Sunday, April 30, 2017

Day 30 of Poetry Month

The month is at an end, but I will NOT stop writing a poem every day. I feel so much better for it. And yes, I will enter some of my poems into contests and magazines. I've gotten hooked on the responses, the criticism, the banter, and most definitely the praise.

So for today, here you go.

These words are mine, but I will share them with you

The words I write do not have to sound

As light as Browning’s “How do I love thee”

Or as smooth as Williams’ “ The Red Wheelbarrow”

Or as tight as Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”.

The images I portray are not necessarily places I have been to

Or seen in a feature film

Or witnessed in a calendar

Or glanced at in National Geographic.

The wisdom I unfold here is not purely for myself,

Though I might want it so

For I am shy,

But for the masses seeking truth in these uncertain times.

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Day 29 of Poetry Month

Today's prompt: revisit past work. Here's what I came up with. I'm sort of pleased with it. But I don't expect to win a Pulitzer for it.

Elevate the Alphabet

Anxiety, like a prickly pear, flows

Breathe in, breathe out

Cut out the fluff

Daffodils open

escalating duties

Find a path to reconciliation.

Grey clouds blanket the sky from morning to morning

Her voice, my muse, is low and I can barely hear her

I don’t need the whole plan.

Just one more swipe, one more click, one more

Kilograms of stewing beef

Long past the days of youth.

Mossy branches

native grasses, without reason;

One hundred and five

Plan and rehearse

Quickly from the church

Resurrection.

Sugar snap peas

Then I curse your name (and his) for what you did (and didn’t do),

Use a strict order, a rhythm and a rhyme. Not!

Venture on the dyke, to search

Why can’t we stay here forever?

Xenon, and not Krypton.

Your love. You are down the road. That road, we all travel

Zero ground expected.

I remember less and less of what’s important,

I have had enough.

Friday, April 28, 2017

Day 28 of Poetry Month

Nature always provide inspiration for my writing.

Remembering Whiffin Spit

Kayaks, long and sleek—

Whiffin Spit Beach extends past

lovers of the open seas.

Blue-grey mountains climb,

reaching past ideas of snow-capped

giants sleep ‘till dawn.

Pebble paths crisscross

native grasses, without reason;

logs lounge like giants.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Day 27 of Poetry Month

Today's prompt: write about an element from the periodic table.

Krypton

I speak of “the hidden one”,

the colourless, tasteless, odourless, noble gas.

I speak of the experiment where William and Morris together at University College in 1898

took liquid air, and through scientific process, distilled the previously unknown.

I speak of 36 protons, 48 neutrons, 36 electrons bound together,

largely inert to reactions with other elements.

I do not speak of the native world of Superman which was destroyed

in a planetary explosion.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Day 26 of Poetry Month

Seeking Treasure

Get up, you sleepyhead. It’s time for an

early morning adventure on the dyke, to search

off-trail for containers full of notes, trinkets, and

coins. Don’t forget to bring your gloves and tweezers,

and a pen. Don’t worry if we do not find the spot. We

can always go back another day. I find

hunting is best when there are two of us searching,

inside, outside, under, over, or around ‘ground zero’. We might spend an hour looking,

not noticing the time as the sun sets slowly,

going down behind the hills on the other side of Boundary Bay.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Day 25 of Poetry Month

It's amazing what I will say when I can hide behind the internet. I can be very strong and very political and very forward.

Blame

For the rising waters and increasing drought, who is to blame?

For the indignant youth and radicalized, who is to blame?

For the racist stares and Brexit win, who is to blame?

For the thousands of refugees crossing in the darkest of nights, who is to blame?

For the murdered and missing indigenous women, who is to blame?

For the scare tactics of the narcissistic dictators, who is to blame?

For the protests and marches and placards and banners, who is to blame?

For the increased tariffs and escalating duties, who is to blame?

For the dying and crying children of the world, who is to blame?

