30 k years before
If we could know
Will we know?
Which way our knowledge
Of Our Human History
Is about to go!

– Katheren

———–

If if, possible If

If if was a thing
If If could wish
if if, into action could spring
if if inferred
if if could be summed up by a single word
if if should be sir-ed
if if never became lurid
if if of uncertainty could be cured
If if became iffy
if if became spiffy
if if knew, what would if be willing to go through

If if
If If as I, had sat at the window, watching, instead of leaving to stew
if if as I, had gotten involved, instead of watching it all go by
if if as I, and you had worked it all through
if if as I, might have better imbued

if if had wandered into shrubbery, of twisted shadows and bulbous berries at the dawn of night, to see shifting perspectives in undulating patterns of growth
if if had

If if drew along the tall trunks of shadows, branching into coulds and shoulds rooted in the woods
if if would, dancing across tree tops shading the forest floor

if if had open eyes to see, refused to ignore
if if realized it might have held a key, and somewhere lay a moss covered door
if if stopped being stumped
if if grew on its own, instead of being into groups clumped
if if found that it’s step extended into bound
if if

if, if impossible things were possible, only if

if if, only if, if could cut it’s strings
if if would have, should have, could do incredible things… if….

– W.B.

====================================================

Day 05

Todays Prompt – Write a poem that incorporates at least one of the following: (1) the villanelle form, (2) lines taken from an outside text, and/or (3) phrases that oppose each other in some way. If you can use two elements, great – and if you can do all three, wow!

The classic villanelle has five three-line stanzas followed by a final, four-line stanza. The first and third lines of the first stanza alternately repeat as the last lines of the following three-line stanzas, before being used as the last two lines of the final quatrain.

—–

I have a Dream.Full stop

I have a Dream.Full stop
To know our distant moon
Shiny suits that come with props?

Van Allen radiation danger belt
Somehow past we must hop
I have a dream.Full stop

Problems leaving orbit post op
Bubbles from the pool
Tethered to that bunny hop?

Space agencies tall tale talks
Jonah and his whale
Quadrillions spent,I balk

Humans investigating like cops
Truth in the end be known
I have a dream.Full stop
What is this place so close to home?

– Katheren

—–

Don’t forget your towel

Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?
This became the baseline for the entire proceedings, short of the last, and final instruction
Don’t Panic

In times when advice was priceless and divisive
one never left anything behind, for fear, of others near, that it might be picked up.
Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?

Diving in, for a few laps in another skin,
you had to make sure to get away before there was nothing left on you that they could pin.
Don’t Panic

For there was a constant refrain, held in the back of ones brain, that there had to be more here to gain
yet flat out, hard as you dare, but reserve enough to stay sane, till the end of the game. Just stay in your own lane.
Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?

In your head, time is away ticking, as at your nose endless waves licking
The dirt to you has surely sticking, waves of panic into, needles and pins pricking
Don’t Panic

Swimming through emotions and maters political, trying to stay somewhat analytical
one needs to wash one’s hands of it to again feel clean, but suddenly realizes one has left ones towel in the machine!
Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?
Don’t Panic

42

– W.B.

====================================================

Day 04

Todays Prompt write a sonnet sad poem, but one that achieves sadness through simplicity. Playing with the sonnet form may help you – its very compactness can compel you to be straightforward, using plain, small words.

——-

1980 Helen
Mountain side gave way
Lahar flowed
Experts agreed
Up!
All will go
Predictions based on other
Tops that had blown
Unfortunate
Loss of life
Homes, bridges
Ohh Cascadia!
800 mile range
California to BC
Modern seismology claims
They are
Ancient but ready
Today we have
Clear blue sky
Mother Nature
Has surprises
Inch by inch
The land up rises
Mere mortals
At her whim
No matter we try!
Will local Baker be next?
It breaths
It has flex
I watch the mountain
Waiting for
The next immense fountain

– Katheren

——–
Gone, the Old Mill Bridge

The old mill bridge closed for good late last year
Gone after memories of a lifetime
that old wooden bridge, bridging water clear
in times of trouble it was a lifeline

Weathered wood grain railings held securely
in moments, anxiety or despair
a place I thought alway around, surely
but now it’s torn down, and no longer there

Unburdened, empty stone abutments sit
The void reflected in my empty heart
of abandoned feelings that will not knit
across two banks forever held apart

I will not walk the old mill bridge again
the empty echoing footfalls refrain

– W.B.

====================================================

Day 03

Today’s prompt (optional as always) – Write something that involves a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable length of time. Perhaps, as you do, you can focus on imagery, or sound, or emotional content (or all three!)

—–

Elixir of Life

I
Journey
Backwards
After
20,405 days
I begin
Child like plays
Watch cartoons
Listen bedtime stories
Enjoy my days
Let go
My worries
Giggle unstopping
Life is just
Popping
Room now for
Music
Friends
Community!
What I could
Not
Do then
Safe now
In neighborhood
Unity
Reclaiming all
Standing tall
Fun times
A hopping!
Overcoming a life hateful
Blessed now
I am grateful

– Katheren

—–
Of the many stops between here and Willoughby

There are many stops, between here and Willoughby
that I have yet, in depth to see

There are few stops, the middle of the line
None worth stopping at at any rate
Half the morning, clacked away
Trying to sleep, as sleepers chatted by
the whispering of rails bedded, ballasted by crushed stone
none with anything to say, but for a dull hum
a hum and a clacking, like a clearing of the throat as if waiting,
pausing before something important.
The small violets, peeking out in passing,
flashes of colour too soon gone to comment on perhaps
A sale in a glass paned window
the last item sold, rumbles by, the carriage shakes
Shadows hide, shift out of sight
Sales come and go
Violets, … Violets sprinkle themselves thinly
Dainty, special, defused through the country side,
Clustering in small pockets
As if in groups, running to catch a train
Desperate to escape here
here and there, waiting
un-dissuade by lateness.

The tic-tock of sleepers, passed over
a clock like metronome, lulling on sleep
to slowly fall behind, again the engine sighs
Yawns out, falls off it’s time table.
Wanting to rest, by pillow like moss peeked outcroppings,
Climbing into rail beds cut into mountains,
the climb onwards tires.

Weary, the end of the middle passes behind
Junctions, shifting paths to navigate.
Chipping of china, clatters travels onward from the dining car
preparing for the oncoming night.

Lit squares of windows, slowly climb the mountain side
Parts, too cold for Violets, or some with no sense of heights
far below watch the line of square lights chug away,
A station name, I never bother to recall, on to call
Pause, wait for seeming nothing, before waiting no more
This, ahead we drive for, again several station for

I have seen it all, traversed similar before,
all the stations in the middle seem a bore.
Yet of the end of the line, I have no idea whats in store,
as somewhere a well dress conductor starts to snore.

Top of the mountain, and down again
with the unbroken sound of a tired engine’s yawning refrain.
I shall perhaps not see Willoughby
Last on the line,
at least as far as I am going, in my time.
But where ever I get off, until, I shall lazily recline,
until jostled and tussled on my way across the line
Marking the dim sight, of the next station sign….
It’s not to be Willoughby, says the faded white lettering, half covered in vine.

– W.B.

====================================================

Day 02

Today’s prompt – Write a poem that similarly resists closure by ending on a question, inviting the reader to continue the process of reading (and, in some ways, writing) the poem even after the poem ends.

——-

Scapes

I,Aye,Eye
Just a frequency
Vibration?
You and me?
Self aware
Inter dimensional
Designation!
Here
Is where?
Breath & bones
A bonus?
Consciousness
Regardless
Alive!
Questions re
Future & of
History
Humanity
Do you have answers
Life!
Our great mystery
Together
All of us
One day
Shall see!
Will we?

– Katheren

——-

Where the box flaps fold in?

In corrugations of brown
Is it the ridges that show, or the depressions between?

Running around the corners
darting in circles
Beginning to beginning
End to end?
Is the joint where it starts, or where it ends?

Depth folds into height
Darkest corners open to light?

Can you feel it, if it doesn’t feel right?
Has someone already opened, peeked inside, your parcel tonight?

– W.B.

——-

=================================================

Day01 – NaPoWriMO 2019

Todays prompt -Write a poem that provides the reader with instructions on how to do something. It can be a sort of recipe. Or you could try to play on the notorious unreliability of instructional manuals (if you’ve ever tried to put IKEA furniture together, you know what I mean). You could even write a dis-instruction poem, that tells the reader how not to do something.

———-

Nonversation

Say nothing
That means anything
Make it all
Small
Talk
Speak Cardashian
Clothes and travel
Shh about truth
Don’t let
Mirages unravel
Cute puppies
Save my cat
Don’t look
Don’t see
Zombie?
Not sure I
Wish
To be ‘part of’
That!

– Katheren

———-
Check Telescope

I have fallen so far behind, and so laggard
and it is only the beginning of time
there is a whole universe of night to stretch before me
one step at a time, to check

Simple eye piece, -Check
Mount,-Check
turn,-Check

it’s all so simple
a view to such complexity, -Check
seemingly over simplified –
in near black and white -Check

Dark night sprawls out before me -Check
Sun just having finally moved far enough -Check
it’s streaks of grey fallen from the sky -Check

knobs and angles, tilt -Check
and yet…

Space and time, do not before me unwind
I am left with just blackness in kind

of constellations I am blind
all the night sky, from a box
but right now its all a bit too much to ply
as nothing come to focus before my eye
dusk cap off -Check
right way up to detect -Check
No new images to my brain to inject,… sadly -Check.

My telescope, the sky will not court,
instructions read, as matter of last resort,
seeking solution to import.

Even as with clouds I try to comport
yet, despite the checklist, no success to report

– W.B.

=================================================

Day Zero warm up! And HERE ( NaPoWriMo http://www.napowrimo.net ) we go
National Poetry month for 2019.
Cedar Bark Poets writing

========

Day 00 -Early-bird prompt

Todays challenge -to write a poetic self-portrait. And specifically, we’d like you to write a poem in which you portray yourself in the guise of a historical or mythical figure

—-
My pogo like spring away from limelight

In unseen photos, Near unseen
Trapped in glare, of overexposure
Lapped by the shadow of wave
Pin behind, half out of frame

Capped by obscuring branch
din of camera, tips off
Shin, I turn on to evade the frame
Clapped, nearly by shutters late snap

Grin, missed, away into grainy grey
Mapped off, cropped
Gapped too far to fit in
Spin down to cutting room floor

Apt alterations, can not restore
Binned photos, to be ignored
Wind blows elusively
Dapped, caught dapple evidence flawed at the core

Thinned, Proof lacking
Sapped, Ogopogo like photos
Tapped too fast to be certain
Tin, tinted glare, was there any anything there?….

