Part 21 -a love poem

A wonderful love poem from Rajani – enjoy!

A story in many unequal parts, some missing

Like a rush-hour deluge, love arrived
where it shouldn’t. When we couldn’t.
Stirring up the normal. But love must
be Shakespearean: a costume drama,
poetry frothing at its mouth, selfish,

greedy, visceral. Always wanting more,
wanting so much more that nothing is
enough. Not even love. We’re raised
on happy endings. Even tragedies are
normalized as the best possible result,

given the odds. When love fails, we ask
if it was real. Seek existential assurance.
A real love should have destroyed the
lover when it left. Survival is proof of
what never was. The ledger of longing

is never tallied. The void is carried like
an abscess. Never absent. Never healing.
And yet these are just ordinary wounds.
Not worthy of even an ordinary story.
Do you think a fleeing comet is allowed

to fall in love with the moon? Do you
think the moon should listen to the sky?

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My Poem ( and response) at the Skeptics Kaddish

David, who blogs over at the Skeptics Kaddish, has an ongoing project called Poetry Partners where bloggers give him one of their poems, and he writes one of his own in response.

My poem, The Poem of your Life, (which is about my now adult youngest son) is published there with Davids response:

(Oh, and David goes by the nom de plume of ben Alexander on his blog)

https://skepticskaddish.com/2022/03/27/literally-or-figuratively/

“Odysseus”

I have just discovered this wonderful poem from Mike U. It’s a long one, but well worth the read (and a re-read!). Enjoy! :

Silent Pariah

“Odysseus”
© 2013 by Michael L. Utley

I saw Odysseus sprawled on the sidewalk between
The squalid little deli and the boarded-up
All-night video place whose weather-stained
Posters advertised GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS
Amid obtuse indecipherable graffiti and
A fallen constellation of multi-hued shards of
Broken glass that crunched underfoot like
Bone fragments
The patina of snow about him
Pristine in its absence of footprints from
Passers-by as if the stench of his
Existence had formed an unseen barrier
A half-moon DMZ buffering
His world from ours
And ours from his
And seemed to accelerate those who passed
As if sling-shotting them along their snowy
Midnight trajectories by means of his own
Anomalous gravity
And he was invisible
This shivering, coughing Odysseus
This Odysseus of ancient rheumy eyes and
Filth-caked garb of indeterminate color and
Dirty twitching fingers destroyed by age and arthritis
That latched onto
Nothingness in the inhuman chill

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The Disappearance of Decency

Poems by Ivor Stevens, https://ivors20.wordpress.com/2022/03/07/the-disappearence-of-decency/

Introduction

Naked I stand before Him
Stripped of common decency
Debased, I kneel crying
Sad words fall like rain
Tanks are still rolling
Over the Ukraine
My Tanka’s are scrolling
Down their bloody drains

Tanka #1. Sad Sky

False words smudge old clouds
Gray clouds hang under sad sky
The sad sky decries
“Children are our butterflies
And please stop the warring lies”


Tanka #2. Broken Biscuits

Life is imperfect 
Like broken war-time biscuits 
Re-connection waits 
Reconciliation stops 
Life’s sweet shortbread’s unopened 


Tanka #3. Abandoned 

May the stormy winds
Calmly abate in Europe
And bring peace quickly
Do not forget the children
We cannot abandon them

Epilogue

Cover me
Give me beauty
Inspire me
Calm me
Save me
From that deadly bee
Above the Black Sea

Where the Wild Mushrooms Grow

A wonderful poem from Rebecca Cunigham. Enjoy! (Scroll to the end of the post for the poem).

Fake Flamenco

Eagle led me into the woods yesterday after school. Read to the end to see the poem our hike inspired. A forest grows between the golf course and the bike path following reclaimed railroad tracks half mile (1K) from the school. Oak trees, standing and fallen. Those that were horizontal were covered with half moon mushrooms.

Mushroomed Log Photo: Rebecca

We walked a kilometer through the woods and the city disappeared. A sacred quiet descended. I felt uprooted from time. When were we? Were minutes in motion? We arrived in the spiritual home of the mushrooms. Was it once named that way, rather than by the family name of the owner…?

Oak Log in the Snow Photo: Rebecca

The mushrooms took many different shapes, as they did their work returning nutrients to the soil.

Upright Log Photo: Rebecca

Silent workers, recycling trees, feeding tree children grown into the canopy above.

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Father And Son

A wonderful seasonal poem from Glenys:

lifecameos

On Christmas Day after
the excitement of presents
Dad lies on the living room floor
on his side, head on hand as
baby brother leans backwards
and forwards rocking to and fro
on his chubby bottom against
Dad’s stomach, absorbed in his
new playskool toy with a
rolling barrel, levers to push.

He thumps on one lever, laughs
at its loud tinging noise, stares
in fascination as the barrel rolls
and rings, thumps the lever again,
murmurs excitedly to himself.

Dad watches as baby brother
plays, grinning broadly at this
intent little fellow, so engrossed
in his fabulous new toy.

Previously posted March 2017.

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Curtain Call

A wonderful poem from Ron Lafayette for you to enjoy:

Scrambled, Not Fried

Curtain Call

Buckets of lobster shells
empty into a half-dozen
50-gallon drums
distributed among tables
scattered across the familial lawn.

A momentary dragonfly 
hovered over the mourners’ heads,
lingering only long enough
so that half of those who witnessed it
mistook it for a hummingbird
while everyone else, awestruck,
mistook it for a monarch butterfly,
the recently departed’s favorite.

—————[|||]—————
dVerse Poets
Open Link Night
~ OLN #297 ~
———[||]———

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In The Rain

A brilliant poem from Glenys about a Blackbird in the rain:

lifecameos

In steady light rain
low clouds compress
the light’s dull glare.
The blackbird’s feathers
sparkle under their fine cloak
of minute droplets.
His chuckles, shrieks of glee
from the clothesline pole
fill the garden as he raises
his head half spreads his wings
in the sensual joy
of tiny moist diamonds.

Previously posted January 2016.

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Toad at the Gates of Doom (Edit)

Another fine poem from Jim Feeney. Enjoy!

Stopdraggingthepanda

Toad at the Gates of Doom

Outside the Gates of Hades
sits a cross-eyed toad
beside a burnt-out serpent
a broker and a phone.

Outside the Gates of Heaven
sits an angel in disguise
beside a corpulent bishop
with ecstasy in his eyes

and the sign on the gate says:

Closed for Renovation
no judgement today
if you’re looking for accommodation
clear off, go away.

God is on vacation
taking a well-earned break
there’s only so much suffering
one true God can take

So, get your ass back down there
be good to everyone
drink lots of water
and try to get along.

Brendan’s challenge this week over at Earthweal is to write of a voyage to the Otherworld. As he explains:

I have used the medium of Irish myth, but voyages to the Otherworld are universal. Journey there this week from inside your own story-cycle, and report on the…

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spirit fish

A brilliant poem by Colin Hill. Enjoy….