they took my breath away, this moment
when Kona jumped up in Dad’s lap
to show him she understands
her master isn’t well
his gentle hand of
reassurance ~
I’m going
to be
fine.
A Moment
From Where I Sit
sheers in the window
sun streaked shadows
morning slants
ever-changing
golden eggshell glimmers
radiant shimmers
streaming in
to greet the day
in slow-paced
weekend rays
I savor this
tempting taste
Day 5 of the August Open Write with Anna Roseboro
Anna Roseboro of Michigan is our host today for our fifth and final day of the August Open Write. Anna encourages us to walk through poetry from #VerseLove 2024 and apply the TIME acronym to the elements of a poem and construct a verse about one of our choice. You can read her full prompt here. I chose Stacey Joy’s Our Old Kitchen Table to think about these elements in her poem and to write about each.
Time
Imagery
Music
Emotion
Tabletime Tempos
Through all these tender table times
In games, gatherings, cartoons, showers,
Meals, drumrolls of dice and laughter and tears against
the backdrop of time ticking
Emanating life tempos tintinnabulated and tolled, thus told
around the old kitchen table
Day 4 of the August 2024 Open Write at www.ethicalela.com
Today’s host for Day 4 of the August Open write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Jeanie White of Missouri, who inspires us to write postcard poems. You can read her full prompt here.
Jeania encourages us to think of ourselves as a sock in a suitcase and somewhere we might find ourselves, or to write from a place we have never been. She encourages us to use one of the short forms – a form that would fit on a postcard.
I’m choosing an acrostic, in which the place I most want to visit reads vertically and each letter starts a new line.
Travel Fever
I want to pack my bags, go where it’s
Cold – to soak in thermal springs, to
Explore an ice cave in the
Land of Ice and Fire
Aurora Borealis dancing as the
Northern Lights
Delight the eyes and soul
Facts retrieved from: https://www.trafalgar.com/real-word/facts-about-iceland/
August Open Write Day 2
Today at http://www.ethicalela.com, Linda is our host for The Open Write. She inspires us to write Clunker Exchange Poems, intentionally exchanging a line (I chose into another world to use in my poem and offer all of my lines as clunkers today). You can read her full prompt here.
Sunday Morning Scrambled
all hell breaks loose
here on this peaceful
Sunday morning as I
sip coffee, write
a clunker exchange ~
sudden frantic barking
of my three vicious
Schnoodles bounces
and echoes through
the house as they
slo-mo scramble
from window to window
no-traction toenails
on the rugless wood
floors, looking like
Saturday morning
Flintstone cartoon
pets running for all
they’re worth but
going nowhere fast
when I look out and see
mama D-E-E-R
(no need to spell it
now – besides, our one
speller alerts the
other two anyway)
streaking into the woods
her two spotteds
stumbling along behind
her, pausing at the edge
to look back at this
house of horrors
where hell hath unleashed
its fury on this holy morning
then disappear
into another world
with dangers all its own
far from here (here~
where I want to exchange
all the clunked-up lines
for world peace
on the Funny Farm)
The Narrowness of Grief
sometimes when
I am alone
only the stars are visible
in the empty darkness
my mother’s laughter
twinkles from Heaven
and I feel the
narrowness
of my grief
Breathless Heaven
only the stars are
visible when
the trees close their
eyes and lift
their leaves
in prayer
when this
pinhole light
of heaven
seeps down
breathing song
into leaf
into branch
into trunk
into forest
when shimmery
halo glitter
of ancestral
angels
cascades down
swaying waves
into oceans
into lakes
into streams
and creeks
for all the world
to hear
the music
of hope
for all those
still here
who listen
**first lines inspired by words photographed at The Immersive Titanic Exhibit in Atlanta, Georgia last weekend
Lines
it messes with my
mind and heart, these
Titanic exhibits like
the one in Atlanta,
the Immersive
Experience
(no pun intended,
I’m sure, but I’d
have chosen a
different name)
I learned about the
Titanic as a child when
an elderly couple in
our church were
on the next boat out
late for their honeymoon
on the Titanic ~
the Testers, Mr. and Mrs.,
lived because they were
late, and for all the
cussing I might have
muttered missing my boat,
I’d have learned a
thing or two about
what it means to
let things go
and move on
I can’t imagine the terror
inside the hearts on
those lifeboats
all the loved ones
watching their own
sink to their deaths
in freezing darkness
as they rowed on
I wonder if F. Scott
Fitzgerald started
at the end of Gatsby
and then went to the
beginning to start
again
so we beat on
boats against the current
borne back
ceaselessly into
the past
which is why I
began taking photos
of snippets of
lines in the exhibit
wondering what
poems might
emerge, turning the
grief back to joy
Back-to-School Nightmare
It doesn’t matter what
the role in education,
whether teacher or coach
or media specialist or
administrator: one truth
holds true. I learned it
in the 1990s from my
partner teachers. The
back-to-school
nightmares hit hard
and on time. The world
of dreams mysteriously
knows that school for
students starts here
Monday, so last night
I was walking a class
down a hall of a
school I’d never seen
and lost them all
on the first day.
They were second
graders. I haven’t
taught a classroom
of second graders
since 2003, but
here I was in my
nightmare, losing
every one of them,
wandering the halls
and calling for them,
knowing I’d be fired
when their mothers
showed up, but
finally discovering they
had all gone to the
library. I stepped
into the murky
haze of the dream
to find they were
all reading books,
scattered all
across the floor
in their own quiet
spaces, not one
saying a word.
And I realized:
my nightmare
had become my
best back-to-school
dream ever.
I chose a book
and collapsed into
the library couch to
read, too
I learned this last night:
when you’re having
a night terror, look for
the library. It turns
nightmares into dreams.
100-Syllable Book Cover Reveal
that moment when you
see your book cover
for the first time with
your group of writing
friends and hold back tears
for all the waiting,
for all the writing,
for all the hours spent
anticipating
what you always but
never dreamed so real
and possible and
finally right here
here it is, set to
launch September 2
stay tuned for the link
to our stories, to
our wounds, to our hearts,
to our healing words
Cheers for Words That Mend!
Common Threads 