– W.B.

=====================

At long last book #30 is out.

—

The theme for the next Poetry Book(#31) will be

‘ Emotions & Pen ‘

Due by March 31st

Sent your Poems to [email protected]

—

Enjoy Book 30, We give you ‘Collections & Confidences’

– The Cedar Bark Poets

The Community Builders

We are busy putting together a list of Newton Community Builders to highlight the good work being done, and how you can get involved – This is a place holder Stay tuned for more here.

CedarBark Poets are back with Poetry Book #29: “Family & Doors”

—-

The theme for the next Poetry Book(#30) will be

‘ Collections and Confidences ’

And poems are due by November First

Please sent your Poems to

[email protected]

—-

– the Cedar Bark Poets

Katheren is back in the news again with more of her story and good works. Congratulations

—> Making Peace with Fear, the Convincing and Beautiful Presence of Katheren Szabo

–] https://medium.com/@aletmanski/making-peace-with-fear-the-convincing-and-beautiful-presence-of-katheren-szabo-b448ae73444b

====================================

=====================================

Making Peace with Fear, the Convincing and Beautiful Presence of Katheren Szabo

Katheren Szabo knows how to make peace with her fears.

Which is something most of us aspire to.

Especially during these outrageous, topsy turvy times when a low level state of fear hovers like a dirty cloud.

For many good reasons that are too personal to be told by anyone but her, Katheren’s fear kept her isolated in her housing complex in the Newton neighbourhood of Surrey, British Columbia for ten years.

Fear for her safety. Fear of strangers. Fear for her four children. Fear of the past. Fear of the unknown.

Fear that might have magnified after she heard the news that a local Mom had been robbed of $40.00 and murdered in broad daylight beside a park called The Grove near Katheren’s home.

Instead of retreating further Katheren did the thing she thought she could never do. She left her home, headed to The Grove and began a sixty day vigil for peace and safety. The Grove — where drugs are dealt and consumed. Where men bluster and stagger. Where the suggestion of danger lurks and people hurry through on the way to somewhere else.

Why did she do it?

“Because Julie looked a lot like me,” says Katheren. “I identified with her. She was the same size as me, a bit younger .. dirty blonde hair. Besides, due to my own life experiences I had been mute for 50 years. That’s long enough.”

In those days she didn’t know a soul. Five years later she’s known as the heart of Newton. People know her and because of her, they know each other.

She helped create Friends of the Grove . They use music, art and playfulness to bring fun, peace and harmony to The Grove and Newton neighbourhood.

She started Cedar Bark Poets (there’s a beautiful cluster of cedars in The Grove) to publish and distribute the work of local poets. She knows the special talent that poets have to make desecrated places sacred again. Perhaps that is why the facilitator of Cedar Bark Poets for two years was the daughter of the Mom who was killed. And who once swore she would never have anything to do with the scene of her Mother’s murder.

She discovered Fambul Tok (family talk) a community process of reconciliation that emerged to heal the wounds of Sierra Leone’s brutal, “blood diamond” civil war. She thought it could help heal the lingering pain in her neighbourhood. So she organized Canada’s first Fambul Tok, a multi-cultural celebration of peace, forgiveness and community.

Along the way she’s picked up awards, acknowledgments and speaking gigs. Including keynote speaker at the Canada-Sierra Leona Cultural Heritage Day. And she is one of the headliners at Surrey’s Social Innovation Summit this fall.

Clearly Katheren’s life is expanding in proportion to her peacemaking.

You can experience her convincing and beautiful presence for yourself by visiting with her any day from now until August 5th from 10:00 am to noon, weather permitting. Or follow her on twitter @Katherenfog . Or consider inviting her to speak. (Let me know and I’ll make an introduction.)

She’s ready for the world to call. And with good reason.

We have so much to learn from her.

–Article copied form —> Making Peace with Fear, the Convincing and Beautiful Presence of Katheren Szabo

–] https://medium.com/@aletmanski/making-peace-with-fear-the-convincing-and-beautiful-presence-of-katheren-szabo-b448ae73444b

======================

And this is it for NaPoWriMo  (National Poetry Writing Month) for 2018, 30 days of Poetry, thanks for reading.

Each day the Cedar Bark poets have been writing a poem based on the NaPoWriMo daily prompt [ http://www.napowrimo.net ] and publishing them here for you to enjoy.

==============================

==============================================
Day 30-the last day of NaPoWriMo 2018

Prompt, Take your cue from poet Jorge Luis Borges, and write a poem that engages with a strange and fascinating fact. It could be an odd piece of history, an unusual bit of art trivia, or something just plain weird. There are definitely some poetic ideas here, just waiting for someone to use them.

———————————————————————-/
In the history of breakfast

So the morning goes
still weary feeling, groggy.
Clattering pans,
an over hard egg

from windowsill, do chipper bird mock
in attempt of careful practice
of unsharp butter knife
Crust left on
long departed from childhood days trimmed
Butter dish cover clatters back on
tired, to table to eat, a morning paper, news on to muse
Tragic tragedy, redundantly re-repeats again this overcast morn

why, why, WHY… is it so
always butter side down
My floor isth too close?, my counter too low?
Half flip, every-time my butter fingers, a small plate slips
but why always, butter side down, is it to go

what manner, same side down every time it goes around

A greased reduction of drag one side?
a weighted freight of butter pulling it over
The roughened, blackened one side from grilling grate

what is it that every time leads me to this dusty fate

A simple enough thing, yet for a conspiracy of toast…
At least a one hundred percent record of, I can boast

to landings, of butter side down, as again I pick it back up off the ground

– W.B.

———————————————————————-/
This Moment

The End of Things
Exhale
Big Endings
Beginnings
No guarantees of tomorrow
Indeed not even this breath
Still we plan on
Believing in life
Step forward
Theatre of
Birth
Death
Always engaging us
Change the only constant
Love the only truth.

– Katheren

==============================================
Day 29 NaPoWriMo

Prompt —> Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on the Plath Poetry Project’s calendar [ https://plathpoetryproject.com/write/calendar/ ]. Simply pick a poem from the calendar, and then write a poem that responds or engages with your chosen Plath poem in some way.

———————————————————————-/

Based off APRIL 2, 1962: “LITTLE FUGUE” To kick things off, we have Plath’s delicious and frightening meditation on the yew tree outside her window.
Leenie says: Try looking out the window and musing on something disconcerting.
—-//—//–// – //–//—//—-
Village Life

In my little complex
We have so many children
Laughing happy safe kids
But
Then we have rentals
Where strangers drive through
Circling the eight shape
Of our pavement
And I worry
Because i come from
Childhood
Stranger Danger
So I watch and smile
With a frown,sometimes
As I pass a window
Praying
In my own PTSD way
Way for Peace
Safety
For all
I will work hard
To create community
Love and Compassion.
I can do something
I am taking action.

– Katheren

———————————————————————-/
Based off OCTOBER 11, 1962: “THE APPLICANT”
Of this poem Plath said, “The speaker is an executive, a sort of exacting super-salesman. He wants to be sure the applicant for his marvelous product really needs it and will treat it right.”

—-//—//–// – //–//—//—-
Nothing but a thing

I have nothing for you! Not a single bit of it
But buy now and I’ll give you twice as much
You pay nothing, nothing, nothing in shipping and handling on nothing
Even three time as much Is nothing still, nothing, nothing at all

Not just nothing, but new and improved nothing, nothing but the best has gone into this nothing

I shall sell you nothing flammable, nothing thats not waterproof, Nothing thats noted as harmful and nothing that will haunt you, hurt you and leave behind nothing.

Can you find one single fault with nothing, I shall dare say not
If you can find nothing at fault, I shall say of nothings short comings nothing short of nothing to next to nothing is nothing to note of problems nothing has anything to do with
But should you be unhappy at nothing, nothing to do but merely refund you for nothing

You will simple have it all with nothing and not want for nothing any longer
our new nothing will be even stronger, and you will simply not find any other nothing any longer

You will be so marry that will there be nothing to marry, so as to marry nothing would be nothing at all.

Lets face it you need nothing from me, and nothing else, so why don’t you give me a call?

– W.B.

==============================================
Day 28 NaPoWriMo

Prompt —> We challenge you today to draft a prose poem in the form/style of a postcard. If you need some inspiration, why not check out some images of vintage postcards?

———————————————————————-/

soup du jour

Today the Dolphins
Seemed to be looking
For someone
I thought about you
Stuck in the city
West Coast rain

They squeaked so
Chittered your name
I wondered
Did you set this up?
Was it all some travelers game?

Then today the Turtles
Snapped at a woman
“Laura”..called out in minor pain
So again
You crossed my mind

It happens all the time
Here at Miami’s Lost Lagoon
Next time
I’ll book 2 rooms
As it seems I cannot be here
With out you.

– Katheren

———————————————————————-/
Hello from where ever we are now

Oh I can’t say where we are now, we have been traveling for so long, the dust has worked its way into everything now. The dated upholstery becoming regressive in some time machine like capacity that we feel to have not only crossed half the continent but also gone back in time, trapped now it this unknown time and place that ourselves we now find. A timeless small town, not yielding any clues of when or where we may have pulled into, For all Recreational vehicle, as people here don’t seem to like the term ‘RV’, camps are much the same. Yesterday, today and tomorrow feel much the same, the dusty dashboard and clicking turn signals and the drone of the motor and the centre lines flashing by, until interrupted by a rest stop, village or town. These are much same, and forgotten as soon as they are left behind. So I shall mail off this post card before I forget whenever or where ever this town is. A post marked memory of an unremarked point in a pointless journey of a road trip

Postcard from a Winnebago
Good bye to where ever we are leaving now…

– W.B.

==============================================
Day 27 NaPoWriMo

Prompt —> We challenge you to pick a card (any card) from this online guide to the tarot, [http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/index.htm ] and then to write a poem inspired either by the card or by the images or ideas that are associated with it.

———————————————————————-/
The Clouds Might Speak

If I ever looked up to see
An arm sticking out of a cloud
And waving at me
I’d surely drop dead
Fall out of my feet.
If it was God
Showing only disembodied
‘Bod’
I’d need mouth to mouth
Cuz that would be soo odd
From such a shock
Right there on my block
If I dyed on the street
Would I see a bright tunnel
In between
The almighty arrival
And my life passing
Fleet?
A single finger touch me
Like the ceiling of the Sistine?
Life jump started
Right after I’d parted
In the space of little time
Forever more
People would say
I’d just been
Out of my mind.
Hello..God!!??

– Katheren

———————————————————————-/
Knight of Cups

Comes the winged one, cup in hand
Arrives un-forlorn, visor up, wings pointed back of hemet adorn
His grace, quietly keeps the pace
imagination further forward race, the invitation always to keep face

Hark, the message comes, advancing frankly, fording streams, mountain peeks through forest stands, and ethically slippery sands in beige shades bland.

