Tag: music

Posted on

Open Write Day 1 of 3 September 2025 with Kelsey Bigelow

Today’s host of the first day of September’s Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Kelsey Bigelow, who works as a mental health poet and renowned author of books, slam poetry events, and writing workshops in Iowa. You can read all about Kelsey and visit today’s prompt and poems here, as she inspires us to think about what lives on the “good side of memories.” Today’s writing is rooted in stream of consciousness writing that can live on in that form or be the start of one that takes root for another.

It’s All in the Kneading and Knowing

the happiest thing

I’ve ever tasted was that moment

when in my grief

soul-gutting tears in a

big-enough-for-all

walls of a VRBO

reverberating sniffles

and crumpled Kleenex

and happy laughs of

oblivious grandchildren playing

with their newest cousin

trying to teach him

to walk at six months

and believing he could

the strains of Amazing Grace

sung to a guitar

by the rest of us trying

to sing with the best of us

believing we could

as we all sat piled high

on the curved couch

pajama-clad, remembering

*******. ********

then one broke the silence

asking for a happier moment

in the autumn – another together

time when smiles returned

then another added

yeah, when

any of us can

make a word from tiles in

turntable Scrabble

and another added

yeah, and only if Mom

brings the pumpkin bread

and right then

in those delicate moments

I knew three things:

that I had taken the reins

as the newest family elder and

that tradition of togetherness

lives on in food tried first

as a flopped recipe

when they’re toddlers, then tested

again and again to perfection

by the time they’re teenagers

and can’t think of gatherings

without it and

that families too

are like that ~

learning to walk

learning to sing

learning to bake

learning to live on

believing

through all the tears and laughter

that together

we can

Posted on

Music

This month, I continue writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today’s inspires us to write about what kind of music we love and what is beauty for us.

Righteous

I’m officially old, I suppose,

but they don’t make music

like they used to

those voices, that harmonizing

that message in

(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration

is what the world needs

today to fix what’s broken

inside the heart

The September Open Write begins tomorrow at http://www.ethicalela.com, and I’d like to invite you to drop in and read the prompt and write a poem with us. You don’t have to post it to experience the soothing balm of poetry. No one even has to know you wrote it. It doesn’t have to be long, it doesn’t have to rhyme, it doesn’t even have to make sense to anyone else. It’s all about the habit of writing and having a daily routine of self-expression. The prompt will be posted at 5:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and there will be a process and an example. Come write with us! Kelsey Bigelow, Allison Berryhill, and Barb Edler will be our hosts for the next 3 days, inspiring us to get in touch with our inner voices.

Posted on

For Whom the Bell Dongs: A Demi Sonnet

he’s a musical pirate, stealing songs

deceitful melodies some will believe

are his own original lyrics, tuned

spun from a true heart (yet nothing more fake)

these parroted words served up like spice cake

come all who’ll listen: for whom the bell dongs

this sheep in swiped robe is out to deceive

Posted on

March 31: 9:00-9:31 p.m. The Goodnight Magnesium and Music Festival

bedtime rituals

foot rub magnesium cream

relaxing music

I’m a firm believer in sleep – not too much, and not too little. I wish I knew the sweet spot of food like I know the sweet spot of sleep. I head bedward at 9:00 so I can start getting sleepy. The goal is to be fully asleep between 9:30 and 10:00 and to wake at 5:00 without exercising the snooze option more than a couple of times (much more challenging on a Monday).

For years, I took melatonin, but the nightmares were real. That’s when my sister in law told me about magnesium foot cream, and my sleep has never been better. This is the first part of my sleepy time ritual.

Plus, there is music. Which leads me to Leigh Anne Eck’s Music Festival. I’m showing up in pajamas and slippers, hair up and face drenched with moisturizer because my music is focused on peaceful relaxation and not feeling like I want to get up and dance or bust a move my body can no longer handle.

Let’s start with Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World. No one on earth offers greater reassurance that things are still okay with the world than Louis himself. I need that at the end of a day when everything has reached the crescendo of doubt. Trees of green and red roses, skies of blue and clouds of white and babies…..it’s a feast of all-is-well, now go to sleep knowing it’s going to be okay. Tom T. Hall’s I Love is one that offers some reassurance, too, but not quite like old Lou.

B.J. Thomas may be in my top 5 artists with songs like Don’t Worry, Baby for relaxing. This one is on par with The Alan Parson Projects’ Eye in the Sky, which brings it waaaaay up on the list with its one greatest line in the whole song: the sun in your eyes made some of the lies worth believing.

But the best ever, the top top top line I love in a song is actually a question, and anytime we hear it playing, my husband and I look at each other and answer, “Yes.” The Eagles: Take it to the Limit – – if it all fell to pieces tomorrow, would you still be mine?

Now I could go far down the John Denver Country Roads and Calypso lyrics a long, long way…. they’re on my relaxation playlist, too, at this Goodnight Music Festival.

Let’s get this goodnight party started as we close out another year of The Slice of Life March Challenge and look forward to the Tuesday slicing all year long.

Good night, Moon! Good night, March! Good night, Slicing family! Thank you for the stories and for sharing your lives this month and inspiring everyone. See you on Tuesday!

Hey, wait……that’s tomorrow! In that case, see you around 5:00 a.m………

Special thanks to the TWT crew for making this month of slicing possible, to each of the writers for all of the inspiration, and to Glenda, Barb, and Denise for slicing in time increments throughout the day. Your writing kinship means the world to me, and I’ll end with a group hug and an invitation to write through April with another writing community starting tomorrow as we kick off VerseLove 2025 at http://www.ethicalela.com. If you wrote for 31 days, you can write for 61 – – believe it! Hope to see you there!

