Common Threads

Poetry challenge from Sarah J. Donovan – write a poem about a breakup
experience that you have had.

Fractured

You barged in
with your Old Testament
fire and brimstone theological ideas

No women in leadership!
Bring sinners before the church!
Change your ways or leave!

Your sermons
are not preached from the heart
but downloaded and read word for word
with mispronunciations

You keep your wife at home
barefoot
bare-faced
walled off
homeschooling your children
who do not belong with the others

You barged in as a coach
to supervise your son’s homeschool PE requirements
game interactions with less than perfect sinning public school seven-year-olds

I didn’t leave God or my church family
I left a poisoned Kool-Aid preacher
and moved along
to a church
where varied interpretations are valued
women are wanted
sinners are loved
with the same mercy and grace that Jesus showed

-Kim Johnson

Poetry challenge from Sarah J. Donovan – using the Tim O’Brien book The Things
They Carried as today’s inspiration, write a poem about something you carry.

I got inspiration for this as I was running the Atlanta Women’s 5k and thought about my feet carrying me.

Pounding Pavement

Feet
that pound early morning pavement
carry eyes
that see more beauty
than feet that don’t.

-Kim Johnson

Poetry challenge from Travis Crowder – write a poem about being outdoors

Country Porch Swing

Bees buzzing
Bluebirds baby-feeding
Cardinals cheer-cheering
Crickets chirping
Deer dawdling
Dogs dozing
Dusk day-ending
Frogs fraternizing
Hens homing
Hummingbirds hovering
Lizards lounging
Me mellowing
Pines privatizing
Rabbits rooting
Springtime symphonizing
Squirrels scolding
Swing squeaking
Wind whispering
Whippoorwills welcoming

-Kim Johnson

Poetry Challenge from Travis Crowder – Write a poem about a place you’d like to be.

I can be in my imagination….in a coffee shop…with a million different new flavor options.
Cheers! Here’s my poem for today:

Coffee Creamer Dreamers

Starbucks debut coffee creamers
Mugs of hope for java drinkers

Thin Mint Cookie
Rocky Road
Fireside S’mores, a’la mode

Whoville Pudding
Crème Brulee
Chocolate Mousse
Fruit Parfait

Whipped Cream Pastry
Cinnabon
Banana Nut Muffin
Cupcake Fun

Baked Alaska
French Beignet
Banana Split
Ice Cream Sundae

Witty Comebacks Guaranteed
Pain-Free Childbirth, yes indeed

Apple Dumpling
Pumpkin Roll
Blackberry Cobbler
Donut Hole

Bananas Foster
Tapioca
Baklava
Triple Mocha

Sopapilla
Tiered Spumoni
Tiramisu
Ice Cream Coney

Marshmallow Crème
Root Beer Float
Whoopie Pie
Buttercream Boat

Apple Crisp
Mint Oreo
Turkish Delight
Cookie Dough

Key Lime Margaritaville
Twenty Million Dollar Bill

Lady Fingers
Almond Joy
Dark Molasses
Gingerbread Boy

Nutmegged Eggnog
Wedding Cake
Caramel Turtle
Coconut Flake

Honey Fig Flan
Chocolate Frog
Stuckeys Crusted Pecan Log

Happy Marriage
Peaceful Home
Visit London, Paris, Rome

Almond Toffee
Irish Cream
Amaretto
Kahlua Dream

Blonde Brownie
Maple Fudge
Hershey’s Kisses
Sugar Sludge

Hot Cocoa
Hazelnut
Whiskey Truffle
Glazed Doughnut

Cadbury Crème Egg
Pecan Pie
Peanut Brittle
Warm Buckeye

Egg Custard
Buttered Rum
Mudslide Milkshake
Cookie Crumb

Butter Beer
Nirvana Zen
Weight Loss Magic
Peace Within

Butterfinger
Lucky Charms
Sweet Cream Bliss of Dairy Farms

Sugarplum
Candied Pear
Anything you want in there

Dreams inside your coffee cup
Drink them down and perk right up!

-Kim Johnson

Poetry challenge from Travis Crowder – write a poem that defines something.

Hygge

Hygge
peaceful protection
of a cozy cabin
In a brazen blizzard

– Kim Johnson

Poetry Challenge from Travis Crowder – Write a poem that mirrors an existing poem
that you enjoy.

This poem models Christopher Smart’s poem written in the 1700s, “For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry” (later mirrored by Mary Oliver in Dog Songs with her poem “For I Will Consider My Dog Percy”).

Poetry challenge from Travis Crowder:  Look back in your phone and find
an image of something that inspires a poem.

