Patchwork Prose and Verse
Our host today for Day 26 of #VerseLove is Donnetta Norris of Arlington, Texas, who inspires us to write borrowed line poems. You can read her full prompt and the poetry of others here. Today, I’m choosing a line from Mary Oliver’s The Gift: that held only the eventual, inevitable and dropping the word eventual.
Family Bible I close the worn book haunting family secrets manifesting truths that hold only the inevitable shocking revelations: pasts
Jessica of Arkansas is our host today for Day 25 of #VerseLove, challenging us to write genetic cinquains of either American or Didactic structure. You can read her full prompt and the poems of others here.
Kim
water
Cancer the Crab
governed by moon and stars
three yearly smooth alignment days
I pinch!
Today is Day 24 of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, and Susie Morice is our host. She inspires us to write poems using a junk drawer to determine things about who we are. You can read her full prompt and the poems of others here. I chose to write about the treasure I found in someone else’s junk dogs.
These Three Kings I found three castoffs betrayed, neglected, abused I crowned these three kings
Alexis Ennis is our host today for #VerseLove, inspring us to write poems about historical figures. You can read her full prompt here. I chose Teddy Roosevelt’s firstborn child as my figure.
As a preacher's kid (we seem to have a reputation to live down to, and I've always done my best to keep the trouble going), I was a reader drawn to the troublemakers like Queenie Peavy by Robert Burch in children's literature and Alice Roosevelt in biographies. So that favorite interview question about whom I'd bring back if I could go to lunch with anyone? Yeah, mine was always Alice Roosevelt, with footnotes about how she and I would have surely landed in jail together, cellmates somewhere for some crazy idea we hatched. She had her own eye color named for her (and the US Navy uses this color named for her on its insignia). So much more to tell about her, but here's the seed-starter packet: Eyes of Alice Blue not under MY roof her father TR told her of smoking her cigs she puffed on the roof her snake Emily Spinach there too, in her purse no Taft supporter~ a murrain on him! she raged blue eyes her namesake what a character! completely out of control she fascinates me! come sit by me if you don’t have something nice to say about someone! born two days before mom died upstairs, grandma down under the same roof death clouded her birth, Alice Roosevelt Longworth lived in those shadows For Alice Roosevelt Longworth https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/from-a-white-house-wedding-to-a-pet-snake-alice-roosevelts-escapades-captivated-america-180981139/
Emily is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 22 of #VerseLove.
Today is Earth Day, and Emily encourages us to write about an island of our choice. I grew up on two islands – one in Georgia, one in South Carolina. I love today’s topic, because I’m back on St. Simons today spiffing up our rental unit here, remembering my youth softball league playing in the ballpark across the street, walking the village where I crabbed on the pier with my mother. It’s a perfect day to enjoy the island vibe with three out of control schnoodles who can’t get enough of all the salty sea smells. St. Simons Island, Georgia Childhood Memories splash Time-faded photographs Redigitized to present-day Beach walks sea smells salty schnoodles savoring Saturday still snoozing, sunrise sand dune soon spoiled sons
Darius Phelps of New York is our host today for Day 21 of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, inspiring us to write poems of grief or disillusionment. You can read more about Darius and read his full prompt here. He mentions that the ancient Chinese believed that by burning the house down when relatives died, it would send the house to the place where they were so they could have their homes beyond this life. I reflected for a while on that idea this morning, even chuckling about the Calgon laundry whitener that I remember commercials for as a child – – an Asian actor would come into the frame holding a box, saying, “Ancient Chinese Secret” when someone wondered about how the clothes got so clean. I think the ancient Chinese had a lot of things right. Come join us and read today’s poems.
Up in Flames ^ Choose One: House or Legacy? ^ those ancient Chinese had it right: burn the house down! strike up the torch flame! better the house go up in smoke than the siblings killing each other who gets the dwelling? who gets the crystal timepiece? who "gets" anything? executor’s call: who gets to make decisions? who denies morphine? which one plans all meals? oh, but NO SUGAR, stage 4 cancer patient fat?!? what is this fresh hell?? give Mom a damn M&M! stop controlling LIFE! inheritance sucks some get fortunes, some get F(ORK$#) who "gets" anything??! those ancient Chinese had it right: strike the match and walk in peace from fire
Katrina Morrison of Tulsa, Oklahoma is our host today for Day 20 of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com. She invites us to write poems about our favorite places to look and think as we write. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems of others. I write in the early mornings in my comfy chair in the living room, but it’s not my favorite place to write – – my favorite place is in my camper in the wee hours of the morning, long before the sun rises, with dogs piled on both sides of me and in my lap (we call them our “dog chocks” because they lock us in just like tire chocks keep the camper from rolling away). Without the deadlines and chores of being at home, time to write is savored at a campsite.