Posted on

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

Posted on

Day 19 of #VerseLove with Dr. Stefani Boutelier of Michigan

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Stefani Boutelier leads us in Irish poetry today. You can read her full prompt, along with the poems and comments of others, here. She writes,”Today I will introduce the Deibide Baise Fri Toin form. It was difficult to find the full history of this form and more impossible to get a clear translation, but I like how it ends with one word to represent the power of single words and syllables. The quatrain form (3/7/7/1) is explained here:

Line 1: 3 syllables, rhyme A with two syllables

Line 2: 7 syllables, rhyme A with two syllables

Line 3: 7 syllables, rhyme B with one syllable

Line 4: 1 syllable, rhyme B

A published example of a Deibide Baise Fri Toin

This link provides a nice templated example at the bottom 

Praise!

shake and sing
gospel choir awakening 
hallelujah voices raise ~
praise!
Posted on

Limon Buffett

I’ve been reading Ada Limon’s poetry lately, and with the death of Jimmy Buffet yesterday, I’ve been blending poetry and thought and music together in a grief vortex as I sit on my Labor Day campsite by the lake in Georgia. Limon’s poem “Anticipation” inspired my use of her format for today’s Buffet thoughts. 

I Don’t Know

…. before the strawberry
Aguas Frescas,
before the dog fight
next door,
when the black dragonfly
flashed its gossamer
wings, preening 
in the sun 
teasing a mate,
I was 
humming Buffet,
lost in Margaritaville
~ ooh, Jolly Mon sing,
oooh, make Orion ring~
fins to the left,
   fins to the right,
wondering where 
I’m a gonna go
when the volcano
blows….
Posted on

August Open Write with Scott McCloskey

Today our host for August’s Open Write, Scott McCloskey of Michigan, encouraged us to write poems from the perspective of someone or something in any painting or its artist. You can read his full prompt here. I chose the Woodstock Festival. Since the photos are copyrighted, I can’t share the actual photo I chose, but it’s available at this link: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/AwUBOlaLnlGyLA

Once you get there, scroll down. It’s about the 14th picture in the collection. There is a woman playing a flute and a man playing a drum. There is a yellowish lab-type dog in the background, mixed in with all the people milling about. My poem is from the perspective of the drum player, clearly lost in the music and, if thinking anything, thinking to his own beat. 

Ain't Nobody

Ain't nobody gonna steal my joy,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my song,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my beat,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my drum,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my groove,

Ain't nobody gonna steal my love,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my peace,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my shirt,
Ain't nobody gonna steal my dog,
Ain't nobody gonna steal nothin' of mine

'Cause I'm a sharin' man, 
Yeah, I'm a sharin', man.
Posted on

Slice of Life Challenge – March 29 – Happy Anniversary, Baby! Cheers to 15 Years!

Fifteen years ago today, I married my best friend. I still enjoy thinking back on our wedding day…..looking at our wedding album photos. Here are eleven of my favorite memories from that day that I’ll be sharing with Briar today:

  1. Those were the days I didn’t even own a hairbrush. I dried my hair on the way to the wedding in the wind by holding my head out the window of the car. Right before I went down the aisle, the wedding director told me I needed lipstick. So I put it on for everyone else, but not for me.

2. Both of our mothers dressed in blue and were alive and excited to see us happy, in love, and getting married. They are no longer with us, and we miss them.

3. We asked three ministers to tie the knot extra tight – your childhood pastor, our good friend minister, and my preacher dad. In one of my favorite wedding pictures, The Lord’s Prayer is playing and Dad is standing over us with a hand on each of us, praying for us.

4. The florist didn’t put the wires in the tulips (my favorite flowers), and shortly after the wedding began, they started drooping….and drooped….and drooped……

5. We turned our wedding around. We didn’t want our backs to our guests; we wanted them to feel like they were a part of the ceremony.

6. I’d wanted a simple pair of gold sandals to match the gold in my dress, not flats and not high heels, but I couldn’t find any that I liked. So I found a pair of white sandals I liked, taped the soles and footbeds, and spray painted my wedding shoes gold.

7. I wanted a fresher, more updated version of Canon in D, so I chose Lullaby by Bond as the processional for the entire wedding party including me, because it makes me feel good inside time I hear it. It just rolled on and we all did our best to walk slowly. I remember that everyone’s face lit up with surprised expressions during our recessional, because at the very last minute as I was heading down the aisle at the start of the wedding, I had whispered up to your brother in the sound booth, “I want to change the recessional music. Ditch the Trumpet Voluntary and play the Hallelujah Chorus, will ya?” And so he did.

8. I remember just having the BEST time planning our wedding to be exactly what we wanted it to be – a small gathering of friends and family, with a short and personal service followed by a catered dinner reception. And we spent hours together making our own wedding favors that matched the candles on the tables. We cut giftwrap to go in bands around the candles and added our names and wedding date. And we are still burning these, fifteen years later.

9. You smudged my nose with carrot cake icing. That’s my favorite cake – so we had carrot for me and chocolate for you. Every part of that day was so much fun, but ironically the only bite of cake I got was the bite for the picture. We tried to eat the topper a year later, but after a year in the freezer, the frostbite had set in and it wasn’t tasty anymore.

10. We each served our new mothers-in-law a slice of cake to earn some brownie points on the front end. And it paid off!

11. And right before we left on our honeymoon, we called all of our children, nieces, and nephews up to gather around us. I gave each of them a flower from my bouquet, and then we prayed for them. We also prayed for all of the students in our community attending prom that evening, that they would be safe.

I didn’t think it was possible to love my husband any more than I did on our wedding day, but fifteen years later……I sure do!

My processional music
Our SURPRISE recessional music