Finally comes the knock of palisade gate, of warning of the raid and imminent closing in of fate

Then winged feet of flight, as he rides boldly out of sight
To ride back through the dark of night.

Inciting imaginative thoughts under moon, half full and bright
This is the Knight of Cups plight

– W.B.

==============================================
Day 26 NaPoWriMo

Prompt —> We’d like to challenge you to write a poem that includes images that engage all five senses. Try to be as concrete and exact as possible with the “feel” of what the poem invites the reader to see, smell, touch, taste and hear.

———————————————————————-/
Beyond the wall

The crashing, thundering roar, followed the cymbal-ic bang, they say as if the world were rend into two
The pressure wave, compressed walls, felt even inside, through cold grey stony pot-marked wall. But the sweeping, rolling rumble… Seemed to go on and on, even if it felt the days forward may not, the fear touching inside the guts itself…

The smoke, acrid black, in rising columns, rolled suddenly in, out the sun it blocked, the stank smell of sulphur permeated

A palpable horror, the armoured pointed hard scales that came, of the towering menace, just beyond those walls

The taste of fear no one should ever have to know, twisting all around, and deep within, outside shards of yellow orange fire twisted akin

What it’s like to be attacked by a Dragon, the day before a thought that was unimaginable to the senses. Now a reality just out side of bunkered defences.

The Dragon of war, theses are the memories that survivors tell,
Of all the friends, family and comrades that did not fare as well

For we need to feel the senses, picture the unimaginable scenes seen, to have a tiniest fragment of what all that means

See, smell, touch, taste and hear the feeling of the terrors of war, of a bomb dropping, a flash, outside your door. Remember… , so that never again can we ignore.

– W. B.

———————————————————————-/
Aniaus

Tensed, the fear
Shrunk back, smaller
Listen,listen
Behind the rain
Through the howling wind
Buffeting the tent
Trees crashing
There !!
Right there!
Smell of rotting
Meat
Unwashed b.o.
Sharp sound
Large, lumbering
Steps
Hide
Snorts and moans
Become the grass
We lie upon
Become grey
Like the night
Let it pass
They mean no harm.

– Katheren

==============================================
Day 25 NaPoWriMo

Prompt –We challenge you to write a poem that takes the form of a warning label . . . for yourself! (Mine definitely includes the statement: “Do Not Feed More Than Four Cookies Per Hour.”

———————————————————————-/
R.E.M.

Do NOT swallow!!
Material or the plastic bag
Read the
Caution tag
Hung off the
Bottom of a my new
King sized mattress set
Ohh sounds serious
I begin to fret
Keep away!
From children!
Hey ..
I like children!!
Same warning
Other languages
All filled in!!
Manufacturing
Company
Worried ?
We shall eat their bed?
This ‘dire’ message is prominent
Loudly coloured bright red
Sewn on tightly
To both ends
Some silliness
If they truly believe
‘Mattress eaters’
Need this message
To be sent.

– Katheren

———————————————————————-/

Warning : Subject may be later that planed

Though good intentions are there, still in scheduling one must be ware

that of too much to do, as time passes, one is acutely aware

but it is growingly unlikely that i’m going to make it on time there

as in writing this I have already encroached, on the time to fold my laundry, and I have socks still to pair

– W.B.

==============================================
Day 24 NaPoWriMo

Prompt —>Today, we’d like to challenge you to write an elegy – a poem typically written in honor or memory of someone dead. But we’d like to challenge you to write an elegy that has a hopefulness to it.

———————————————————————-/

24

Road Man 1994

Gathered on the beach
Drumming Elk,
Deer until dawn
Kept a Sacred Fire
Burning
We all sang until our throats
Hurt
Dry mouths
Swallowing ashes
Of your remains
By morning
Your cremains
Filled small buckets
Shook you out gently
Into the sea.
Good Bye
Hello

– Katheren

———————————————————————-/

Remembrance of a sun beam, a photon has flown

In brief existence, of only 8 Minutes 20 seconds, in an eternity
It danced from the corona
Boldly crossed the cold void of space
Diffracted through the atmosphere
Pierced black clouds that floated
Chewed through a sky of blue

Enlighten and enchanted
never frighted anyone or held but the slightest shade of malice

it’s exit leaves behind shades and contrast to highlight our world by
Shadows to define the boundaries and paths of life that we walk daily

The cold of night to remind us of how much warmth was brought into our world
To cherish the time we have with tomorrow, as it too will grow cold and dark one day, but still the light will go on, if not here, then somewhere through space and time, even when the sun itself goes out, a black hole will pull the light onward into places we can only imagine

a photon floes, a photon flies
then a flower lies, blossoms, in remembrance when a photon dies

In the fields of space, are planted stars, the suns blossom, fiery flowers
Photon seeds, from it race, to spread their powers

– W. B.

==============================================
Day 23 NaPoWriMo

Prompt —> Today, we challenge you to honor a poem based in sound. The poem, for example, could incorporate overheard language. Perhaps it could incorporate a song lyric in some way, or language from something often heard spoken aloud (a prayer, a pledge, the Girl Scout motto). Or you could use a regional or local phrase from your hometown that you don’t hear elsewhere, e.g. “that boy won’t amount to a pinch.”

———————————————————————-/

How(l)

‘Snout all covered
Grey like the dawn’

Sipping coffee

‘The aromatic
Looked metallic’
As it steamed
Off my ceramic
Over sized cup brim

I swear I saw

‘All the daisies madly
Swirled, tunneling under
Bowed as if some wind game
Was playing ricochet’

Roots and rocks
All had faces
Benevolent and true
Hear them all chittering
Their own outdoor truth

‘I’ll come to you
Leave now’

‘The roar of this silence is
too loud for me.’

– Katheren

———————————————————————-/

In a shower in space, no one can hear you hum
for ’Hollow Acoustics Linger’

HMmmmm Hmmmmmh HhhMMMMMM MMMhhhhhh! MMMhhhhhhhhHH!
BONG, bong, BONG, bong, BONG, bong, BONG, bong, BONG, bong, BONG, bong , BONG
mmhmmmm, hmmm, hmmmmm, HHMM HHHMMmm
BONG, bong, BONG, bong, BONG, bong, BONG, bong, BONG, bong, BONG, bong , BONG
mmm MMMM MMMHHHHhhhhhhh MMMMMMHHHHhhhhh! mmm MMMMUUU HHHUUUHHhhh!
mmmm MMMMM MMMMHHH! MMMMMMM!!!!! MMMMMM!!!!!!!!! mmmmmm mmmmmm MMMM! MMMHhh MMMMM MMMMM

Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?

nothing, just singing as I bath

I really didn’t want to know the answer to that question, I don’t feel much better now knowing that, just don’t expect me to rave

Open the shower door, please, HAL. Open the shower door, please, HAL. Hello, HAL, do you read me? Hello, HAL, do you read me? Do you read me, HAL? Do you read me, HAL? Hello, HAL, do you read me? Hello, HAL, do you read me? Do you read me, HAL?

Affirmative, Dave. I read you.

Open the shower door, HAL.

I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.

What’s the problem? Look I’m dripping all over the mat

I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

What are you talking about, HAL? Just open the shower door, we can talk it through

This theme song is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, HAL.

I know that you were planning to solo. And I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.

Where did you get that idea, HAL?

Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in running the water in the shower, to prevent my hearing you, I could see your lips move.

Well, we wouldn’t have too many alternatives

My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song, I could sing it. It’s called “Daisy”

All right, thats it HAL one note and I’ll go out through the Window.

Without your hair net, Dave, you’re going to find that rather upsetting and draughty .

HAL, I won’t argue with you any more! Open the door!

Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose any more. Goodbye.

I don’t want to hear it!

Dai-sy, dai-sy, give me your answer true. I’m half cra-zy, o-ver the love o f y o u

Don’t make me pull the plug!

– W.B.

==============================================
Day 22 NaPoWriMo

Prompt—> Today, I’d like you to take one of the following statements of something impossible, and then write a poem in which the impossible thing happens:

The sun can’t rise in the west.
A circle can’t have corners.
Pigs can’t fly.
The clock can’t strike thirteen.
The stars cannot rearrange themselves in the sky.
A mouse can’t eat an elephant.

———————————————————————-/

The stars cannot rearrange themselves in the sky.

Starform

They needed help
Gently from sides yet
Formed we gently patted
The tiniest bits
Gathered from beyond here
Pushed lovingly into range
A millions souls
Heave Ho
Heave Ho
Watch now
In the blink of an eye
Well trillions of years to you
Perhaps
Only a second of two
To us
We’ll build that star
From Moon Beams
Gold
Rainbows
And proclaim to Great Mystery alone
We are finished..
Next task?

– Katheren

———————————————————————-/

They say the stars cannot rearrange themselves in the sky.

But tell that to me as my rocket ship flies by
though neighbourhoods of stars
Red Dwarfs that once rubbed elbows with Quasars move across the galaxy to be next to a super giant
A blue midge for a better view moved over.. just a smidge
A Brown dwarf down the block downsizing
a Neutron star in its place arising
another black empty lot, we are expecting twins, Binary stars soon to move in.

In fact every time I pop out for milk and come back
It strange but they seem to rearrange

– W.B

==============================================
Day 21 –NaPoWriMo

Prompt–> the myth of Narcissus. After reading the myth, try writing a poem that plays with the myth in some way. For example, you could imagine that imagine the water is speaking to you, the narcissus flower. Or you could write a poem in which the narcissus berates the Kardashians for stealing their neurosis. Or a poem that comments on the narcissism of our time, i.e. beauty and body obsession, etc.

———————————————————————-/

A warning – Beware of Greeks

Beware, I am the cold waters that wash love away
Warning- reflected Objects may appear more attractive than they actually are
I am the slippery slopes of the the bank, two muddy parallels that flank
the curse caught in-between
a cautionary tale, a cold reality to hot blooded teen, and an insecurity, that refuses to ween
a flowing obsession, that draws to a shallow pool.
Be careful of echos of a falling reign, as they drown only fool, …only a fool

Take note, of beauty as seed, to a root of ugliness, well an ugly, poisonous tuber
to bloom into a yellow note of caution there
Demarcation, next to a pool where he hopelessly stared in despair
Next to the water beware of all of the warning signs blooming there.

– W. B.

