Tag Archives: poetry

Change is Afoot; Change is Ahead

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sunrise-manifestation

Two years ago I began a blog about my favorite pastime, stained glass. In my first post, I indicated that the blog, Glass Manifestations, would be about:

“glass (sort of) because working with glass is how I do a lot of my processing (thoughts, feelings, ideas, inspirations…), and hence a lot of my thoughts, feelings and ideas are made manifest in my art. But… also about insight and growth, in the hope that what I manifest tomorrow, or next week or next year – in life as well as in glass – will continue to improve. In quality, in meaningfulness, and in pure, simple pleasure.”

A month into the blog, I signed up for a WordPress Blogging U course on writing poetry. With the very first assignment, I realized that my poetry attempts might not fit into my Glass blog theme of insight and growth and meaningfulness.

Nope. That first poem was about leaky water faucets and dental floss. I decided I needed a different venue where I could express those random, ridiculous and totally irrelevant thoughts that obviously didn’t get the “meaningfulness” memo. Hence, What Rhymes with Stanza came into being.

water bowl

In the two years since, my Stanza blog has grown and expanded beyond poetry to where now I express my random, silly and possibly meaningful thoughts through photography, prose, embellished conversations amongst animals, and sometimes art.

The Glass blog, in the meantime, just wasn’t as fun a place to hang out for me. And so the blog languished in neglect.

With the new year, I’ve done a bit of reassessing about my blogs and have decided to combine the two, moving some of the material from the withering glass blog over to this site. Hopefully that will occur seamlessly and behind the scene, so long as I don’t confuse the export/import process with the reblog function. (If you see fifty new posts from me in a single day, you’ll know I failed.)

chickens

This blog-meld won’t change the Stanza site to any significant degree. You’ll likely see more posts about stained glass and art, and I’ve added a gallery of my glass work for those of you who care to look. Other than that, you can expect my usual deep and evocative take on what chickens discuss when no one else is around, fascinating tips on how not to handle home improvement projects, copious photos of my pets, and maybe even a poem or two.

hammer

I’m looking forward to a fun, random, insightful, meaningful year! I hope you stick around to share it with me.

Look What I Found!

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IMG_0095

This week’s Discover Challenge at The Daily Post asks us to look back at our blog posts for this past year and find a way to build on or synthesize our best work of 2016.

My best work? Well, having only managed a single post for most of the months this year, the “best” of it becomes a rather short list. Nonetheless, I’ve taken on the challenge of using lines from previous posts to create a “found poem.” Here it is:

Glass Scraps

Things aren’t always what they seem.
You can’t sleep on glass, you know.
Does it matter what smashed it?
I really don’t know how it feels to sleep in a ditch,
having never done so. That I recall.

Chewing on lead… bad idea.
What? You think?
Tell that to your Scrabble companions!

Stuff seems to seek us out at every port,
clinging to us like barnacles on a boat.
Take hostas for example. You know,
those green leafy plants that don’t look like ferns.
They do have a certain je ne sais quoi about them, no?
Or maybe a coagulation of gunked up motor oil
stuck to the floor of a mechanic’s garage.
You know how that is, right?

I never goosed anything, quantum or otherwise.
Since I’m too impatient to do all of that,
that session was cut short once the rock shrapnel
began pummeling the inside lining of my kiln.
Okay, I made that last part up.
This is starting to sound like that twine theory stuff.
Much better than the exploding rock episode.

So what is the significance of all of this?
If you can’t stand the heat,
don’t touch the tip of the soldering iron.
But where’s the fun in that?

If Dart has instilled in you a crippling fear of Tiffany lamp shades,
and since that seemed boring as all get out –
well… his work here is done.

The Daily Post’s Discover Challenge: Retrospective

On the Cusp

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lines

As one year ends and another queues up for its grand opening, we sometimes find ourselves pin-balling from remembrances of the year(s) gone by, to plans and hopes and dreams for the year(s) ahead. For now I’m indulging myself in parsing the 2016 posts I wrote for the What Rhymes with Stanza blog. Planning for next year’s posts will come soon enough.

Yesterday, I posted a retrospect of 2016 using photos I’d taken throughout the year. Today, I’m taking on a suggestion from The Daily Post’s Discover Challenge which also relates to looking back over the past years’ worth of blogging, only this time with words.

One of the ideas presented in the Challenge was to write a “found poem” using lines from past posts. I’ve only attempted a found poem once before, and determined that it would have perhaps best remained lost.

But, hey… I’ll try anything twice. Hence, a “remix” of some lines taken from poems I wrote in 2016:

On the Cusp

With each passing day the past grows ever longer
even though we already cannot fathom its span.
History will always be defined by the lens
through which each one of us perceives.

You can’t get to where you’re going
until you’ve come from where you came.
It takes but one misstep to reset trajectory.

With each dawning day the present forgives us and
offers a clean slate to create what we choose.
Actions speak louder than words.
Non-action can speak just as loudly.

Leap, simply because you can.

The Daily Post Discover Challenge: Retrospective

at the very least

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kindness

One ring,
two Chinese characters,
how many meanings?

I didn’t know, and so I asked.

Second symbol first:
goodness,
kindness,
charity,

… I was told.

First one second:
it goes without saying…
absolutely…
at the very least…

It’s hard to explain,
I was told.

So many things in life are hard to explain, and so
we often devise our own explanations,
our own definitions.

What does it mean to say, “I’m fine?”
One sentence,
two words,
how many meanings?

I often don’t know, but I seldom ask.

I want to change that, to show more charity,
kindness and goodness;
to listen to your explanations
and belay my own fabrications
at the very least.

As for the ring, perhaps it’s telling me
when life is hard to explain and hard to define,
there is one course of action
that is always right.
In those two characters, I choose to read,
“Above all else, be kind.”

The Daily Post discover challenge: Hope Gone Viral

growing anticipation

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lean into each day
not racing to be the first
rather
in eagerness to explore

anticipation1

reach ever higher
not to claim more than others
rather
to stretch your understanding

anticipation2

take time for catnaps
restore soul and sanity
and
allow new dreams to unfold

anticipation3

The Daily Post weekly photo challenge: Anticipation

reaffirmation (renewed horizons)

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sometimes
constructive outcomes
rely on
destructive beginnings

glass is broken
then reassembled into
new and creative forms

f1

grass lays dormant
trees are stripped of leaves or
frozen in winter winds
only to reawaken in spring
for new and vibrant growth

f4

structures are gutted
rendered useless
until labor and skill restore them
to even greater
utility and beauty

f3

we are tested
in times of turmoil
beaten down and disillusioned, but

we won’t be broken
we won’t lie dormant
we won’t allow our strengths to
be rendered useless

f5

we are creative
we are vibrant
we are useful
and beautiful

we’ll move ahead
constructively
because that is how
we grow

The Daily Post weekly photo challenge: New Horizon
“[S]how us something that you want to achieve [in the New Year]… imagine your new horizons.”

For me, I hope the new year brings more creative opportunities in working with stained glass, landscaping my yard and do-it-yourself projects in my home. And I hope to continue to grow and find new ways of using my strengths to contribute in building a better world.