Tag Archives: writing

The Ocean

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Day Zero of NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). Or is it NaPoWriMo eve? I shall endeavor once again to meld with my muse and meet the challenge of writing a poem a day for the entire month of April.

Our first (Early Bird) prompt from NaPoWriMo.net is to 

Pick a word from the list below. Then write a poem titled either “A [your word]” or “The [your word]” in which you explore the meaning of the word, or some memory you have of it, as if you were writing an illustrative/alternative definition.

From the list (which I won’t reproduce here) I chose the word “ocean.” Hence:

The Ocean

Bestower of bounties:
one may fish for a feast
or dive to the depths 
plucking pearls from the peace.

Betrayer of boys
setting sail on the seas,
seduced by the Sirens,
then besieged by the beast.

Mantra of mindfulness,
mysterious muse,
meandering metronome,
hewer of hues.

Destroyer of destinies,
splitter of seams,
shattering ships and
drowning brash dreams.

Thunderous thralls turn to
tranquil translucence.
Balmy or bawdy,
a nymph or a nuisance. 

Such is the kaleidoscope,
the ebb and the flow.
We are moored to this tempest;
mind, body and soul.

When I write

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Bloganuary prompt: What do you like most about your writing?

When I write, I can share parts of me that

would have and will likely continue to be

unspoken.

I can share my sense of humor and remain

blissfully unaware as to whether anyone else

senses my humor.

I can share my self-ascribed wisdom, when

It might otherwise be unwise

to do so.

I can think before speaking, and then

think again before hitting the

“publish” button.

And if a reader doesn’t find me compelling

or funny or wise, I will most likely

never know.

It’s kind of like the freedom of expression

that I otherwise only feel

when talking to my pets.

Writer’s Block

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I open my stats page, already knowing I’ll see lots of blank spots on the calendar that indicates whether I’ve posted to my blog on any given day. It’s been a dry summer, weatherwise and creative writing-wise.

Now the autumn rains are here and my garden projects are on hold. It’s a good time to write. But I need to replace the splintered door frame in the garage. I need to dust the wall-to-wall bookshelves. I need to brush the tangles out of my dog’s wet fur.

I know it will come soon; that irresistible pull toward pen and paper; that need to harvest the thoughts that have been ripening over the summer. My computer dings with an email alert: a writing prompt from dVerse. I fire up the word processor and my mind wanders, far away from doors and dust and wet dog smells.  

lock the garden shed

leaves drop like unfinished thoughts

time to introspect

For dVerse Poets’ haibun Monday: Writer’s Block

Bookends (Slaking the Muse)

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I began April’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) with a poem about “Waking the Muse.” Now thirty days later (and 30 poems, though not all were posted), I will bookend the month with a sequel to the first poem. Hence:

Slaking the Muse

“Good morning!” I called as I came through the door.
“It’s time to learn what our next poem has in store.”
My muse gave a snort. “I’ve got ideas galore.
But haven’t you heard? I don’t work here no more.”

“What gives?” I inquired, with mounting distress.
“Your pen is not inked and your grammar’s a mess.”
“It’s over,” muse sighed, “perhaps all for the best.”
“But we’ve only just started!” I rushed to protest.

“No more NaPoWriMo, since April is gone.
No challenge, no prompt, so it’s time to move on.
To the bookcase I’ll go, with my Greek lexicon.
‘Midst these two huge thesauri you’ll find me anon.”

“Please don’t leave me now,” I implored with a cry.
“There will be no more poems without you at my side.”
“Indeed,” said my muse, looking ever so sly.
“Under better conditions, I’d perhaps longer bide.”

“What is it you want?” I knew I’d been had,
having first felt so glum, and now equally mad.
“I will double your pay, if you think it’s so bad.”
“Twice nothing is nothing.” Muse knows how to add.

“You can take some days off to relax and repose.”
“That serves as a start,” muse begrudgingly supposed.
“These dealings between us are still far from closed.
But we’d best start composing while I’m yet rhyme-disposed.”

Her thoughts so profound that in awe I must gasp,
at times muse’s musings I struggle to grasp.
My pen moves as fast as the strike of an asp,
and the rest will be history (once time has elapsed).

bookend 1

To be, or never was…

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I don’t get it, I say aloud
though no one’s in the room save the dog.
He tilts his head and gives me
that quizzical look that could mean so many things.
Or nothing at all.

Today I am impatient and so his sweet face doesn’t work its magic.

Go chase the cat, I tell the dog.
His ears perk up. Although he understands but a few commands —
and of those known obeys even fewer —
he jumps to his feet and scampers off, ostensibly in search of the cat.

I feel sorry for the cat and a bit mean for having made the suggestion,
but who really thought the dog would follow through?

I still don’t get it, I say aloud,
and this time there’s no one in the room at all,
unless…

the cat’s tail flicks out from behind the drapes.

Green eyes peer around a fold of cloth and lock me in a stare.
I heard what you just did, the cat seems to say.
I’m sorry, I mouth silently so as not to give his presence away.

I hear the dog sigh as he squeezes beneath my bed in the back room.
His favorite napping place. He has given up the game.
Cat is safe for now, but by his look I can tell I am far from forgiven.

I continue my soliloquy.
You know what I don’t get? This!
I point in the general direction of the glowing laptop screen.
Lines of text — some
short,
some longer — parade down the edge of the screen.

Sometimes a line or two

skips toward the center screen
as though it were the end dancer of a cancan line and missed a turn.

No rhyme nor reason.
Well, sometimes a rhyme. After all, it’s poetry, right?