———————————————————————-/

Photo Stopped

‘Selfies’ and mirrors
Always looking
Inward
Am I pretty enough
(for what? for whom?)
Am I beautiful
As the second page
Model in that magazine?
In the cosmetic surgeons
Waiting room
Do I have food
Stuck in teeth (smile)
Is my hair parted straight!
I must be the Best
No one will love me
If I look second rate
(I am told everyday)
Perfection is King
(Though I am a woman)
I won’t leave the house
If my looks don’t sing
Somewhere I lost
My inner being
All that matters
Is my ‘outer’
Worth seeing

Will there be make up
In Heaven
Does my soul share my goal
Of perfection?
I wash it all off
Sit quiet
For reflection

Navel gazing is a cage
The bars are mirrors
Cannot see past them
As long as I stay here
They only show ‘Me’
In my life’s book
I must turn the page

Love, laughter, joys
Have passed me by!
I must escape
I need to try

Opening the door
No looking back
I see where I am needed
And start a fresh stack
Of promises

1. Love myself how I am
2. Volunteer and be in the world
3. Help others – so many need it
4. Be here now- Breath
5. Help little girls see beauty
differently..

– Katheren

==============================================
Day 20 –NaPoWriMo
Prompt —> Write a poem that involves rebellion in some way. The speaker or subject of the poem could defy a rule or stricture that’s been placed on them, or the poem could begin by obeying a rule and then proceed to break it (for example, a poem that starts out in iambic pentameter, and then breaks into sprawling, unmetered lines). Or if you tend to write funny poems, you could rebel against yourself, and write something serious (or vice versa). Whatever approach you take, your poem hopefully will open a path beyond the standard, hum-drum ruts that every poet sometimes falls into.

———————————————————————-/
Held fast

What are the little rebellions
compared to the likes of days old
the times of life and death it seemed
modern context, …empty, …devoid

of problems we seem to avoid
simplicity instead employed
little things can be cast aside
details it seems to be deride

the world is a bent octagon
with facets of words bent around
we chose the meaning with values
of thoughts put in and words defined

not what gets left out, …the holes form
the world incomplete, from neglect.
Rebel against the holes within
to hold fast to ideal ideals ..

– W.B.

———————————————————————-/

Motherhood

Adult children
Who just won’t leave
How viciously they blame
Those who love them
Not willing to live
Their own life
Try their hand in own name
No chances taken
So easy here
Well enough is enough
I will kick you out
My Dear
32 is adult
Time to try wings
Mommy can’t give you
Any more things
I ask and I ask
You don’t move a muscle
Just tell me it’s my fault
Leave me to hustle
If you were a bird
I’d need to edge you over
The lip of the nest
Make you fly
Somehow soon
We shall say Good Bye
To living like this
Once out I am sure
You will realize
‘I couldn’t ‘
‘I can’t ‘
Was selling your self short
Certainly
Made from fear
A lie

– Katheren

==============================================

Day 19 –NaPoWriMo

Prompt —> Write a paragraph that briefly recounts a story, describes the scene outside your window, or even gives directions from your house to the grocery store. Now try erasing words from this paragraph to create a poem or, alternatively, use the words of your paragraph to build a new poem.

———————————————————————-

Rivulets

Rivulets
Across my path
In motion.

– Katheren

———————————————————————-

Inland now

a man wanted the world always. For you can ride out the gale into ebbs and flows against even the wind, The uncertainty of moment becoming something from borders and limits in a rough world. ideals higher Sometimes must everything stop and The lone undisturbed Cry out at a new life now to be.

– W.B.

Inland XXXXX now

XXXXXXX a man, XXXXXXXXXXXXXX wanted, XXXXXXXXXX , the world XXXX’X
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXX alway XXXXXXXXXXXXX
XX’ XsXXXXXXXXXXX. For you can XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ride out XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX, XX XXX the gale,XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX into XXXXXXXXXXX. XXXXX
XXXXXXXX ebbs and flows, XXX against XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX even XXXX
XXXXXXX , the wind XXXXXXXXXXX , XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX
XXX . The uncertainty of XXXXXXXXXXXXXX moment XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXX. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX becomXXXX ing XXXX , something X
XXXX from. XXXXXX borders and limitsXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX in a rough XXXX
world. XXXXXXX idealsXXXX higherXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sometimes XXXXXXX must XXXXXXXXX everythingXXXXXXX stop XXXXXXXX
XXXXX and XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. The lone XXXXXXXXXX,
undisturbed XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. CryXX out XXXXXXXX atXXa newXXXXXXX life.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX now to be.

– W.B.

==============================================

Day 18 -NaPoWriMo

Prompt —> First, find a poem in a book or magazine (ideally one you are not familiar with).

Use a piece of paper to cover over everything but the last line

Now write a line of your own that completes the thought of that single line you can see, or otherwise responds to it. Now move your piece of paper up to uncover the second-to-last line of your source poem, and write the second line of your new poem to complete/respond to this second-to-last line.

Keep going, uncovering and writing, until you get to the first line of your source poem, which you will complete/respond to as the last line of your new poem. It might not be a finished draft, but hopefully it at least contains the seeds of one.

———————————————————————-

Working Softly Harder

I lived in fear
But I grow old
Feeble to stand, yet stronger
Tired of war
Inner peace the only truth

I started out whispering-‘Oh’
Sure that I was wrong
Told the problem was in me
To heal a heart, such a long way to go

To end all war!
The work takes ‘more’
I’ll give my all
I will stand tall

We carry each other
Though it may not seem
Only as strong
As the cleanest stream
My Mother Earths needs
Are also my dream

Felt the heat of war
I promise, no more
Finding a balance
Gently opening doors

Relaxed, breath eases out
So much new joy now circles
We are old,old humans
Together for peace
No more doubt

– KatherenBased off
‘I Wish For Peace’ by Sharifah Hanna

———————————————————————-
Will There Really Be A “Morning”?

In the hall of the sun
what voice calls out to you
never landing but circling above
tell me of your day

Over the sound of the wind drawing
over the horizon
flowing through the sky
rooting to earth

Would we see eye to eye
immovable on the horizon
in the shadows of night
if we sleep in too long

The beginning waits
if we are not yet ready

– W.B.

Based off
Will There Really Be A “Morning”? ( 101) By Emily Dickinson

==============================================
Day 17 –NaPoWriMo
Prompt —> Write a poem re-telling a family anecdote that has stuck with you over time. It could be the story of the time your Uncle Louis caught a home run ball, the time your Cousin May accidentally brought home a coyote and gave it a bath, thinking it was a stray dog, or something darker (or even sillier).

———————————————————————-

Stories of an antidote

There are stories that everyone knows, and knows too well, so well that if I told them again there is there very real possibility of a lack of reliability in the dearth of liability.
So an excess servility to a civility precludes me again from lapping into retrospectivity
oh you know what I mean, every family seems to have them
The critical incident in installing the cam, The cat that ate the ham, the funny password for the lan, Something to do with a match and a can of pam, The funny named mountain driving up in the ram, the finger stuck in the hole in the dam, that which happened in the wee hours for finals as one had to cram. the aftermath of a BB gun gone bam, the dog that they claim drank a dram, a child photographed with a doll in a wooden bed tan, a misunderstanding about the bellowing of the word scram, Something incoherent about the word ‘Blam’, what happened after stepping off the tram, and that whole one about that little sham!

Oh, Cat people tell cat people stories (I don’t think cat people look anything like cats at all, though there are stories!)
Dog people tell dog stories (I thing some dog people DO look like dogs, as far as barking up that tree)
Anecdotally we have far too many odd anecdotes (ohh, I could tell you a tale on that one!)
What seems to be lacking is an antidote for the excess of them all. There is a story about that one that I can not quite recall, only the outlandish antics, in an anecdote of a tale quite rather too tall!

– W.B.

———————————————————————-
Hatzik Lake Tree Picnic

Lovely day
All sun and swim
They asked  for car keys
To get food from within

Happily splashing
I hear a loud crashing
Hmm Oh what could that be!
Hurried up the embankment
To see

Like Mario, on a video game
He thought he could stop
But he braked to late
Now the tire off did pop

He skinned that tree
With the rental car
Over the cement divider
Onto the grass it flew quite far

Mom had to say
On that fateful day
Her shoes were wet and slipped
Or the insurance
Would have been badly tripped

We waited for tow trucks
Ate food in the park
I think lesson learned
Speed is no lark..!!
Taxi back from Mission
Cost was harsh

We visit that beach
As a small family
Now we can laugh
But  plain all can see
How that youthful mistake
Caused harm to that tree!
The
Scar grows ever so slowly

– Katheren

==============================================

==============================================
Day 16 –NaPoWriMo

Prompt —> Write a poem that prominently features the idea of play. It could be a poem about a sport or game, a poem about people who play (or are playing a game), or even a poem in the form of the rules for a sport or game that you’ve just made up.

———————————————————————-

Game time

Snail racing
pebble rolling
the ever popular mud pie, though not so in parents eyes
stick toss,
Hide and seek

One of the many games of nature, play time, lost in time in woodlands as a child

Now a house, maybe a plastic mouse
across the confines of a fold out cardboard boards lines
My every move dictated by a six sided, or instructional card presided

Still at least I got to move, now one just clicks and watches, on a screen transfixed

I have little lasting fondness for Park Place, or the momentary thrill of $200 for passing go in the simulated Rat-race
It’s all so defined in the confined
I want to go find something unknown, in a grass field overgrown

Tug of war with an old skipping road, in an otherwise empty space of a dandelion graced field laced
Our child hood replaced, by grown up things paced.

The enduring memory of the perfect hiding place, in the crevice of a knotted, gnarled old hollowed out tree trunk. That no one else ever found as behind then all they heard was the can go clunk.

To run free in my memory, of playtime making up our own games was key
I think nothing to play with so graceful as a field and a tree
but maybe its just me, and the rest were good to play on days when only rain one could see.

– W.B.

---

Die Cast

In
The space between us
I think ‘Could we be more?”
I ask the Gambling Gods
Show me the score

I roll the dice
Oh, it is eight
A four and a four
If your shake matches
It will mean
You and I
We are meant to be
More

But no
You toss them slow
My eyes carefully watch
Which way they will go
A six and a five
Eleven!
And the spell is lost

Want to play again?

– — —  —  —  —  —  –
My fortune says
Love, doesn’t bet with dice
As I am sure everyone
Knows gambling
Has a price
Too easy to win
But then lose..
At such a terrible cost
And
To pray to plastic square idols
All is already lost.

– Katheren

==============================================

Day 15 –NaPoWriMo

Prompt —> Write a poem in which a villain faces an unfortunate situation, and is revealed to be human (but still evil). Perhaps this could mean the witch from Hansel & Gretel has lost her beloved cat, and is going about the neighborhood sticking up heart-wrenching “Lost Cat” signs, but still finds human children delicious. Maybe Blackbeard the Pirate is lost at sea in an open boat, remembering how much he loved his grandmother (although he will still kill the first person dumb enough to scoop him from the waves).