For the melting glaciers and dwindling stocks, who is to blame?

For the yelling and screaming and violence that never seems to stop these days, who is to blame?

I sit alone on a wooden park bench in silence and wonder if I am to blame.

Monday, April 24, 2017

Day 24 of Poetry Month

The last week of April is the end and also the beginning of many things.

You Never Said

Who are you but a woman

who cries and wishes

for a better future. Mother, don’t we all.

Who is he but a lout and a liar

who yells and spanks

his own children. He was my father.

You weren’t the first, but you were the last to fall

under his spell, whatever it was,

You had nothing in common, but me.

You were the angel, he was the devil

who tried to atone. Can’t say I forgave him.

Maybe it’s the circumstance of my birth,

maybe it’s that you never said.

Maybe I just don’t care anymore.

Day 21, 22, and 23 of Poetry Month

I was away on the weekend so I'm catching up here.

Victoria in April

Away from the crowds

of tourists and sight-seers,

the daffodils open.

Magic and rebirth

begin again as April

rests.

The ever expanded sea

of green and fragrance

seeps into the scenery.

Some Future

Long past the days of youth, some

Of us want happy days

To continue on and on, and I

Reach out to stop the sun and put

Myself in the path of the

Everyday people.

Those that are too young to see in

Television screens, their

Future and not the one that everybody expects, but places

You at a crossroads of reality or fantasy, at

A point in space and time you never thought would come to be, the

Future where you had a family and ate meals at the dinner table.

In My Head Are the Silliest Things

As I age,

I remember less and less of what’s important

(like when to pay my Visa bill)

and more the fragments of the youth

(like a phone number or an address of where I lived when I was nine).

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Day 20 of Poetry Month

Just one line to say how much he means to me and how I can't live without him.

I wait for you

I sit and wait

For you will return to me,

And we will walk together

Among the giant cedars,

Towering over our heads as giants,

Watching over us as gods,

Protecting us from harm

(and there is so much harm in the world these days),

and we will walk together

as we have these past 32 years,

hand in hand,

remembering the swords and gravestones

from that April 20^th,

remembering Anne Murray’s limousine,

it’s comfy grey seats,

it’s wide expanse,

that took us from the church to dinner far too quickly,

not giving us the time to pause and reflect

on all that was before and would be there in future,

a future still with you.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Day 19 of Poetry Month

Autumn Sunset

Yellow orange red purple blue grey

All colours mixed together

A painting fresh on canvas

Early evening highlights time

Oils and watercolours do no justice to the scene before me

A miracle of light and no light, earth rotating passed its point

Eyes see and the heart feels wondrous freedom

Colours fight black, but black always wins and night comes unaccepted unexpectedly fast

Yellow

Orange

Red

Purple

Blue

Grey

Black

Black……..

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Day 18 of Poetry Month

Some day the muse is receptive to my call, some days she's not. Today I was lucky.

Be Mine

Would, that I could, be yours

Hold time within my grasp

Hold you without sorry, without distress, without pain,

Without explanation. I feel you pull away. I feel

A part of you is gone.

I’ve lost your centre, your presence, your attention,

Your love. You are down the road. That road, we all travel

From birth to death,

From loving to hating,

From peace to altercation.

Reaching for your hand, I miss and take only the summer air

To walk with me along this path.

Please slow so I catch up

Or doddle so we meet again.

Turn back to me so I can speak these words to your eyes alone

“I love you”.

Monday, April 17, 2017

Day 17 of Poetry Month

Resurrection

For Lorraine

Stop blaming the tree

And the bird

And the woman.

Only you are at fault.

But He decided you deserve

Forgiveness.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Day 16 of Poetry Month

I was asked to write a sonnet. Not happening today. When I stopped fighting, this came.

Channelling the Muse to Write Sonnets

Fighting form and space and meter

Squeezing letters into shapes

A parcel of emptiness is unsure of itself

But I can see infinitely further

Cut out the fluff

Add in the impossible request of this form and that meter and those spaces

Use a strict order, a rhythm and a rhyme

They are not me

Freedom is not a solid shape.

