Month: May 2019

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Borrowed Lines Travel Poems

Globetrotting Advice 

Take it easy, take it slow (“If You Get There Before I Do”)
Globetrotting advice.
Cameras, journals, scrapbook swag
Fun memories entice.

Blaze new trails – write about them!
Explore new realms – #Instagramthem
Taste new foods – dissuade all doubt
Sorry, no Chinese take-out. (variation of line from “If You Get There Before I Do”)

-Kim Johnson, using borrowed lines from Dick Allen, as noted. 

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Mary Oliver Mash-up Travel Poems

Packed?

I packed sandals, shorts, and t-shirts,
      then temperatures there started sinking.
I’m wondering if I should re-pack.

I didn’t intend to start thinking. (“Drifting”)

   – Kim Johnson, using borrowed lines from the poetry of Mary Oliver, as noted.

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Mary Oliver Travel Mash-up Poems

Lord of Melons

Outside the summer clouds are drifting by (“I Own a House”)
Lightly, on their journey through the sky
Wispy vapors trailing aimlessly like
Tourists taking in all they can see.

O Lord of melons (“On Thy Wondrous Works I Will Meditate”)
And all other plants needing rain
Quench their thirst, Father,
Before I traverse new terrain.

   -Kim Johnson, with borrowed lines from the poetry of Mary Oliver, as noted

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Mary Oliver Mash-Up Travel Poems

Traveling Lightly

Searching for a suitcase –
And here you may find me (“Tides”)
Checking the baggage specs
In the luggage section.

One or two things are all you need. (“One or Two Things”)
Good thing – twenty-inch carry-on
and a backpack will have to do.
I’m traveling lightly this trip!
 -Kim Johnson, using borrowed lines from the poetry of Mary Oliver, as noted

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Mary Oliver Mashup Journey Poetry

                          

Traversing

It isn’t very far as highways lie (“Going to Walden”)
Traversing over land or sea or sky
The journey isn’t measured by the miles
But by the wondrous ways that it beguiles

I know I can walk through the world
Along the shore or under the trees (“I Happened to Be Standing”)
As brand new perspectives unfurl
Every moment this sojourn to seize

   -Kim Johnson, using borrowed lines from Mary Oliver’s poetry as noted

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Mary Oliver Journey Verse 1, featuring borrowed lines from the poetry of Mary Oliver

Wanderlust

Now I am here, later I will be there. (“Life Story”)
So much to do and things I must prepare
Passport, suitcase, walking shoes, rain gear
Planning culmination of a full year

Running here, running there, excited (“The Storm”)
Wanderlust, travel dreams ignited
Itinerary, maps in backpack
Travel journal, pens to foster flash back.

-Kim Johnson, with borrowed lines from Mary Oliver’s poetry as noted

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A Mary Oliver Mashup Pantoum Poem

 

I went out of the schoolhouse fast. (“Just As the Calendar Began to Say Summer”)

By fall I had healed somewhat but was summoned back. (“Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer”)

And now you’ll be telling stories of my coming back. (“The First Time Percy Came Back”)

I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe or whatever you don’t. (“I Happened to be Standing”)

 

By fall I had healed somewhat. (“Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer”)

Death waits for me, I know it, around one corner or another.  (“Sometimes”)

I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe. (“I Happened to be Standing”)

Is it necessary to say any more? (“Goldfinches”)

 

Death waits for me, I know it. (“Sometimes”)

I would rather eat mud and die. (“The Arrowhead”)

Is it necessary to say any more? (“Goldfinches”)

Isn’t this somewhat overplayed? (“From this River, When I was a Child, I used to Drink”)

 

I would rather eat mud. (“The Arrowhead”)

And now you’ll be telling stories. (“The First Time Percy Came Back”)

Isn’t this somewhat overplayed? (“From this River, when I was a Child, I used to Drink”)

I went out of the schoolhouse. (“Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer”)

-Kim Johnson, using lines and variations of lines from the poetry of Mary Oliver
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Mary Oliver Mashup – May 8, 2019
 
OM5 – Opportunities Mary Oliver Modestly Offers Me
 

Do you have a question that can’t be answered? (“From the Book of Time”)

I have refused to live locked in the orderly house of reasons and proofs. (“The World I Live In”)

Most of the world says no, no, it’s not possible. (“Do Stones Feel?)

Frankly, I prefer just to lounge under a tree. (“On Meditating, Sort Of”)

To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind. (“Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches”)

Going to Walden is not so easy a thing – It is the slow and difficult trick of living and finding it where you are. (“Going to Walden”)

I am not even surprised that I can do this. (“Franz Marc’s Blue Horses”)

There is no end, believe me! to the inventions of summer, to the happiness your body is willing to bear. (“The Roses”)

By next week, the violets will be blooming. (“Drifting”)

-Kim Johnson, composed using borrowed lines from the poetry of Mary Oliver
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Mary Oliver Mashup Poem – May 7, 2019

OM4 – Oxygen Mary Oliver Modestly Offers Me
 

You don’t ever know where a sentence will take you. (“Fox”)

The mind can seize both the instant and the memory. (“Winter at Herring Cove”)

There are things you can’t reach.  But you can reach out to them, and all day long. (“Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does it End?”)

Sometimes there are no rules. (“Three Things to Remember”)

We shake with joy, we shake with grief. (“We Shake with Joy”)

Sometimes the river murmurs, sometimes it raves. (“At the River Clarion”)

On a cot by an open window, I lie and remember. (“No Voyage”)

Prayers fly from all directions. God no doubt understands them all. (“Whistling Swans”)

Sleep comes its little while. (“An Old Story”)

On a cot by an open window. (“No Voyage”)

 …….

One day you knew what you had to do and began. (“The Journey”)

    -Kim Johnson, composed with lines from poetry by Mary Oliver
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Mary Oliver Mashup Poem – May 6, 2019
 
 
 
OM3 – Observations Mary Oliver Modestly Offers Me
 

Look! Look! (“The Egret”)

Look, and look again. (“To Begin With, the Sweet Grass”)

How dull we grow from hurrying here and there! (“Going to Walden”)

No doubt clocks are ticking loudly all over the world. (“Softest of Mornings”)

The years to come – this is a promise – will grant you ample time. (“Terns”)

Fields everywhere invite you into them. (“Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches”)

You have a life – just imagine that! (“To Begin With, the Sweet Grass”)

The past is the past, and the present is what your life is and you are capable of choosing what that will be. (“Mornings at Blackwater”)

Wild sings the bird of the heart in the forests of our lives. (“Wild, Wild”)

The birds who own nothing – the reason they can fly! (“Storage”)

So listen to them and watch them, singing as they fly. (“Whistling Swans”)

A poem should always have birds in it. (“Singapore”)

For each of us, there is the daily life. Let us live it, gesture by gesture. (“At the River Clarion”)

When the thumb of fear lifts, we are so alive! (“May”)

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. (“Mysterious, Yes”)

We are nourished by the mystery. (“The Fish”)

   -Kim Johnson, composed with borrowed lines from the poetry of Mary Oliver