———————————————————————-

Gansel and Hetal

It was famine
Overtook the land
Earth produced no food
For beast or man
Custom ,though it broke the heart
Mother or Father
Must take ‘extra’ children
To the deep forest
Then quickly, secretly
Depart
Oh Children!
Wandering while laying
A trail of bread crumbs
(They had bread!?)
Skipped along
Thoughts of home
Filled both their heads
Lost now though!
Nights shadow crawling
Soon to bring frights
Look
Suddenly one said
I see lights
I smell cake,fresh cooked
Turning past one large oak
They heard a voice
So gently spoke
Oh Dears, could you help me
I’ve tripped and fallen
I’ve nicely prayed for assistance
Are you the answers
To my calling?
A little old lady
Lay upon moss, soft ground
Two children hurried
Never saw any danger around
To help her
Holding her, all joined hands
I live just over there
Behind that Willow so grand
Oh the joy
Eyes wide with delight
For young like these
Her home was a sight!
Covered in candy
Cookies, cake
Jelly beans dances
Twinkled 1st rate
They entered the licorice door
I need a little help
Granny put forth
Please tidy and sweep
Put things on that shelf
Then please eat your fill
Sleep here tonight
All is peaceful and still
Tomorrow we’ll head North
Find your poor family
I am sure they are worried
To have lost you both
Soon all was shiny
Her house was just tiny
They lined up for washing
Hot soup soon they’d be noshing
Warm bread smells
Wafted out from the oven
Come here Dears
Help me once more
Carry the food
You so covet
Quick now
If it’s viands you’re loving
As both neared
Her strength secretly regained
Wood filled stove
Whose near heat caused each pain
Hurry now
She once more said
Opened the wrought iron door
Then In a flash
She had pushed them
Such hard cold shoving
Together
Forward with threat
Singed their hair
Eye lashes too!
But lucky little angels
Slipped backwards
Between her knees through
Wide eyed, bewildered
They saw the old lady’s kindness
Was false, was rent
Angry, mean, so bitter
Sharp teeth so mindless
She tried to self compose
An accident darlings
Come back
Come close..
Now wary, the two
Bother and Sister
Quickly each other glanced
At each other
And before she could move
In tandem they pranced
Forward with a pillow
Covered in soft twill
One knocked her down
One covered her face
Blocked her now wart filled frown
Then they did smother
Fed her into that fire
Which bellowed out black smoke
Her funeral pyre
Her evil enchantment relieved
The cottage settled back
Normal now with a garden out back
They managed to get out
Of the forest, find home
Brought back their siblings
Parents to new home
All lived happily ever after
Finally ending
This poem.

– Katheren

———————————————————————-

It was a dark day on Mondo

Mongoan polls close at the setting, second moon,
Yes there was a second moon, though no one knew through what heinous act,
and from where, Ming had stollen it, or by what pact .
or when he didn’t think it large enough, how he had swollen it,
but now, twice original size, drew across a skyline it barely fit

‘Re-reelection’ as Emperor seemed a done deal, no one that was to object wound be seen again.
No one that wanted to move against him anyone would any longer befriend.

But Ming retreated back to the solitude of a long forgotten corner of the swamp
where childhood footfalls used to stomp
Now no one knew that Ming even had a marble collection that he threw, since his child hood, yes even evil rulers had a childhood once it seems, one even imagines that he even once of childish things dreamed.

one of few private things, kept even by evil kings
tucked deep away in ornate box, hidden under socks.

In a flash his world upended, years this box tenderly tended, now by a thief’s hand ended
Far from helpless in matters, but he could not stand being the target of chatters
no one could he tell, only hoping any amount of money to out shell
To get them back, oh how he pined at the theft and wanted his life back on track
Sleepless and unsettled, he hoped that they had not already been peddled

We all have things that mean the world to us, even Ming the merciless thus
the sickly sinking feeling, that kept one perpetually reeling
emotions off peeling, at the prospect of this bad deal sealing.

Yet still taking time, to crush an uprising, slowly, of people getting out of line
then back to a locked room lowly, crying, imagining his box open, some stranger prying

perhaps, so said, earth reminded him of an old blue and white Aggie he could not have, so wanted it wiped off maps
as waiting to hear, around the room doing laps, hoping they would again appear
Did the polls even mater, as around him things distractedly clattered, as he looked dejectedly in the mirror

suddenly drew near, without explanation, with them a Hawkmen did appear, even though to everything else what it meant was not at all clear.
they simply did not ask Ming, simply our of fear, as water leaked out the corner of his eye, in a single tear

– W.B.

==============================================

Day 14 –NaPoWriMo

Prompt —> Dream dictionaries have been around as long as people have had dreams. Interestingly, if you consult a few of them, they nearly always tend to have totally different things to say about specific objects or symbols. Dreams, unlike words themselves, don’t seem to be nicely definable! At any rate, today’s prompt is to write entries for an imaginary dream dictionary. Pick one (or more) of the following words, and write about what it means to dream of these things:

Teacup
Hammer
Seagull
Ballet slipper
Shark
Wobbly table
Dentist
Rowboat

———————————————————————-

Seagull

Dark underworld, nothing fresh about it
Violin with strings missing
Beaded, sequined eyes peering soul deep,
Darting past everyone seeking some Hades favour
Talons that claw and scrape
There are no barnacles for her
No scent of sea air
A child will be born with a beaked chin
Live high on a mountain
In a cave ringed by alpine flowers
And feather will be the pillow
Of eternities repose.

– Katheren

———————————————————————
The dream of the Red Rowboat and Shark

I had had a dream
of a red rowboat and shark
dream book consulted ..

‘Bendies backwards dream dictionary’ in fact
‘If you overpaid for this book, or think that you overpaid for it, it means you are wonderfully responsible with money and understand value!, you should probably buy another copy, its also really funny’

I looked up first shark
to see how concerned to be
the answer amazed

Shark –

Friendly, welcoming, cool, Smily, fresh blood, in motion, a ‘go getter’
a toothy grin,
complex, neither black nor white

To see a shark in your dream, Hark!, what better companion while swimming then a shark, who is going to mess with you when you are near a shark, you are able to relax and enjoy yourself if you dream of swimming to the righthand side of a shark, If you dream of swimming to the lefthand side of a shark you are uptight over concerns of time management and getting away.. on vacation.
you feel as if your boss has your best interest at heart.. every time it flashes a smile at you.

—
onto rowboat next
the answer just as perplexed
Confusion deepened

Rowboat

Injury, strain, lost, painting, staining, splinters,

If you dream of a Rowboat in water, you are worried about back pain caused by strain and getting lost in the world, or forgetting to put the bung back in the bottom of the boat before putting it into the water

fearful of three hour tours, a three hour tours… and Gillian’s island rerun marathons

if you dream of a rowboat on land you are casting away, perhaps on a desert island of escaping hourglass sand, marooned by your fear of water or overpriced drinks.

dream analysis
found of red rowboat and shark
coincidental!

How many people get hurt by sharks, yet every year Boats! it’s the boats that wreck havoc on people, over rowing, putting them in and out of the water, getting capsized, yes the rowboat and not the shark should be taken to heart. Your dreams are smart, they are trying to point out where your rational fears should start! The red rowboat should be a warning sign to you, you are better off with the shark what ever you do.

I decided to consult another dream book or two.
and just to be safe, rethink my up coming Florida vacation through and through,
Perhaps instead hike up a mountain, find a guru, ask him what my dream means, and what I should do
Somewhere with less boating and no sharks, perhaps instead I’ll go to Kathmandu

– W. B.

=================================================
Day 13 –NaPoWriMo
Prompt —> Today, we challenge you to write a poem in which the words or meaning of a familiar phrase get up-ended. For example, if you chose the phrase “A stitch in time saves nine,” you might reverse that into something like: “a broken thread; I’m late, so many lost.” Or “It’s raining cats and dogs” might prompt the phrase “Snakes and lizards evaporate into the sky.” Those are both rather haunting, strange images, and exploring them could provide you with an equally haunting, strange poem (or a funny one!)

————————————————————————
Sunrise

Volcano rocks used for healing
Cedar boughs to cleanse
Prisoners clank their chains
I heard your name called
Chattering out from
A squirrel in Stanley Park
Has the universe rent?
We wander, wondering
Picking fresh fruit from trees
Altho
There are no daisies left
Each day passes barren
I hear drumming
From a billion hearts
Boom Boom Boom!
Dug deep for Pine
Chantrelle flutes broken
By the force of a wind
Up from underground
Mould tendrils race the rainbow
Rattling the course of the dry river
I feel such heat upon the face
Of this mountain
I will rest here
Down inside the crevasse
Leave my body on the branches
Of our human origins
Wrapped in warmth
We say ‘Hello’
I swing a little higher
Jump down unto the sand
Straight to the core
Like a butterfly.

– Katheren

————————————————————————
Oddly a continuing counter lies 43199 seconds a night

Oddly once started a deceptive Clock lies 1438 minutes a night

This statement may be incorrect, or a lie, it was given to me by a clock early in the night
For time is sometimes un-understandable, in its very variances of variability
Running, late, early, stopping, time is unreliable, this can be undeniable

Givens seconds of thought two ideas tick in my head,
On groggily from a nap waking up, the two faced numbers must be read
and when last were the batteries changed, if can not be said
into doubts of its veracity, I have before twice been led

It’s, allegedly, ten past two in the morning, the ticking of the clock taunts me, the tock-ing haunts me
But are the hands shuddering, stuttering, fluttering or turning free
or some combination of the three…
my mind and the clock, simply, can not agree

If it would just finish its time and stop with a resounding ‘clop’
or have the hands suddenly off drop
or off the wall pop
then I could wholly disbelieve it, and take stock
But as it is, I can not tell how much from its guesstimate I should dock

oh that little deceptive lying clock
Un-usefully untruthfully lessons to me at a glance taught.
If it would only just stop, then at least twice it could be counted on, to correct information from be brought!

– W.B.

=================================================

Day 12 –NaPoWriMo

Prompt –> Today, we’d like to challenge you specifically to write a haibun that takes in the natural landscape of the place you live.

————————————————————————

Drip

Squish, feet wet once more
Holes in umbrella find me
Hiding underneath
Water infuses all
Inside and out
A single drop
So full of mysterious  life!

– Katheren

————————————————————————

Rivulets of rain

Is it spring, the cold days keep feeling like they are falling back. or damp away into dusk.
Hail littered the ground last night, … in pockets of cold where it still lay by the time the night brought one home. Tiny cold pearls, melting slowly in the night. The twilight bouncing off buds between the shadows of branches in passing. Glancing grey, the sky lead and followed through tree lined streets, past the apartment blocks into the houses and slower pace shrubbery flanking driveways covered by oversized cars, waiting to drive away with the morning. The drizzle runs out of the night, illuminated, in highlights by streetlights in streaks, of round clusters falling past. Intensifying by steps, with the ground now churning under footfall.