A garden, a row of daisies, two plots of ragged soil, just excuses

Spend the time reworking those words written down

Ask the muse to try once again

But lose the form, the space, the meter forthwith

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Day 15th of Poetry Month

What is poetry? After what I've written today, I am not sure. So I put it out there for comments.

TMI

It’s morning and, as I eat breakfast, I turn on my phone.

Swipe, swipe, and click. And Twitter opens.

Destination BC @HelloBC 1 minute ago: Looking for a place to relax on your next trip to BC? Check out our top 5 hot springs. #exploreBC

With breakfast done, I make myself a coffee; one milk, no sugar.

As I sip my dark roast, I swipe.

Dr. Michael Breus‏ @thesleepdoctor 2 minutes ago: Sleep Tip: Beans and other legumes are packed with vitamin Bs, such as B6, B12, & folic acid which help you to relax & sleep. #foodforsleep

30% of nights are restless.

So 70% are good. Why am I always so pessimistic?

Herdwick Shepherd‏ @herdyshepherd1 2 hours ago: Ewes and lambs everywhere

It’s been many years since we travelled to England.

Searching for ancestors, searching through history, searching for relatives.

Jeff Harrington‏ @JHarringtonTV 3 hours ago: ONCE warm front moves in, temperatures will spike in GTHA! Bulk of wet weather is done, winds will pick up too! @weathernetwork

The sun is shining here. There are grey clouds, but there is no rain. So much rain last month,

So much darkness in March, but I am not sad.

Edmonton Oilers‏ @EdmontonOilers 5 hours ago: "They've waited a long time for this & we want to make them proud." @zkassian9 on #Oilers fans & boisterous "KASSIAN!" chants last night

Finally there’s something to watch on TV. Two months of ice hockey playoffs.

Maybe a Canadian team will win the Stanley Cup this year. Think positive!

Ladies Learning Code‏ @learningcode 6 hours ago: A round of applause to @bpoetz for teaching, our amazing #HamOnt mentors for supporting, & @CoMotion302 for hosting today's Python workshop!

In 1979 I was one of three women in my graduating class. The number of women in programming

has not really changed since I graduated.

I want to know why. I want to change the system.

Maria Popova‏ @brainpicker 6 hours ago: Leonardo da Vinci was born on this day in 1452. His forgotten anatomical drawings were centuries ahead of medicine https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/07/17/leonardo-da-vinci-anatomist/ …

Useless information is my middle name.

MLB‏ @MLB 9 hours ago: For the number on the back. #Jackie42

Black is still black, and white is still white. People are still racist. Nothing changes.

No one learns. No one cares.

Just one more swipe, one more click, one more …

Mother, put down the phone and walk away.

Friday, April 14, 2017

Day 14 of Poetry Month

No Skin

When I look at you without your skin,

I see your history,

Your road through time,

Your kindness and your courage,

Your sense of knowing a life’s purpose.

And you should see

My honest wish to understand

The issues set between us,

My determination to help us both

Find a path to reconciliation.

Skin clouds our interactions,

Puts up walls,

Creates misinterpretations,

Causes conflict,

Keeps me from really seeing you

And you from seeing me.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Day 13 of Poetry Month

I’ve written a number of poems based on the works of Robert Bateman, a Canadian landscape painter, who also includes animals. Some of these are available on this blog. We have a number of his books and a signed print of his “Mossy Branches”, on which today’s attempt is based.

Mossy Branches – Spotted Owl , 1999

For Robert Bateman

Cool stillness
Mossy branches
Big eyes that see all
even that which cannot be seen by you nor I.
Big eyes that survey the temperate rain-forest
disappearing
disintegrating
dissolving into
stumps,
broken, dying conifers
returning to the earth.

