Lisa at dVerse asks us to write a quadrille (poem of 44 words) using the word “way.” Here’s my drowsy offering as midnight creeps closer. Click on Mr. Linky to join in!
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When sleep comes my way darkness warm like mother’s milk lulls my hungry wakeful eyes, I sink at last in ocean light to caverns deep where you await a Prospero’s Ariel caught betwixt reflections of the world above and the mirrors of my mind.
Is it possible from this rank earth for such flowers to grow? Yet here they are, positing their glory for the world to see A speculative assumption uncertain of its predication That out of this sodden ground, mulched by weather The boggy stink of which permeates the air Blooms would appear from unseen dimensions To cluster in diamond silk, emitting starry transactions Their thrusting ebullience beyond science, even wonder Simple testimony of leaf, stalk and flower, to primum movens* Of power ingrained elementally to be, just be And being, yearn hungrily for the Light that clothes it.
*primum movens (Latin): Aristotelian term for the “unmoved mover”
Flower of the Day, for Cee Neuner's FOTD, January 21, 2021 Writing prompt: Paula Light's Thursday Inspo 92 theme "flowers"
This is not a mirror Ground silica back-silvered A labyrinth to unravel your soul But splintered fragmentation Of all your expectations A story to re-glue and emboss.
This is not a mirror Portal to another world Left-handed universe Turnabouts of phantoms A touch on your shoulder That welt on your cheek.
This is not a mirror It is an owl’s feather A rat’s tail, a torn page Blood of jilted lover The sigh of an empress Dethroned by endless war.
This is not a mirror, a mirror, a mirror.
For Dverse, Mish's Poetics: Object Poems "This is not ..." Click on Mr. Linky and join in!
Time rebounds in dabs of paint Watery sun soaks through space Sensations blur Colors seep Diminishing lines Reflections slur Your hands, your face Gaze untendered Unbristled, still A warm attention Encompassing all Formidable will Probing memory Dark sublime Time rebounds in dabs of paint.
What cloistered walls ruminate upon stirring phantasms where shadows abound impaled upon pitchforks wrought by their own sentimental celebrations.
So one shadow lingers restlessly beyond a lichen-covered gate, a dewy-eyed dreamer planning her escape lured by a letterfound in a copse.
“Nothing bad but what you make of it, nothing good but what you sing of it; from your secluded rooms now venture, meet me beyond the trees and by water.”
Picking it up, she had clutched the letter fondly to her breast as if from a lover that in her mind’s eye she could clearly see, a handsome Lothario, her knight in armor.
So she skipped lightly down the dark lane spinning castles-in-air to sounds melodious and as she emerged from beyond the trees her Lothario she spied in his dungarees.
From reality she spun about and fled back to her haunt, her daydreams to recover and in her hands lay flowers he proffered a lesson learned from a fanciful endeavor.
It’s the weekend, right? Let’s relax and party, maybe do a little rap for Michelle’s #JanuaryWritingPrompts (“space juice”), Sammi’s #WWP (100 words, “crucible”), and Linda’s #JusJoJan & #SOC (“limitless”). Hope you enjoy it! ❤️
Photo by Anjana C from Pexels
I know what you’re thinking You say I’m just dreaming Maybe drinking space juice Telling me you’re cool too loose so intellectual not buying puffy clouds of television charlatans but you’re at Oprah’s book club sold on a Joseph Campbell mythic spiel of deity.
Listen, I’m not crazy look at what’s been given me my faith, a light leading me through this dark crucible called life I can see glory where you deny the invisible chasing material illusions hanging on to your blinders chained down, walled up by circumstance when you could be glorying in the limitless grandeur¹ of God.
¹Ecclesiastes 3:11 Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
A friend’s betrayal. The first crack in the heart. A child’s heart. Swallowing a sob, a gurgle hard against the throat. A nudiustertian heartbeat ago. The storm settles.
That friendship went the way of trains into the sunset, trains with Hercules propellers in a steampunk show, and a suddenly shrunken figure, lean with knowing, stiffening its back against the world.
The heart armored, now slow to trust, still easily betrayed, always anticipates the moment of departure, inexorable in its movement like the ticking of a clock, yet attuned to distant trumpets ushering in the dawn.
Frost-browned blooms Knew caskets of ice Await life.
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Emily Dickinson commemorative stamp, 1971
Many great poets wrote their most magnificent poetry in their youth rather than at the peak of their maturity. Take, for example, Dante, Lord Byron, John Keats, and T. S. Eliot. Others wrote throughout their life with equal prowess: Milton wrote Lycidas when a student, and Paradise Lost as an old man.
But many come to poetry as late bloomers. Emily Dickinson considered herself such, watching others pass her by. Only ten of her nearly 1,800 poems were published in her lifetime. She kept “singing” anyway, saying with confidence, “I shall bring a fuller tune.” What do you think she means?
I Shall Keep Singing! by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
I shall keep singing! Birds will pass me On their way to Yellower Climes – Each – with a Robin’s expectation – I – with my Redbreast – And my Rhymes –
Late – when I take my place in summer – But – I shall bring a fuller tune – Vespers – are sweeter than Matins – Signor – Morning – only the seed of Noon –