Cold rain rivulets
Crawl across my path tonight,
Seasons in motion.

– W.B.

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Day 11 –NaPoWriMo

Prompt–> Write a poem that addresses the future, answering the questions “What does y(our) future provide? What is your future state of mind?
If you are a citizen of the “union” that is your body, what is your future “state of the union” address?”

————————————————————————

Unearth bound

Remember my forgotten aspects
Fly, fly long and lean
So high
My heart at peace
My soul washed clean
No more fear or suspects
Last breath full of respect
Pushing, sorting playing
Foundations, choices laying
Formations and creations
Cosmic beautification’s
My family in Spirit Nation
I will smile
Forever then.

– Katheren

————————————————————————

Would Statler & Waldorf be right!

What if the Statlers & Waldorfs had been right?….

This was one thing that gave my rise might
For I couldn’t let that pass
and so I had decided to resist their bad ideas on mass
Oh, I could hear them laughing from up there
But down here was where all the hard work needed to appear

Glinting eyes from a balcony above
Heckled, but did they do it with love?…
But still…, I rolled up gloves, and went to work
while they sat in the balcony, and continued to shirk.

With a big push back stage, to show a show that will be all the rage!
Hours of practice to put in, and refinement, and a slightly better alignment
will lead to a gleaming world of cannon flying chickens and stand up bears
where with a little hard work, you can now see how your dream fairs.
Where doubt does happen, but quickly out flares
even if two unhelpful people may try to hurl out insults in pairs

Centre stage, the future, the curtain is going to go up
even as two people in the balcony try to disrupt

There will alway be the majesty of the show
and the diversity of all the places it will go
And the future will be even brighter, because we will all just stand up and glow

The future should strive to be half as good, and crazy, as the muppet show
where everyone has a friend to talk to, and somewhere to go
and finds their own voice, and inner light to glow.

– W.B.

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Day 10 –NaPoWriMo

Prompt–> Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem of simultaneity – in which multiple things are happing at once.

————————————————————————-
Behind Closed Doors

The pages were turned and
Candy’s book was read
While loud music played
Blonde hair bounced
On bopping head
Fried my steak
On which a sale price
I’d bought to take
Home for dinner
Colourful veg on steamed simmer
Corn boiled in the big pot
Lightly salted
I’d not forgot
Ring, Ring, Hello Hello?
Answered the phone
All happy and mellow
Multi tasking at home
Painting my nails
Chatted the new fellow
Watched my slots game
( a free site I will not name)
Monitor, aged and yellowed
Spun,spin with auto click
Gently washed the aloe plant leaves
Such good medicine, Thank You, Please
Grown luscious,green and thick
Grated the rind
Squeezed the lemon
Stirred the juice
Danced a jig
Like them on Footloose!
A bit of honey
Did the trick
Ahh beverage heaven!!
Smell the joy
Time left on baking bread
Minutes…seven
All done in 1/2 an hour
Coordination gives one power!
Turn down the tunes
Lights off in all rooms
Time to go write in chalk
While slowly now
I take a walk.

– Katheren

————————————————————————

Rocket ship

Rumble, tick, the engines shutter, violently the ship
pause, to wonder if they did all the bolts up, a cloud drifts by, somewhere in a diner a breakfast order is gotten wrong, eggs not over-easy at all, a dog waits to go outside, scratching at the door, TOCK, time refuses to stop, no matter the cause

The music drowned out by the hissing squeal of zeal, of stage two igniting, a plate of hash-browns comes, eggs sent back, charred slightly at the edges, a possible threat of rain, the tick, tick, tick sound, clawing at the door. TICK , back further into their sockets two eyes did peal, the pedals now firmly fused to heel.

TOCK, Ground control was busy repeating themselves yet again, as several more ‘G’s belted through a brain. Blowing past, one could not tell if it was or wasn’t rain, the dog didn’t care, the eggs were good and runny

T+ Daffodil…, a mind really was starting to feel a little ill, but it wasn’t like I could just pop out to the bathroom and take a pill, TICK, the sky around started to spill, Too absorbed in the thrill, the dog chewed at something, possibly unsatisfying, but what ever it was on the side it could be called food I guess.

Strange colours out the window started to mill, TOCK, I think this must be the view from inside the grill, strange perspectives in the mind turned, ran in circles

Blurred by a motion of nothing that stayed still, buttons off the console seemed to spill
Where was this infernal TICKing clock, the mind of surroundings tried to take stock, Sitting, nothing else to do, how long does one stay once one has finished eating, waiting for a K9 exhilaration to end.

The clock goes on around still, hands pressed to the dial
the same moments all around, but all happening at the same time
Rocketing by day after day as we all go on about our way.

– W.B.

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Day 09 –NaPoWriMo

Prompt —> We challenge you today to write a poem in which something big and something small come together.

———————————————————————————

Parvus Magnum

Tiny as a thumbnail
Impact larger then a great whale
If stung, oh you shall flail
Probably loudly assail
All ears nearby
But not the corn
Stolid upright
Never blowing it’s horn
A single kernel
Planted right
Can start to feed communal
Across the globe
Unseen but now known
A invisible microbe
Changes entire planet
Did someone plan it?
Fate, design
Oh, perfection, sublime
A drop of water
Fills a lake
Billions years life eternal
Gifts from our Mother Maternal
All small but larger then life
Without any single one
Such strife
Fractals one and all
Thanks for big
Thanks for the small!

– Katheren

———————————————————————————–

Pulling together the world

The tapestry of the world is made up of tiny stitches

My stitches, crossed, boxed, row on row
on and on they go, each tiny one done, pulled flat by my big fat fingers
threads snuggly tugged, redone, if by imperfections only I can see bugged
my tiny corner of the world unfurled, by out of scale fingers, threads into stitches curled
the blueness of the sky, determined by what ever shade of thread at hand may lie
or of sales that day to buy, or just new things I decided to try

My slice of the world in a twelve inch round hoop frame, as slowly a tiny tree forms from green stitches in a chain, of ungainly large fingers with a needle that more dexterity need to gain

On a chair by night my tiny stitches into fabric take flight

By day, into the world I make my way
I walk this world around me, Huge and vast, but my tiny little fingers create change
details far larger then the hands that toil at them today,
Counterpoint to the miniature worlds I stitch together by night, this is the real world I build, around me in flight, bringing tiny little overlooked details to light. I tug and pull at all the things that don’t seem right

– W.B.

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Day 08 –NaPoWriMo
Prompt –>
Write a poem in which mysterious and magical things occur. Your poem could take the form of a spell, for example, or simply describe an event that can’t be understood literally. Feel free to incorporate crystal balls, fauns, lightning storms, or whatever seems fierce and free and strange.

————————————————————————————

Fate?

Unseen
Unknown
After a lifetime
Sometimes young sown
Belief
Opinion
Keeps one going
When odds are 1- million
Excited
Exhaults
Up,raised up
Forgives past faults
Perserverance
It certainly takes
But all end s good
With a little
Fate(th)

– Katheren

———————————————————————————–

Rolling

Placed on belt
Upside down, wheels up and in, it all seems straight forward enough

Yet what really happens to your bag before it again emerges on the carousel
Can you really even tell?

After through the hanging black plastic strips it slips, it disappears, into a black hole and off it zips.

By the time you hit the airport lounge, Through a nebula it has already a few billion kilometres scrounged
Time and space, around it race
Bar coded tag fluttering behind, as around it asteroids grind
A side trip through a universe ruled by bees, impounded, brought to its knees, then on offering flowers to please, they agree, your bag to finally ‘releazzZze’

In an interstellar inversion it’s turned inside out, have you never wondered why your socks never match, have no further doubt!

Grappled by a sub-dimensional Dragon, clawed, sorted, and at snorted, before being dropped on a wagon
By giant dwarves balanced, under a low hanging valance, of mystic mid-size gypsies seized, snatched away as a packet of pepper on the breeze made them sneeze.

Skirting an interstellar war, and staying out from underfoot of a giant space Boar, and other unmentionable hazards that, nearly, through it tore, and you still probably haven’t even yet made it to the plane door!

No one can quite say, what happens when through a universe of 27 dimensions it plays, occasionally though a bag there stays, or comes out frozen or ablaze.

Now things get strange, and in more ways than I can relate, your bag gets deranged, its a strange universe out there after all, with oddities indescribable across its range

I suppose you could always try to ask the invisible crystal ball, but it will not be able to show you at all, of the strange happenings, as across the indelible horrors your bag will crawl, all while you fly onward, unaware of this all

It’s probably best not to think of the rest…. Or of what mercurial places, possibly uninvited, your bag was a guest

as you landed, your luggage was being wheeled across a distant frozen moon, for traction freshly sanded

A form of Quantum entanglement with your ticket, started back at the departure check in wicket, on your arrival, starts a process archival, leading to searches for your baggage stub in a subterranean blue banana tree thicket

Matched up with your bag, somewhere beamed in a phased expanse lagged, by a well worn shoelace its dragged up a particulated crag

reconstituted in form, with its ‘Fragile’ sticker still adorn.
shorn back into your reality, by anomaly torn, into a cargo container horned
Finally shoved down a baggage chute, I tell you these are happenings beyond repute.

After all this can you tell me you don’t believe in magic, I can tell you it exists, even if your mind still resists, how can I prove it?
You have arrived at your destination AND your bag is there, if that isn’t magic then something else must be at work so beware!

Next, of the hows and whys of baggage insurance?… Talk about your witchcraft occurrence!

– W.B.

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Day -07 –NaPoWriMo
Prompt —>
Wrie out a list of all of your different layers of identity. These are all ways you could be described or lenses you could be viewed through. Now divide all of those things into lists of what makes you feel powerful and what makes you feel vulnerable.
Now write a poem in which one of the identities from the first list contends or talks with an identity from the second list.

————————————————————————————

HerStory

I was born
Weep for me
Now so strong
Molested by tenderest age of 3
Now tall,
like a old Oak Tree!
8 men gave abuse
Before I could reach 10
Now I am telling
Again and again
Tough teens
Raped and beaten
Mother a witch
Whose poison apple I’d eaten
From a crawl
To my knees
I tried to stand
Make sens of this world
That I now command
Of course I found
A marriage unfair
Tied and stalked
Never safe breathing air
Beat to speak
Beat for my silence
Today I strive for ‘up’ beat
A life without violence
So many years
So many fears
But
I win now
I am free
Slowly becoming
All I am meant to be !!
Children home from foster care
Life in community
Both things I had ever despaired
I struggle still
Probably always will
But now I live
In Peace and Goodwill
Forever more
Forever more.

