our lives unfold moment by moment by moment though we try to clump them together into years and weeks and minute-by-minute or compartmentalize them into home and work and hobby and now and then and now-and-then and maybe it helps to think there is some underlying structure to it all since otherwise we are like untethered balloons caught up in an errant breeze that pulls us right past the delineations of time and titles and self-imposed strictures and how would we ever manage to define ourselves if we just let life unfold moment by moment by moment
Unfolding like spring itself, phacelia morphs from ram’s horn to barbed-tailed scorpion to cat’s tail curled at the end in a wary twitch.
Anomalous to neighboring bright-faced poppies and asters, unpretentious in muted greens and beige, she nonetheless shimmers with foraging bumblebees; nature’s cornucopia.
It’s my first excursion in my newly acquired camper van. I drive from city freeways to arterial roads to country roads to the vague essence of roads in middle-of-nowhere eastern Oregon.
I remember driving roads like this in my younger years, in a handpainted red Dodge pickup, where I sometimes had to hop out of the cab, raise the hood and shove a rod back in place so I could shift out of neutral. A simpler time, a simpler vehicle.
When oncoming drivers begin raising a hand in casual greeting as they pass, I remember this neighborly act from my small-town upbringing. Though the van and the road are new to me, I recognize this pace, this sense of community and commonality.
On reaching my campsite, I rest easy in the stillness and reminisce about times past when ruts and potholes preceded speed bumps, and when drivers raised more than just one finger to one another in common salutation.
There is nothing new under sun or stars, so bleak a plight we dread to admit as much. Life’s meaning now on apathy depends; and even that we can scarcely rely upon.
A rose is a rose is a rose, especially if that rose is red, primary on the color wheel, predictable on barn or barrow.
You see it in our eyes, glazed over and toneless and done with useless tears. Instead, we let rain track our cheeks in sham rills of water.
There’s nothing to do now but sit beside old memories: books with cracked spines, the way new snow once appeared impossibly white, and the cackled surprise of egg-laying chickens.
*Choose a line from a poem that resonates with you. *Build your poem so each line ends with a word from that line. *Keep the words in order, forming the original line down the right margin. *Let your poem move in its own direction. Surprise us! *Include attribution (after [poet])
The poem I chose was The Red WheelBarrow by William Carlos Williams. Since there are only sixteen words in the poem, I used the entire poem to form my own.
The Red Wheelbarrow, by William Carlos Williams*
so much depends upon
a red wheel barrow
glazed with rain water
beside the white chickens
*Source: The Collected Poems: Volume I 1909-1939 (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1938)
Victoria Chang’s poem, “The Lovers,” is short and somewhat shocking, bringing us quickly from a near-hallucinatory descriptive statement to a strange sort of question, before ending on the very direct statement of a “truth.” Six lines, three sentences, and to top it off, a title that I think works for the poem but is only obliquely related to its text. Today, try writing a poem that follows the same beats: three sentences, six lines: statement, question, conclusion.
Day Twenty-Seven prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: Start by reading Robert Fillman’s poem, “There should always be two.” Now, write your own poem in which all the verses contain the same number of lines (whether couplets, triplets, quatrains, etc.) and in which you give the reader instructions of some kind.
It's time, my little raised bed garden. This is the year I’ll plant the seeds, and you will have them grow a copious crop of carrots, peas and such as I have yet to determine.
No more a fallow field of failed fecundity, unfilled, unfulfilled… fill in the blanks. In fairness, also faultless, as it was I who – in seasons past – failed to plant the seeds.
A battlefield devoid of bullets. I did not engage the enemy weeds. No tanks rolled in to claim the ground, no trenches dug to shelter in. I fled, falling, failing, foiled, felled… so many four-letter f-words can apply.
A shallow grave without a body, living or dead. Unsullied by shovels, spared of spades that may have turned up sweet surprises, or skeletons with bleached, broken bones and smiling skulls.
But not this year! This year I will quell the weeds, plant the seeds, and watch my raised bed garden grow.
Day Twenty-Five prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: write a poem in which you use at least three metaphors for a single thing, include an exclamation, ruminate on the definition of a word, and come back in the closing line to the image or idea with which you opened the poem.
I didn’t ruminate on definitions, I suppose, but I had fun playing with words!
Gerard Sekoto, Police Man on a White Horse in the Fields (1959)
Some days you’re there, but maybe not. Part way there and part way... where? How does one choose which parts to bring along on any given day?
Some days you see things that may or may not be what you see.
Some days the only thing that matters is that the horse you are riding has all four feet and seems to know where he is headed.
dVerse Poetics prompt: Exploring the Art of Gerard Sekoto.
For today’s Poetics prompt, Melissa challenges us to “choose one of the paintings featured in [today’s dVerse] post and base your poem on it. Write whatever comes to mind as you explore the colors and images of the painting. Please let us know in your post which painting you’ve chosen and credit the artist.”
I chose the painting featured above, “Policeman on a White Horse in the Fields” by Gerard Sekoto (1959). Thank you, Melissa, for the prompt.
What Rhymes with Stanza? 