The dance we make of living.....

I loved this new poem by Maya Stein:

never enough

Even in the thick of a languid evening, replete with hors d'oeuvres

requiring the minutest precision, and stemware that asks for balance,

with a sunset sidling like slow ink below the horizon line, its wide curves

of light concentric against the city, I can't help but think of the dance

we make of living. How we cradle some moments like jewels or infants,

and others are cast off like gum wrappers or bad dates, regrettable detritus.

It’s strange how fleeting and accidental they can feel, these instants

of happiness, while misery is miasmic as tar. Either way, it’s

never enough, is it? Time siphons out and the door is always swinging.

Nothing stays the same, no matter how fiercely we keep clinging.

400th Post! Poetry for the New Year

I danced around the opportunity I had to write a "Cascade" poem last year, and was unable. Not a good year for poetry inspiration for me. The Cascade is a form I was just introduced to...you'll see the pattern. The form worked for me in helping me to sum up my experiences of the prior year.....

The Ten Years Ended 2010

How a decade could pass
In a heartbeat…
And yet, the events of that decade overpower me.

While I’d lived my life with texture
Nothing prepared me for
How a decade could pass

My life changed intrinsically
Some things controlled, some out of control
In a heartbeat.

And, striving to not lose faith
To sustain amongst the change that brought me here,
And yet, the events of that decade overpower me.

And you?

Ghosts On the Hudson

A lark, to go to the summit
At night, see the valley
Land of Ichabod Crane.
We are nine of us, what
Could be the harm or fear?

Starless night, cold in
These mountains;
Although it’s August.
The children are carried as backpacks
We will go to see “the haunts”.

Laughing on the trail,
Confident – no moon.
Stars seem shrouded and
The valley is filmed in shreds of fog.
We joke and sing as we ascend.

At the summit we are lords
Of all that we survey.
Ethereal night, ribbon
Of silver river.
A sturdy Coleman torch to guide us.

A gust, and the torch fails.
And now the night and sky
Take on a new meaning –
Ghostly, laughing at us….
Mere mortals.

And those Catskill legends
Abound and are boundless.
A match, a lighter – why
Does it take endless time?
A flare—and…

We are just campers again
Upstate, safe, no ghosts.
For now.

The prompt for Big Tent poetry this week is ... write a scary poem. In my current mood, scary is the economy. Thus, I went back in time to dig out the poem I wrote about the scariest natural phenomenon I have lived through... in the spooky Catskills, nearly 3 decades ago. A foul wind blew out our lantern as we were surveying the original "Valley of Sleepy Hollow" from a high promontory in the middle of the night. The wind, I recall, as vividly today as if it were yesterday, was cold, clammy, and smelled distinctly foul. It came from nowhere in the middle of an August camping trip. Scary. We hightailed it, kids and all, back to our campsite as soon as we could get the lantern relit. I wrote this poem in 2003.

See the creative poetry website, Big Tent Poetry, here:

http://bigtentpoetry.org/

Where have I been, where have I been.

Sigh. It's poetry Wednesday. I'll repeat a poem I wrote in 2005. It should illuminate my absence from this blog. Here I am, repeating the same bad habits of 5 years ago....


Prisoner At A Desk

The outrage of being here, tied
By bonds and deadlines not of my making
To this spot, for long hours,
Sense of obligation and satisfaction when work completed.

Prisoner at a desk, I’ll admit it.
Tied here by the need of rent and food
Of bills to pay and gas to buy.
And what, you ask would come if

Those earthly things were magically
Given to me, not obligations to pay...


Well, when that happens,
And I don’t doubt that it will,
I’ll be at a desk by choice
And perhaps
The texture and feel of WHAT I do
And WHEN I do it, shall be my own.


No longer at someone’s bidding.
Content to have sense of accomplishment
Coupled with self-set deadlines and missions.
Prisoner at a desk?
Held by my own need to be
Someone and something I’ve grown accustomed to.

Poetry... the Jolene format "To Be Or Not To Be"

Thanks to Cara of "Oooh, books", for hosting this at Freeverse. Click on the link below for more.






I love poetry forms, particularly those that have not been explored in contemporary free verse as much as, say, haiku. Here's a format known as "the jolene" in which the lines count words (not syllables), as follows:

There are Two Stanzas

First:

Three
Seven
Three
Seven
Five

Second:

Five
Five
Five
Five
Seven
Nine

A freeverse poem I wrote early this year in Jolene format, about the struggle within someone who is working for a manager who wants to change everything to mirror the way "they" like it.....


To Be Or Not To Be? ~ Jolene format


The windmills
Before me, they dare
Me, Come! Joust!
Better sensibilities
Left in the dust, cast

Aside for a ride
As Saint Joan you’ll
Recognize me, or
Mistakenly think
Me a Spaniard out to
Conquer, when I desire - equity.

Sanity.
Respectful attitudes.
Compromise.
Communication that will
Include everyone.

Think carefully when
You order and pose
Demanding your way.
There can be someday
A means for your influence
To exceed a mere outcome. Lead us.

Feels like a poetry day --

It was warm and about 80 degrees today. Little humidity, nice breeze. Not necessarily what I was looking for in November, but pleasant, nevertheless. The Bucs finally won in their old creamsicle uniforms with a rookie quarterback that I thought would be a dud. Will wonders never cease. A poetry day, but I confess that I'm tapped out. Something from 2006, Number 8 in my "Warm" poem series:

Laugh With Abandon

Laugh with abandon
Warm my heart
Let the timbre of your laughter
Tell me you are well, you are safe,
You are mine.


Stop and smell the flowers
Tell me a joke
Keep your sense of humor strong
Make me laugh out loud and you'll know
You are mine.


Take joy from your surroundings
Make me smile
Let the simple pleasures of your days
Overcome the sadness; tell me
You are mine.

Stop in the middle of the day
To muse, remember
That the laughter we share
Can energize us both, can express that
I am yours.


Still and all, we've got Ida lurking in the gulf. Who knows how my mood might change in a day or two?