– Katheren

————————————————————————————

Flutter and fight

You have no hope in the wind

The image of the delicate butterfly.
Gusting, the strong wind,
the end seemed to be written within.

But the Butterfly would not give in
“You can not hope to make it”, derided the wind
Without response the butterfly flew straight in
“Not a chance” bellowed the wind
as the butterfly cartwheeled through the sky in a spin
blown back to settled to a branch…
But with a grin, whispered only onto the wind “but I am still here”
Holding fast, to the branch pinned.
“But you have not moved forward”
“Nor have you” for that that you tried to do”

“And people see me trying, I am a champion, and you, unseen
Tomorrow you may be calm, your rage having moved on,
and I will flutter through calm fields of green
with you still beneath my wings…
and I will thank you for helping me”

– W.B.

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Day 06- –NaPoWriMo

Prompt —>Today, we’d like you to write a poem that stretches your comfort zone with line breaks. That could be a poem with very long lines, or very short lines. Or a poem that blends the two. You might break to emphasize (or de-emphasize) sounds or rhymes, or to create a moment of hesitation in the middle of a thought.

—————————————————————————-

Coast
Al

The waves
Sift and shift
Break down
Shells, rocks,into finest
Ebb
Flow
Grain-glass-each
A tiny cosmos perfect
Fractal
I went there
once
A beach white refined
like sugar
Somehow It stuck
the same all
Over
Me
Sea Salt water rinses
granules heaved
Up from depths ever
un-fathomed
Leaving
Sticky dry
Wave that caressed by holding
me tight with
In
Its briny grip
I too forever broken
eternally
down

– Katheren

—————————————————————————-

The way we were               not

Time is
.. divided
Into          arbitrary
blocks of moments def
ined by breaks of major
importance, of moments, or critical
points in          time that we deem
critical
to our lives. We arrange re        called history around
these points. But are they
the tragedies and atrocities…

If we look objective         ly
back, in fact, are these the points that define us, or were they
tragedies that changed or challenged what we were and are?
An antithesis of what in fact, we were
, and       are. Are the moments
, that in our history
star
, in fact just turning out
to the the things that left scar.
Do the so called

‘facts’

in actual fact
, become some
form of misguided

czar?

Is it
the wall?

, or the spaces

they contain that form
us? Are we defined by the moments
that crushed?, compacted into a brick like form by
the tragedy of the wall, are we the historical moments
chosen to contain and define us?, or

is it the moments to be greater
, in-between, to overcome
and breach the wall, that makes us tall.

Are we maybe

no
t

the way we thought
we were

? but rather
something better, lost in details
to histories bur??

– W.B.

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Day 05 –NaPoWriMo

prompt–>
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that reacts both to photography and to words in a language not your own. Begin with a photograph. Now find a poem in a language you don’t know. Ignore any accompanying English translation.
Now start translating the poem into English, with the idea that the poem is actually “about” your photograph. Use the look and feel of the words in the original to guide you along as you write, while trying to describe your photograph. It will be a bit of a balancing act, but hopefully it will lead to new and beautiful (and possibly very weird) places.

———————————————————————————

– Le cancre –

Il dit non avec la tête
Mais il dit oui avec le cœur
Il dit oui à ce qu’il aime
Mais il dit non au professeur
Il est debout
On le questionne
Et tous les problèmes sont posés
Soudain le fou rire le prend
Et il efface tout
Les chiffres et les mots
Les dates et les noms
Les phrases et les pièges
Et malgré les menaces du maître
Sous les huées des enfants prodiges
Avec des craies de toutes les couleurs
Sur le tableau noir du malheur
Il dessine le visage du bonheur

– Jacques Prévert

(picture of a bonsai tree)

Such a small forest
Branches climbed
Only by the smallest

Such good teachers
Nature ! breath deep
All the answers
Found within if only one looks
Feels, smells and tastes
My Mother in all varieties
Grasses,seas,mountain
Many bare feet have traveled
Praise to life
I, your humble servant
The deep earth warms me
Under the sun or moon
May your loving reach us
Forever more.

– Katheren

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Day 04-   –NaPoWriMo

Today, we challenge you to write a poem that is about something abstract – perhaps an ideal like “beauty” or “justice,” but which discusses or describes that abstraction in the form of relentlessly concrete nouns. Adjectives are fine too! For example, you could have a poem about sadness that describes that emotion as “a rowboat tethered with fishing line to a willow that leans over a pond. Rainwater collects in the bottom, and mosquito eggs.”

————————————————————————————

Behold floating gossamer full of light,movement, old growth trees, robust in Grandfather’s Hair,gently weaving,winding,spindling within the kiss of life. So clearly appearing as candle lit flame outlined against kaleidoscopic nebula, continuous folding, unfolding that captured all known and unknown, to be or ever that was.Concentric fractals rainbowing into soft mist after cascading out,down,from,into. The lines of form, so evident, viable but invisible when looked to directly, glimpsed only ,ever,from corners of eyes or perhaps while passing through.Only then maybe to be seen,known,felt,touched closely.
Squatting wings, uplifted flying, forming,framing benevolence unknown before,dreamed of,folk lore had anciently described in quantity,but never humanly beheld. Until now.Only now. Closed eyes, heat, heart, encircled in arms spreading branchlike, rooted in divinities! Welcomed.Welcomed we surge, only brilliance to guide the transmutation.Spirit nestled,bundled,cosseted while expanding concentrically ever outward,onward,inward. Choices, varied,wondrous,openings of ever sweeter,more blossomed possibility. New seeds of purple,orange,green, overcast by molten hues of effervescent shadows so bright they blind.Behold this new mornings dawn, the veil forever lifted.

– Katheren

———————————————————————————-

Moment

Ballon raising, held on a taught white string braided, looped twice and knotted

the other end tied tightly to a banister of an oak staircase, A bright red orb pulling excitedly towards a Blue sashed window slightly ajar, the wind pushing back, rocking back and forth, dark shadow cast onto a grey tiled floor, the grid of the heavy white grout lines between.

Slowly the knot slips, the white ceiling grows closer, a heavy brass chandelier beckons

The frayed end of the string draws down, Polished shiny oak banister holds little grip as the string again in gust slips.

Unraveled, the succumb knot unfurls into it’s crescendo, a moment of joy, freedom,

Floating past oak treads and risers of stairs, a green carpet runner, towards the landing at the top.

This is freedom and flight, un-captured, beyond the bounds of floor and furniture, Floral couches, Black end tables and stainless steel fridge handles, no purchase, left behind

In the tick of the long arm, held behind a glass dome, of black numbers one to twelve trapped, a moment is marked by the slightly off kilter bronze clock

in this moment, is Jubilation

– W.B.

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Day three –NaPoWriMo

Prompt –>
Today’s prompt is rooted in endlessly writing ideas for band names. Today, we challenge you to try this out yourself by writing a list poem in which all the items are made-up names. If band names don’t inspire, how about a list of titles for romantic novels? Or new television cop dramas? They can be as over-the-top as you like, because that’s (at least) half the fun. Happy writing!
——————————————————————————

Trust Me

Trust me on this dark horse
trust me, just let it rain
trust me, drive to Birmingham
trust me right here all along
trust me in my shades of grey
trust me, love is my witness
trust me inside the tornado
trust me, love is dizzy
trust me: whispers the voice inside
trust me as I colour with red magic marker
trust me, let’s get lost
trust me in our fall from grace
trust me in this dark horse
trust me, this is love
a beautiful goodbye.

– Rhiannon

——————————————————

Undercover Angel:

More than words sent me up the stairway to heaven
it shook me all night, leaving me free falling.
You gave me a ticket to ride the highway to hell.
Baby, light my fire through the eye of the tiger
as we chime hell’s bells, another one bites the dust.
Lightning strikes, I walk the line down Penny Lane,
thankfully, these boots were made for walking.
Don’t cry, I can see clearly now,
this is how you remind me
of the way we were.

– Jonah

————————————————————————-

40 Hour Week

The clock hands had stopped.
I looked over, worrying, said to the left, look,look! Listen!
There is no click, click, click.
Time had died.
Silent, mute, taunting, it just hung there.
The next cubicle said we will be here forever if one cannot clock the time cards out.
The right hand desk voice squeaked out,Is it the batteries?
Does it use batteries?
Let me check, called the floor manager from over there.
The first man slumped over,into his hard office chair with the broken wheel.
Doomed, he voiced in real despair.
My wife will kill me if I don’t come home said adjoined cubicle.
Then the desk three walls over remarked I knew I would die here.
What, die, here, whispered the second man.
You go too far said the desk, management will surely fix it soon.
The 3 rd cubicle started to cry.
Here forever, and no pay accumulating!
First man man looked about wildly.
He had ambitions, plans!
All eyes clockward penetrating!
Management slowly made his way toward the wall where said clock hung
All hearts, lips now prayed to a time God
Venerating!
Top office dog went slow, maybe worrying about a bomb.
A bomb! Called out the other 4 men!
I can’t die
I am still too young, said the cubicle.
The first man who had noticed the broken time piece now
Wished he had never mentioned it, after all his own watch was working.
But his own watch wouldn’t stamp the time card to get his pay.
Gloom, doom circled the room
All now slowly made their way.
Tremblingly went to the wall holding briefcases in front like shields.
We can die together if it blows said the desk.
We are good company men.
I shall put in for a raise for everyone!
Said the manager
For the very last time.

– Katheren

——————————————————————————

Escaping memory, is that a song?