No longer seeing unbroken tracts of forests
in which to fly,
where predators come in and
the spotted owls die out.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Day 12 of Poetry Month

I wrote this for someone I followed on Twitter for awhile. She was a minister (not sure what denomination) and believed in the need for physical churches. I do not.

Religiously Free

For Anna

My cathedral is an open meadow;

Its roof is the crisp blue sky, its floor holds

Wild grasses, overgrown and baked by an August sun.

My clergy are grasshoppers and ants,

With cicada choirboys covering the silence

With everlasting joy.

My hymn is my own life,

Starting out quiet and slow,

Building gradually

Until I reach nirvana.

My god is my god,

Not your god,

Not your God.

My god cannot be shared,

For she is in me.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Day 11 of Poetry Month

Free flow is surprising and confusing and a delight, if and when it happens. It did today.

Hold, Stay, Flow

I see no words,

Only sounds mouthed silently.

A pattern full of clip-ped tones invades.

I wait for inspiration yet again

And receive no clues,

Or only lines of complicated rhythms

Basted with colours and meter

But not for you or me to understand.

The flow, it goes, on and on and on.

I type with speed and typos

I see no end but feel the thread continue through the seconds, minutes, moments.

Her voice, my muse, is low and I can barely hear her

Though now the sounds of the outside world invade and I am losing reception.

And She is gone.

Monday, April 10, 2017

Day 10 of Poetry Month

The subject of many of my poems. Where I say things I should have said to here when she was still alive.

Dearest Mom

Hello Mom

It’s been eleven years since you ‘passed’ and

I still think about you each and every day.

It was Father’s Day, they called us after supper.

We’d spoken to you in the early afternoon.

You looked so peaceful, so small, in that big hospital bed.

I kept waiting for you to wake up.

I kept waiting for you to speak my name.

I have trouble sleeping now. I know you did. For years,

You looked like you paced the floors in the darkest night.

I do it now, sometimes. When I stop,

I write you letters & poems.

Then I curse your name (and his) for what you did (and didn’t do),

For what you didn’t say to me,

For staying when you could have (should have) left,

For leaving me alone

Without your counsel

Without your familiar touch

Without you.

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Day 9 of Poetry Month

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Vimy Ridge, I'm posting this again.

In Flanders

Fields, mostly green, dotted with red

As far as the eye can see

As far as a wounded man can walk in a day

Think back to days of WWI

Think back to John and his friend Alexis

Search for the patch of land when many lives were lost

Search for the memories they want to forget

Rows of crosses mark their final rest

Rows of soldiers fall, gently through the fields of grass

Hear the shots

Hear the cries

See the pain

See the futility of all this bloodshed

Of all this waste of youth

Of all this waste of generations

Fields, mostly red, remind us of the past

And pass the torch along

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Day 8 of Poetry Month

Back to the Poetry school prompts.

Change

What is change?

Disruption.

Upsetting.

Not what was before.

Change is coming

And I cannot sleep.

I cannot stop it,

Nor do I want to,

But neither am I happy.

It’s upsetting.

Change helps us grow.

Change makes us better.

I want to accept change,

But it means I’m not in control

And I love control.

So I try to accept change.

I will make statements & decisions, perform actions & tasks

That will seem illogical

But this is how I cope—

With change.

I need there to be a plan,

A plan for the future.

So I know what’s going to happen,

Where I’m going,

Where you’re going.

You may have plans but I don’t know them so that makes me anxious.

I don’t need the whole plan,

I just need to know that there is 1.

I just need to know you’re ready for change,

‘Cause the only thing that’s constant in this world is

Change.

Friday, April 7, 2017

Day 6 and 7 of Poetry Month

The muse wouldn't come yesterday. Today isn't much better.