Or so it self-proclaims. This is what I don’t get.
I don’t understand poetry. What makes something a poem,
and not just some random words stitched together
in seeming sincerity?

I’m too shallow, I tell the cat. He has come out of hiding
and jumps on the couch in hopes of securing a warm spot near the laptop.
Poetry in motion, that’s what they say about cats. Sometimes.

The cat meows in response and I press my finger to his lips to shush him.
Too late. The dog scrambles from beneath the bed and pads out to be with us.
No poetry in this dog’s gangly moves. Maybe he’s just a limerick.

Am I too shallow? I ask the dog and cat. They fail to reach a consensus.
Never mind, I say.

I return my attention to the keyboard.
I’ve gotta hurry up and bang out this poem
before I go to bed.

poet

NaPoWriMo challenge, Day Ten: write a poem of simultaneity – in which multiple things are happening at once.

Waking the Muse

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books2

On the book shelf she’d hidden for nearly a year
‘mongst the likes of O. Henry and bard William Shakespeare.
From her disheveled looks and the smell of stale beer,
I assessed that some things are quite as they appear.

“Wake up and come forth,” I commanded my muse.
“I’m penning some poems and your help I could use.
I see that your break has been sorely abused;
I assure you assuredly I’m less than amused.”

Muse swiped at the sleep in her glazed, bloodshot eyes;
attempted to focus, or so I surmised.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said, yawning, her ennui undisguised.
“I thought you’d conceded your poetic demise.”

“Au contraire,” I enthused with undeserved pride.
“I’m ready to rhyme with my muse at my side.
But your slovenly sloth I shall not abide.
‘Midst these rival word peddlers you no longer may hide.”

“Is that so?” said my muse with a withering glare.
“You’re forgetting one term of this contract we share.
I only assist you when I give a care,
so your impudent tone is a risk best not dared.”

“I meant not to insult you,” I quickly backtracked
in full comprehension of the talent I lacked.
I knew it was time to attempt a new tack.
“I would be most obliged if you deemed to come back.”

“Then I’ll help you,” she said, “to write exquisite rhymes,
sonorous lyrics, unforgettable lines.
There’s just one condition if I help you this time.
I expect with each poem I shall get a byline.”

“Agreed!” I exclaimed as I quickly agreed.
(My redundant redundancy belies my great need.)
“Then be done with this drivel so that we may proceed.”
Herewith ends this poem, and it’s high time, indeed.

Most gratefully authored by Yours Truly
AND my most eminent Muse

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.

Just a Line

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“I can’t draw,” you say.
Drawing is just lines.
Line up your lines
until they look like
what you see
in your mind.

lines5

 “I can’t write,” you say.
Writing is just lines.
Line up your words
until they say
what your thoughts
have in mind.

lines1

“I can’t dance,” you say.
Dancing is just lines.
Lines of movement
drawn with your body
until they portray
what you feel
in your soul.

line4

“I can’t” is just a line
we tell ourselves
when we’re afraid.

Brain Dump

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For a few months now, I’ve been writing “morning pages,” a concept introduced by author Julia Cameron In her book, The Artist’s Way. Basically it involves filling three pages of a journal each day upon first awakening with “stream of consciousness” writing, moving your pen (or pencil or crayon) nonstop to record whatever pops into your mind.

artists wayMorning pages are intended to circumvent the “inner critic,” that voice inside your head that judges and picks apart whatever you think or do.

If you listen to your inner critic and believe all the negativity it tries to heap on you, eventually your creativity gets blocked, and you couldn’t write a decent sentence or draw a decent picture or perform a decent free form interpretive dance – or whatever your creative bent is – if your life depended on it.

Cameron recommends that you don’t go back and read what you’ve written in your journal so you won’t be tempted to edit or censor yourself.

You know how as soon as you’re told not to do something that’s exactly the thing you want to do? Okay, maybe that’s just me. And most five year olds. But of course I just had to reread my journal entries.

I’ve culled a few of my thoughts to share with you. If you are a psychiatrist who’s reading this, feel free to list your diagnoses of my mental state in the comments below. Or not.

Here’s a sampling of my journal entries:

It’s funny how old sayings get truncated and then end up making no sense. “Sweating like a pig.” “Happy as a clam.” Then you can’t remember how they’re supposed to go. Am I sweating like a pig at high tide, or am I happy as a clam in a butcher’s shop? Maybe I should just clam up and stop sweating it.

spacer pencilI’m still curious as to why birds don’t interbreed. You know, like a hawk and a rooster. You’d end up with a hawk-a-doodle.

spacer pencil
I set a couple of goals for yesterday, maybe more, and at first I totally forgot about them. Then I remembered that I had set them, but couldn’t remember what they were.

spacer pencil
If something is misspelled is there really such a thing as misspelling it worse?

spacer pencil
Birds probably don’t dwell on rejection.

spacer pencil
Who knew ampersands could be so interesting?

ampersand
I had it figured out once, but then I got confused again. That happens a lot. Well, maybe not. Just sometimes. I don’t know… I’m so confused.

spacer pencil
I sure have a lot of things to not worry about. That worries me.

spacer pencil
I bet doggie heaven has lots of things to bark at. And smelly things to roll in. And it’s probably right next to kitty heaven so the dogs can sneak over there and eat cat poop. ‘Cuz they sure do love to do that!

Surprisingly, rereading my journal has not invoked that critical voice in my head. In fact, my inner critic seems to just be shaking its head, with that “I don’t even know where to begin” look of dismay.

For once, my inner critic is speechless. Maybe I’ll go do my interpretive dance now.