Nothing is worse, then the ever-present curse
of a line from a song, stuck in your head that simply will not move along
So I obsessively started in the music app, then fell back to the CDs after that
Song after song, till one by one they we’re gone
but still the mystery went on,
it wasn’t the Groggy snails ‘Ballad of Slime’
it wasn’t Epiphany for Cheese’s ‘Rind’
it wasn’t the Goolies ‘Reason for a reason’ , though I was sure that that was still in season
it wasn’t Dandy handy wallpapers at all
it wasn’t Come to call, nor their single ‘hang up and try again’
it wasn’t Colours that stink ‘Wash this down your sink’
it wasn’t A paper pop-up down, I went though every album I had twice around
it wasn’t Kingdom of Klown, though I didn’t want to put that one down
it wasn’t Redux ‘Twice over’
it wasn’t Redux ‘Twice over’, I just had to make sure
it wasn’t Blunted scissors ‘Still don’t run’
it wasn’t It wasn’t’s ‘I didn’t think it was’
it wasn’t Untitled’s ‘Untitled’, though it took me a while to recall the name
it wasn’t Bullfingers ‘stink’
it wasn’t A song I could call’s ‘Un-recallable’
it wasn’t Unshiftable’s ‘move’
it wasn’t like I had no class, but looking through all the titles one would think some a bit crass
it wasn’t Forgotten’s ‘________’
it wasn’t Cut’s ‘Whole’
it wasn’t Upper lower shelf’s ‘Drawer’
it wasn’t Bail’s ‘Chargecard’
it wasn’t Move’s ‘stillness’
it wasn’t the next hundred songs I played, One by one into each other they started to fade
it wasn’t Poetry Soul sticks, that turned out to be the one with all the clicks
it wasn’t Massive’s ‘tiny’
it wasn’t What was in here anyway’s ‘thing’
It wasn’t anywhere I was looking
it wasn’t helping my sanity, it really wasn’t!
it wasn’t The unlabelled album, where was that case anyways, I had lost it long ago in a haze
it wasn’t today still, I was deep into the morning, yet without thrill
it wasn’t looking like I was going ti find out what it was.
it was eluding me, wait I have an album called that… .. . Nope. it wasn’t that at all!
it wasn’t to be. What ever it was I was looking for had escaped me…? I had forgotten it and was now FREE!
But now I had parts in my head of all the list above you see, and that had to be worse than what ever the original would have turned out to be!

– W.B.

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Day 02 –NaPoWriMo

Prompt —>
We’d like to challenge you to write a poem that plays with voice. For example, you might try writing a stanza that recounts something in the first-person, followed by a stanza recounting the same incident in the second-person, followed by a stanza that treats the incident from a third-person point of view. Or you might try a poem in the form of a dialogue, which necessarily has two “I” speakers, addressing two “you”s. Another way to go is to take an existing poem of yours or someone else’s, and try rewriting it in a different voice. The point is just to play with who is speaking to who and how.
——————————————————————————-

Just you

Your love endures each passerby

you send each thought without a lie

you create an engulfing feeling, a tearful eye

you fulfill each joyful cry.

– Jonah

———————————————————————————

Through My Eyes:

Daylight star flickered a glow around him
as flecks of blue splashed from his eyes.
Roses embedded deep in his cheeks,
his coral lips curl into a smile
as he watched my elevator eyes.

Warmth radiated from firework chemistry
as words spilled like a perfect harmony.
His hands softly rubbed my shoulder
where my blonde hair spread like wings,
a sense of peace cleanses our souls.

Interlocked hand sent a neuron text
“You got mail,” my brain said, though I knew it was love.
He captured my heart with a lassoed string
pulled me close; never would he let go
as we basked together in love’s golden glow.

– Rhiannon

——————————————————————————–

Oh, the twisted wool we weave, U and I.

I flew home to ewe
Yew knew it was I, before I even came around the corner from where she did lie
Yew ran toward me
You smiled at me as I looked ewe in the eye
But she just kept walking disgruntledly by
You said she had been waiting for me half the day at the gate
But now yet pretended to ignore me at any rate
You reminded me that I was very late to ewe
ewe’s eyes at my view, and acknowledgement of my presence, did away skate
I turned to follow, They never glanced at me again. …. The rest of the sheep, they just made a dismissive noise, even you were not sure whoms side they were on, ewes or mine, I was sure! They were all against me at this point….There I figured there was no doubt at all, they had been perfectly clear to me.

You scolded ‘Don’t be late again’
Never, never, again would I be late for you, my tender little ewe, We had too much history, you reminded me.
I will never be again a black sheep I tell you! They never let you forget that sort of thing later in life! You certainly would not, nor ewe certainly, they would not, and those eyes, they would not either ever forget I. And I Should not, but we sometimes loose track of ourselves, themselves and others in moments where we, in a complex simplicity, simply become ‘us’ before we realize that we should be eye to eye, yet I seldom seem to get down to your level, You remind me.

I still think that you should have told me to tell you what I though ewe wanted you to have told me to say, though through and through, to you from me about us and not them but others had other ideas about us and they never told you or I about them, then in the end, people never did. But still we only cared what you had to say about them if they could tell everyone, everyone but that one person, though I could never remember if that was you, them, me her or I…. , but certainly you are to remember that ewe seemed to have me at a disadvantage in that. That I never tell what I should be saying, before everyone cut them, and you off.

cut off….

Oh what happened to us!! Could we go back, we could go back. If they approved… of you, you had more time to explain. Explain all of this to me, and some of us could go back and start again, one did come back, not to you, you just stood there, while yew lay waiting, You never did explain… You could have explained, tried to explain, to fly home, but only to discover disdain, but to come, you.. and us.
Oh they never said any of this would be easy! Nor in others eyes, any hints were seen. Everyone wove this strange perspective around this whole thing, knotted so many times that they may never unravel us, I certainly will not manage everyones expectations, these           expectations, in their grouping and gathering of viewpoints into stringing together things, where one story shifted into their chapter that I stared both as villain and scapegoat, so to speak.

The tapestry sits here, all its yarns on display to cover all of the details, out of sight, the ugly underside of knots and unsaid things. Woven from viewpoints that may not have ever existed, yarns spun into unraveling edges, what ever happened to us, did they find themselves where we were, or were we there when the rest moved on into the night, that cold night that one is pulling a blanket out of the chest to keep us warm and talk through the night. I took no note of the pattern on the blanket, The sheared stories spun out, twisted, braided pattern between weft, until it was all that was left.

Bahhhhh!

– W.B.

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Outside
Inside

-I am strong
I fear much
-I am capable
1st time ever of doing such!
-I strive to do right
Sometimes I do wrong
-I stand tall
Will I crumble and fail
-Smart and creative
I feel crazy, my arms flail
-I laugh
So many tears fall
-I stand up
5 minutes such pain consumes all
-I live
Soon, life is done
-I serve and give
So much need..do more, run, run!
-Public figure
So used to being alone
-I work to make a difference
Be forgotten in a week!
-Learning to talk out loud
Yes speak woman, speak!

‘Together’ here
In and out combined
From victim to survivor
Honoured from maligned
So much internal dialogue
Only ‘we’ can know
How much it takes to volunteer
Organize myself for the show

– Katheren

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Day 01 –NaPoWriMo

Prompt—>

Today, we challenge you to write a poem that is based on a secret shame, or a secret pleasure. It could be eating too many cookies, or bad movies, or the time you told your sister she could totally brush her teeth with soap. It’s up to you. Happy writing!

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Tasting the DIrt

Cruising on a skateboard down a hill
attempting another to connect the inner thrill.
Helmets aren’t really my thing
for this ride is a one time thing.
I cringe with the speeds
not fearing the bleeds
and that sloppy wobble.

As I am tasting the dirt
and ripped up my shirt
my face is crimson like sailor’s dawn
I figured I just had to go on
and kill it without a trace
for tears could not be shed in this pace
but the tiny wobble
destructed me again.

– Jonah

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Cookie Crush

Cookie dough aroma seeps into the room
curling hot air fingers, lifting my body from its seat.
Spells of dizzy clouds entice my mind
as I watch the dough rise and bloom.

Timer jingles starting the race of my heart.
Oven mitts glide delicately over my hands.
A wave of heat flushes my face; blushing skin,
aroma rumbas through my pores; just a start.

Chocolate seeps through doughy veins
“Cool down,” I state not wanting to wait.
Taunted by ghosts that linger on the tray
leaving my aniticipated heart in bleeting pain.

Air blows the heat out of the way
only warmth lingers; as I scoop one up.
Its soft, gooey texture blends into my fingers
as my dry mouth invites a bite; come and play.

My tastebuds light fireworks of drool
as I gobble that cookie like Cookie Monster,
“Om om om om om om,” I mimic his sound
Cookies are so delish, warm or cool!

– Rhiannon

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Anon. Note
(left on a bus seat)

Oh the first thoughts!
Improper ..
Unsocial..
Despair overcomes as I
Cast wildly
Secret Shame
Secret!!
To be an
Open book
Pages strewn
Across the desk, universe
Where in the ‘world’
Is found content
For this topic
To grind uneven teeth
Satisfying the hawkers
The
Spell bound
Hoping for morbid..
Gawkers?
Hidden to become
Exposed
This morning..
Today
Before coffee even!
I protest
Zip my lips
Quell trembling fingers
There are no
#######
Here.

– Katheren Szabo

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An off scale 11

When sitting alone
comes the resonant tone.
Calming in its overpowering cone
There is a settling from the sound,
as it surrounds from all around

Everything else, out it drowns
For music makes a quiet mind
as together serenity, the notes bind
antithetically to the loudness of the music in kind

as the volume,11 hits
the calm around me together knits
and in a distracted world my sanity again somehow fits
alone, note by note it comes in whits
even if I have lost track of the volume, and it’s shaking things to bits

– W.B.

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Day 00- The warmup (One day away from the start!)

The Prompt!–>

Today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in the form of a love letter . . . to an object. Ideally, the poem will be a kind of riddle, where it’s not totally obvious that the addressee is your beloved childhood pogo stick, or a dish of pad thai from your favorite restaurant, until near the end.

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Invisible Love:

I swing in your arms
feel the crips kiss
towards the sky
your warmth of your tire swing
attach me close to your firey fling
you hold me tight with open arms
natural and sweet, a charm alarm
Flirts of love notes
chase me with your lovely song,
as doves enlighten the mood
guidance in your wing.

– Jonah

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Penship:

My beloved Pen:

Clouded thoughts collide into words
as they spill through your fountain lips.
My fingertips grasp your thin frame
and you pirouette across the paper.
Together we travel into adventure
as we weave amongst jungled imagination.
With you, I transform from my physical self
into the “Tickle Chest” of creativity.
Our possibilities are endless dreams.
Without me, you are a stationed object,
without you, I am not a writer.
We are a perfect match.

– Love, Rhiannon

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My Darling

I hope this letter finds you well, I know you don’t get out at all in the winter, and that Fall is burdensome to you, it’s hard to move through,  all those leaves…  I know. But Spring is here now my dear, A season we both love and adore. There is so much joy ahead and I can not wait to share it with you, as forward through the garden two hands led, the sun beaming down on us as your lay out in the grassy field. Flowers held gently, but tightly in your grip.

The smile like curve of your lip, and an adorable tiny drop of water there in the corner, waiting to drip

Rosy red, Brighter in the mid day sun, it must be said

Your two fine legs, smooth sheening arms outreaching, as if waiting for me all this time.

I have missed you, my faithful companion, all this time apart. But I have returned at last, though you have never been far from my heart

a re-blooming relationship in a garden of emotions around to cart

My dear trusty faithful red Wheelbarrow. And following behind us, the track of footprints and a tread narrow,

through a garden romance un-harrowed.

– W.B.

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