A Thursday Nonet
The world thinks they were abandoned by
their guide boat in shark-infested
waters, but the truth is that
another boat came for
the honeymooners,
swept them away
to a new
better
life
Day 38 of The Stafford Challenge – Plan B
Day 5 of February’s Open Write with Amber Harrison of Oklahoma, Day 36 of The Stafford Challenge
Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 5 of the February Open Write is Amber Harrison of Oklahoma, who inspires writers to write a borrowed form poem using a fill-in-the-blank approach. You can read her prompt and the poems of others here.
Amber writes:
Today, I invite you to fill in the blanks in these lines by Whitman, or create and refill blanks of a stanza by another poet of your choice (this could be a time when you fill in the blanks expressively or reflectively in zine form):
I celebrate ________,
And what I _____ you ______,
For every ____________________ me as good
___________________ you.
Original lines by Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
Stolen Socks
I celebrate stolen socks
And what I tug, you wrangle
For every muscle moved by me as good
as hackles you.
Slice of Life, Day 4 of The February Open Write, and Day 35 of The Stafford Challenge – Epistolary Poem/Letter to My Younger Self
Today at http://www.ethicalela.com, Britt Decker of Houston, Texas is our host for this fourth day of the February Open Write. You can read her full prompt and the poems of others here as she challenges us to write letters (epistolary poems) to our younger selves.
When anyone with human flesh
gives you advice
look them straight in the eyes
and say ~firmly~
I’ll take it into consideration.
Do not take it as gospel.
Guard yourself.
Do your own research.
They aren’t experts.
Live your own life
not the one they choose for you.
Notice more,
especially the
hands
in photos (it’s the unseen key
that will slap you
~hard in the face~
like a wet whaletail
when you finally see).
Don’t believe a single promise.
Above all,
practice your mother’s discernment.
She knew.
She knew.
Remembering Miriam on Her Heavenly Birthday – Stafford Challenge Day 34
Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the third day of February’s Open Write is Dr. Sarah Donovan, who inspires us to write poems that experiment with broken lines. You can read her prompt here, along with the poems of others.
I took the ghazal form today of 5 couplets with AA BA CA DA EA rhyme scheme and measured meter, reframed the whole form, relaxed the rules and broke the lines as I thought of my mother’s 81st birthday and the moments I’m so glad my camera captured before she left us in December 2015 with Parkinson’s disease. Above, she reads to her great grandson from The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss.
Shaping Future Tense
when nothing else
made any sense
when family strangers
made you tense
your lap unfolded
picture books
that tore down
every guarded fence
great grandson's
heart and mind you shaped
each page
a moment so immense
your fingers curled
his eyes unfurled
his focus on you
so intense
when nothing else
made any sense
picture books
wrote future tense
Da Pup Een Da Snow Storm (Day 2 of February’s Open Write, Day 33 of The Stafford Challenge)
Today, our host at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 2 of February’s Open Write is Linda Mitchell of Virginia. She inspires us today to make a mash-up poem. You can read her prompt here, along with the poems of others. Here is the basic process she describes:
Read two works, perhaps poems you have loved for a long time. Find lines that speak to each other. Take a line from one poem and mash it up against one from the other. See how many lines complement each other as a new work. Write these lines, or copy and paste these lines, into a new work.
My all-time favorite poet is Mary Oliver, and my favorite poem is The Storm, from her collection Dog Songs. My father gave me a book of poetry entitled Poetry’s Plea for Animals by Frances E. Clarke, and in it there is a poem by T. A. Daly entitled Da Pup Een Da Snow, which may have actually inspired Mary Oliver’s poem The Storm. Oliver’s lines are in bold, and Daly’s are not.
Here is my Mash-Up:
Da Pup Een Da Snow Storm
Eef you jus' coulda seen -
running here running there, excited
gona wild weeth delight
now through the white orchard my little dog
ees first play een da snow
with wild feet
all around' da whole place
hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins
an' fall down on hees face
teel hees cover' weeth white
until the white show is written upon
in large, exuberant letters
w'en he see da flakes sail
how he chasa hees tail
the pleasures of the body in this world
deed you evra see joy
gona wild weeth delight
with wild feet
mak's heem crazy excite'
you would know w'at I mean
Eef you jus' coulda seen -
Retirement Dream Pantoum – Stafford Challenge Day 19
last-minute feels unintentional
for a goal-setting success planner
but I'd love to be spontaneous
retire and travel in an Airstream
for a goal-setting success planner
always checking boxes: Done!
retire and travel in an Airstream?
is there an action plan for that?
always checking boxes: Done!
at the RV show, we sprawled across the bed
is there an action plan for that?
what's my 401K say?
at the RV show, we sprawled across the bed
I'd love to be spontaneous
what's my 401k say?
last-minute feels unintentional
Birdwatching Haiku – Stafford Challenge Day 12
Netvue camera
takes birdwatching to a whole
new “close-up” level
Cast Iron Awakenings
- Cast Iron Awakenings
still flipping old things ~
hotcakes in cast iron griddles
old wood awakens
a new lease on life
repurposed for the future
strong memories past
I’ve joined The Stafford Challenge to write a poem every day starting tomorrow for the remainder of the year. It’s free, and it looks like a great way to connect and encourage other writers, according to their website. If you’re participating in the challenge, I hope to see you there! I’ll still be regularly participating in all the writing groups I have grown to love – and adding one more! I deeply appreciate all of the writing groups and those who share their ideas and slices of their lives with me.
Heartfelt thanks to Two Writing Teachers for hosting the weekly Slice of Life , giving writers inspiration and space to share.
House Finch Window Peeper
wee morning house finch
bedheaded and curious
watching me brush teeth
*** ***
just who’s watching whom?
he was just letting me know
the feeder’s empty
Haint Blue
As a Christmas present in 1985, my parents gave me an antique chest of drawers that has needed a facelift for at least two decades now. The date on the back is stamped 1926, and it is made of a dark hardwood. Some of the original knobs fell off, and one drawer needs to be repaired at the bottom. It’s a lovely piece, and the feet resemble the posts on my twin beds that I slept on as a child and that are now pushed together to form a King Size bed. Believe it or not, I still sleep in these beds today with my husband and our three schnoodles.
I couldn’t get rid of the beds. They came out of an old house on Sea Island Georgia, a smaller island off of St. Simons Island, where I lived as a child. The undersides are painted Haint Blue, a common practice on coastal islands in the southeastern United States, rooted in the belief that this color wards off evil spirits and ghosts. Sherwin Williams even has a paint color named Haint Blue. In addition to painting this color under beds, people also paint it onto porch ceilings as well.
I’ve had paint sample colors, paint stripping paste, and all sorts of brushes and tools ready to give some of our furniture a new life for six months now, and I’m finally getting around to the actual work. That Christmas gift from 1985 was at the top of my list, even though my grandmother’s kitchen table started the big avalanche of projects.
This week, I’ve watched about a half dozen YouTube videos and talked with my furniture flipping daughter on how to use chalk paint and all the variations and ideas for using it. I started simple – – with a can of Greige (a Behr paint color cross between grey and beige) and some new black knobs for the chest of drawers. I learned that a quick sanding is all that is needed, and that chalk paint dries in about 30 minutes, allowing a few coats and a complete project finish in an afternoon except for the wax wait time to cure. I used a small furniture roller and got to work.
Before:
After:
I’m lining the drawers with contact paper to give it a fresher look, and moving on to my next project – – a small end table that I use in my reading room for my coffee by my reading chair.
I’ve chosen Sparkling Sage for the table and will finish the top with a white wash.
Let’s get sanding.
Common Threads 