Pray

Pray
Pray without ceasing
1 Thessalonians 5:17
Adialeiptos in Greek
Not nonstop
Constantly recurring
Like wash, rinse, repeat
Throughout the day
Embedded in every fiber of every activity
Be relentless
Thank and ask
Don’t stop
Upon waking
In the shower
Brushing teeth
At the traffic light
In the meeting
While running
Over dinner
During Jeopardy
At the ballgame
While reading
At bedtime
In dreams
Pray

-Kim Johnson

Poetry challenge from Travis Crowder – What books have nudged you
as a reader and burned themselves into your being?  Create a poem with
snippets or lines from these books, crediting the authors.

Coffee and Conversation

When you are little and ugly, somebody carries you in church on a pillow and you come out a child of God and inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
Marley was dead, to begin with.
A head is a terrible thing to waste.
The Book Lovers’ Anthology stepped out of its wrappings.
Marsh is not swamp.
It’s fruitcake weather!
When Atticus and I finally reached the top, the sky was a gorgeous charcoal gray.
We’re on our way to give a horrible, terrible monster what for!
The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate.
What is it like to be an octopus?
The fish’s arrival was choreographed by nature to by mysterious.
You will find the Dodge plot, and Anna, who understood love as few women understand it.
What did a thousand acres of Silphiums look like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo?
I also know the way the old life haunts the new.

     -Kim Johnson

Thank you, Hudson, Dickens, Roach, Hanff, Owens, Capote, Ryan, Lowery, Sedaris, Montgomery, Capuzzo, Price, Leopold, Oliver and so many others who’ve sat and had intimate conversations with me over coffee throughout the years!

Poetry Challenge from Travis Crowder – What are you reading?  Collect
inspiring lines from the story or book and create a Found Poem, crediting
the author of the book.

Words from Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet

To Be An Artist

Go inside yourself. Discover the motive that bids you write.
Draw near to nature. Depict your sorrows and desires.
Express the images that surround you – your dreams, objects of your memory.
Try to raise the submerged sensations over that distant past of your childhood.
Explore the depths whence your life wells forth.
Seek for the depth of things.
Live for a while in books and learn from them what seems to you worth learning – but above all, love them.
Have patience with everything that is unsolved in your heart and try to cherish the questions themselves.
It is a matter of living everything.
Love your solitude.
Be glad of your growing into which you can take no one else with you.
Your solitude will be your home and haven even in the midst of very strange conditions, and from there you will discover all your paths.
There is not more beauty in Rome than anywhere else but much beauty in Rome because there is much beauty everywhere.
Go into yourself and meet no one for hours on end.
Be alone as you were in childhood.
Think of the world which you carry within yourself. Pay attention to what arises in you.
Be without resentment.
Be glad and comforted.
To love is good: for love is difficult, and the fact that a thing is difficult must be one more reason for our doing it.
Be brave in the face of the strangest, most singular and most inexplicable things.
You must not be frightened when a sorrow rises up before you.
Most people get to know only one corner of their room.
Do not observe yourself too closely.
Do not derive too rapid conclusions from what happens to you; let it simply happen to you.
Do not think that the man who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled.
Find patience enough in yourself to endure
and single-heartedness enough to believe.
Let life happen to you.
Conduct yourself carefully and consistently.
May the year that lies before you preserve and strengthen you.

-Kim Johnson

Poetry Challenge from Sarah J. Donovan:  Write a poem about something
that used to exist but you determine doesn’t anymore, as if in a dream. But
then awaken and discover that it really does still exist and encourage others
to take advantage of it. 

Kindled

The wind swirled the broom handle
    of the raging fire
    sweeping our farm house into a pile of ashes.

My heart cries
    not for the library of rare and cherished books
    not for the framed recipes written by my ancestors
    not even for the family photograph albums.

My soul yearns
   for the back porch swing and the front porch rockers
   the first birthday gifts you ever gave me
true gifts of your self, your time, your love, your life
   the place where we traded the traffic counts of the city for
   the confused rooster, pattering rainfalls,
   chirping redbirds, chipping woodpeckers,
   languid Loblollies, whispering windchimes,
   neighborless peaceful tranquility
   of the country

where we held hands and
    shared a cup of coffee and a Klondike Bar
    prayed fervently to begin the day
    talked long into the summer nights of crickets and fireflies
    cried over the troubles of our children and
    laughed at their silliness
    thanked God for their successes
    tousled the morning bedheads of our grandchildren
    hushed their sobs of bruises
    Band-Aided their bumps and bangs
    Illegally Cuban-cigar tobaccoed their hornet stings
    Breathed the dust settling from the tractor-mown pasture
    relaxed our heads against each other with lapfuls of lazy dogs
    said goodbye to Archie the night before the cancer won
    read scriptures to comfort and reassure us
    decided on important matters and made choices together
 
where we rocked through rough and swung through sweet
    swing and rocker glue strengthening and solidifying
    connecting and holding

Even if the fire of a nightmare reduced to rubble the rockers and
    scorched the swing to nothing but charred cinders of chain and cushion
A phoenix would rise from a single burning ember
    Porch swings and rockers kindle fireproof vaults

-Kim Johnson