Rituals

On my back on the mat in corpse pose

Breathe in, breathe out

Raise my arms over my head and point my toes

And s t r e t c h

Breathe in, breathe out

Bend my knees into my chest and rock

Back and forth

On my lower back

Breathe in, breathe out

In this place, I relax

In this place, I am me

Ode to April’s Rainy Days

Days and days of rain

Falling continuously

Being constantly

In view

Grey clouds blanket the sky from morning to morning

Hours and hours of showers

Behaving childishly

Growing exponentially

Over meadows

Blue peaks through to provide a moment of joy

Minutes and seconds of droplets

Enclosing gracefully

Fulfilling religiously

Springs’ renewal

April showers bring everything to life

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Day Five of Poetry Month

This is a 1st draft. But I wanted to put it out there.

Aubade at Vimy

To commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the Battle on April 9, 1917

We storm the ridge at 5:30 am.

Plan and rehearse.

More than 15,000 Canadian infantry,

four Canadian divisions,

we attack together for the first time.

Training behind enemy lines,

we use models to represent the battlefield.

Engineers dug deep tunnels from the rear to the front line.

Many had specialist roles as machine-gunners,

rifle-men, and grenade-throwers.

Plan and rehearse.

Devastating artillery barrage would isolate enemy trenches.

A moving wall of high explosives and shrapnel would force the Germans

to stay in their deep dugouts and away from their machine-guns.

Our artillery pounded the enemy positions on the ridge,

killing and tormenting defenders this past week.

Plan and rehearse.

Who of us will get to go home to Saskatchewan farms and Newfoundland fisheries?

We will fight for days, weeks, if necessary.

We will fight as one unit, as one nation called Canada.

Plan and rehearse.

We storm the ridge at 5:30 am tomorrow.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Day Four of Poetry Month

Not following the prompt today. I don't write rhyming poetry well.
My poems are from the heart, about how the world strikes me, and how those I'm in contact with affect me.

Without Our Skin

What I see when I look at you

is your skin,

tanned and dark like chocolate.

What you see when you look at me—

Well, that’s what I want to know.

Am I white like snow

or pink like a cherry

or boring old beige?

What I should see when I look at you

is your history,

your sense of purpose,

your kindness and courage.

And you should see

my honest wish to understand

the issues between us,

my hope to know you better,

my determination to make us both see each other as we are,

beings on this planet that needs us to all work together

lives intertwined as a tapestry of brotherhood.

Monday, April 3, 2017

Third Day of Poetry Month

This year I'm following prompts from The Poetry School. See https://poetryschool.com/ for more information.

The List

Six bananas
Five apples
A pint of blueberries
Desserts for the week

Four lamb chops
Three pork chops
500 Kilograms of stewing beef
Entrées fit for a queen

Green string beans
Yellow wax beans
Sugar snap peas
Two ears of corn
Healthy additions to the dinner plate

One tub of yogurt
Rice cakes
Granola bars
Snacks a mother would love

Line up
Pay
Drive home
Empty the grocery bags

Make a cup of tea
Grab a paperback
Sit on the patio
Relax

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Second Day of Poetry Month

I return to a previous poem to remember the time to meditate.

Tai Chi

delicate movements

arms sweep by

weight transfers

back to front

one hundred and five

classical yang

raise hands

step out

stork cools its wings

brush left knee

relax as your chi flows

flows up your spine

flows through your arms

flows as you pass it on

flows over

flows out

flows in

flows through

flows

Saturday, April 1, 2017

First Day of Poetry Month

It's April 1st and the start of Poetry Month again.

#courage

For Gord and Aunt Betty

It couldn’t come at a worse time
Time runs out for everyone
Everyone sees me, but doesn’t know
Know the pain, the torture, agony, and anxiety.

Anxiety, like a prickly pear, flows
Flows into every microsecond of every day
Day in, day out, day in, day out,
Out of reality.

Reality is an acceptance of what is.
Is it all in my head?

Head, my head, it hurts,
Hurts through every cell of my mortal body.
Body, my body, it aches,
Aches through every hour of every day of every month.

Month twenty-three of this journey and I’m still alive.