The Max: Minimalistic Writing a Lagun table swings sideways, allowing me access to my seat in the Little Guy Max camper, my favorite space to look and think my back to the door windows cracked just a smidgen ushering fresh air hot coffee gurgling welcoming familiar words I had forgotten perspective sharpens moments come into focus small spaces do that a simple teardrop uncluttered necessities essentials only less is truly more dogs, Chromebook, gray throw blanket wrapping “4” writers strumming my fingers on the ridges of my cup words percolating ideas swirl like steam materializing just above the cup rim playing hide and seek Marco Polo swimming words ….slippery words, caught!
Our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 19 of #VerseLove is Dr. Stefani Boutelier of Michigan, who invites us to write a poem without a title and invite others to give the poem a title. You can read her full prompt, along with the poems of others, here.
Today, I've written a riddle-type poem (Haiku two lines short of a Haiku sonnet), open-ended, to invite readers to title this poem AND to add two seven-syllable lines to the end to make it a true Haiku sonnet if you wish. I'll add my title after the photo at the bottom so you can see what my initial title was. It's subject to change :). never have I met anyone who on first taste liked its bitterness sipping piping hot aromatic wakefulness swallowing its truth ah, but sip by sip its addiction is for real~ can’t live without it!
The title I initially landed on was Coffee and Poetry – original, I know! Perhaps you can figure out a better title for this poem! Leave ideas in the comments, please.
Fran Haley of North Carolina is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 18 of #VerseLove, inspiring us to write a triolet. You can read her full prompt here and see the form for this 8-line short form with rhyme scheme. Fran is a fellow teacher, a bird enthusiast, poet extraordinaire, and she named one of my plants on my front porch: Leafy Jean (which led me to a name for the other plant – Leafy’s brother, Leon Russell – – children both buried in a cemetery Fran visited as a child). Today I am keeping yesterday’s blog writing topic with the Rose of Jericho and changing it to a poem – a triolet!
Choose to Live! Rose of Jericho ~ brittle, brown, dry unfurl your fingers! choose to live! mixed tears of grief and joy I cry Rose of Jericho ~ brittle, brown, dry my gaze drifts heavenward, eyes to the sky reassurance of faith and hope you give Resurrection plant ~ tears green you, oh my! unfurl your fingers! choose to live!
Andy Schoenborn of Michigan is our host today for Day 17 of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, inspiring us to write poems about why we write poems in certain times. You can read his full prompt here and the poems of others. I’m sharing mine on my blog today.
Why Do You Write Poems When The World Is Asleep, (Even the Sun Has Not Risen), And There is Death All Around? because over on the kitchen counter, a Jericho Flower has come back to life in my late mother’s pristine white milk glass, taking water into its dry, brittle brown fingers, slowly unfurling for the world and me to see that even in death, there is faith and hope and love - and life. Leave it to my daughter to send me a Resurrection Plant for Easter - it’s the most perfect Easter gift EVER, Mom, wait ‘til you see! - and when the plastic envelope with four baby tumbleweeds arrived in my mailbox, I wondered - WTH?? (yes, even wondered it with Easter and all), so I Googled and discovered it was a Resurrection plant ~ Thank you, dear, I can’t wait to plant it! A perfect Easter gift indeed! ~ to which she promptly replied: Mom. You don’t plant it. You put it in a bowl of water and sit back and before your very eyes it will come to life. No dirt….. ~ and so I packed these dead quadruplets in the camper thinking with the purple martin house assembly and this tumbleweed show, our picnic table by the lake would hold more fun than Disney World. I just had no idea how spectacular, how moving, how positively enchanting it would be to watch. I poured water on one in a clear plastic tub. Sat back in my camp chair, feet on the picnic table bench, Cherry Coke Zero in one hand, dry salted peanut shells in the other, waiting. This thing came to life, from a mail order twig to a beautiful green floof of a plant that now graces my kitchen. And I felt the nudge from Mom to put it in her milk glass bowl, the one I used to use for bananas that was sitting empty with no life and now holds the promise of her presence even in death, along with my daughter’s amazing tumbleweed thinking, in my kitchen, holding three generations of women who know a little bit about what it means to regenerate, to unfurl brown, brittle fingers into green again. Because stories need to be told. That’s why I write poems when the world is asleep, the sun is not yet up, and there is death all around.
Common Threads 