Lord!!! My mind is almost as blank as the paper in front of me. (Oh it’s worse than writers block y’all 😂.) Still, I am thankful for the coffee, the scenery and autopilot. Autopilot gets me out of bed every day. 
poets
As rust falls from the anchor (A Poem & A Picture)
And on we roll..
Week two of NPM (A Poem & I Picture) where I share a photo taken by me and a poem by some awesome poet. I hope you all had a lovely weekend.
Where do sandcastles go
when the tide engulfs the view and
lonely shorelines crest in tear drops
beneath white capped dream chasers,
foam laced erasers combing sanded wishes,
taking towers in the water’s rage
as moats become minor indentations
on a beach bathed in the moon light,
moving gleams in metronome tickling
as our hearts wash out to sea
drowning in the depths of forbidden love
and with my final breath,
salt water drenched I profess
that forbidden or not, I love you
and the lighthouse shines its orbiting light
as I go under for the last time
happy in my declaration
as rust falls from the anchor
and I wait until we meet again,
on the island of meant to be
Psst, if you want to read some of my poetry Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) released this month and is now available in digital or paperback.
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Cloud- by Sandra Cisneros (A Poem & A Picture)
“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper.”—Thich Nhat Hanh
Before you became a cloud, you were an ocean, roiled and
murmuring like a mouth. You were the shadow of a cloud
crossing over a field of tulips. You were the tears of a
man who cried into a plaid handkerchief. You were a sky
without a hat. Your heart puffed and flowered like sheets
drying on a line.
And when you were a tree, you listened to trees and the tree
things trees told you. You were the wind in the wheels of a
red bicycle. You were the spidery Maria tattooed on the
hairless arm of a boy in downtown Houston. You were the
rain rolling off the waxy leaves of a magnolia tree. A lock
of straw-colored hair wedged between the mottled pages of a
Victor Hugo novel. A crescent of soap. A spider the color
of a finger nail. The black nets beneath the sea of olive
trees. A skein of blue wool. A tea saucer wrapped in
newspaper. An empty cracker tin. A bowl of blueberries in
heavy cream. White wine in a green-stemmed glass.
And when you opened your wings to wind, across the
punched-tin sky above a prison courtyard, those condemned to
death and those condemned to life watched how smooth and
sweet a white cloud glides.
*Sandra Cisneros (born December 20, 1954) is an American writer best known for her acclaimed first novel The House on Mango Street (1984) and her subsequent short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991). She is the recipient of numerous awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and is regarded as a key figure in Chicana literature.
Oh my goodness, those final lines left me a little misty eyed. I do not recall reading Sandra Cisneros before but I certainly enjoyed Cloud and in case I haven’t told you 1000 times Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) released this month and is now available in digital or paperback. I will be saying it again, and again… and again in case you missed it. As a matter of fact I am going to paste it on every NPM post.
P.S. If you have a recommendation for a poem (even your own) Get in Touch
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We Got Goals – It’s National Poetry Month Baby!
Is that a lame title? I can’t help help it, it made me laugh. If you could hear the fella in my head you’d laugh too — or not.
Anywho…
It was a lovely long weekend but now I am back. You wanna see some pictures? Okay.
Pardon my wipers…
Raindrops aren’t falling on my head…
She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain…
Starting tomorrow I will be posting A Poem & Picture. I can’t guarantee you that I will post daily throughout April but I will earnestly try for two or three a week. There, I’ve set a goal.
The goals of National Poetry Month are to:
- highlight the extraordinary legacy and ongoing achievement of American poets
- encourage the reading of poems
- assist teachers in bringing poetry into their classrooms
- increase the attention paid to poetry by national and local media
- encourage increased publication and distribution of poetry books, and
- encourage support for poets and poetry.
It is NPM, that stands for National Poetry Month baby! Ahhh, I crack me up.
And in case I haven’t told you 1000 times Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) released this month and is now available in digital or paperback. I will be saying it again, and again… and again in case you missed it. 😉
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A Poem & A Picture (A Limerick to Lighten Your Mood)
I don’t know about you guys, but I was in dire need of some humor to get me through NPM. I scrolled & scrolled through my inbox and found nothing to make me grin. 😦 But then I remembered a fella named Regis…
Molly
Poem & Picture provided by Regis Auffray
I once met a lass named Molly,
Who made me vulnerable to folly;
I fell for her charms,
Took her in my arms,
Molly was a sweet Irish collie.
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A Poem & A Picture (On Meeting Robert Hayden in a Dream)
On Meeting Robert Hayden in a Dream
by Abdul Ali
here among them the dead the others the aliens
I see you without coke bottle glasses a wavy comb over
your nose buried inside a notebook over-
flowing with strange sightings men and women
without a homeland a library to shelve histories
dreams the names of rare flowers fruits baby names
exiled from their villages learning to say hello
with accents thick with nostalgia for their purple planets
here UFO sightings aren’t so spectacular
border crossing is quintessentially american universal
crowds gather in squalid ghettoes where every country is a city
every city is a verse & every verse echoes “Those Winter Sundays”
where a New World opens up where all the martians are welcome
at the writing table with their fountain pens & swollen digits & you
whispering
what took so long?
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The Thinker, Buddy & The Gossiping Reeboks.
Why I chose The Thinker for the final post of National Poetry Month.
A few months ago we acquired Buddy from a lovely family after our Blue Heeler was killed. His prior family said they couldn’t keep him (for a number of reasons), said they hadn’t even named him but I suspect they were fibbing; a little white lie to ease our grief.
Right away our family asked what we were going to name this little fellow. Without thinking (in my typical weird, off the cuff manner) I blurted out, “He told me his name is Patrick, but that we could call him Buddy.” The grand-kids believed me, excited that I could communicate with dogs. The children mumbled something about having me committed. I just smiled and thought, at least I don’t talk to shoes.
The Thinker
My wife’s new pink slippers
have gay pom-poms.
There is not a spot or a stain
on their satin toes or their sides.
All night they lie together
under her bed’s edge.
Shivering I catch sight of them
and smile, in the morning.
Later I watch them
descending the stair,
hurrying through the doors
and round the table,
moving stiffly
with a shake of their gay pom-poms!
And I talk to them
in my secret mind
out of pure happiness.
We later found out that Buddy’s name was ‘Gus’. My husband couldn’t wait to share that bit of information. I said something like, “Aww, I knew they sacrificed their sweet puppy out of pure kindness.” He of course really wanted to make the point that the dog had NOT told me his name was Patrick. At that point I had to be honest…
“Hmm… Well, he didn’t really say his name was Patrick.” I admitted.
“I KNEW IT!” Husband gloated.
“What he actually said was that he was born Patrick Gustav, but he prefers to be called Buddy.”
The husband politely conceded and took Buddy out to find a new stick.
I was relieved that the issue had been settled once and for all until Buddy ran back in to tell me something; a disturbing bit of gossip actually. He said after the lights are out and the house is quiet that my Reeboks snicker and mock me, they laugh at the way I run!
The shoes, of course have the right to their opinion and I (of course) have the right to stomp around in altered footwear.
I find they fit much better minus the tongue. 😉
“The Thinker” was published in Williams’s book, Sour Grapes: a book of poems (The Four Seas Company, 1921).
Don’t let poetry die from neglect or sit gathering dust until next April.
May I suggest a nice anthology by HWA,
AND I Have 25 free promo codes from Audible for Pose Prose & Poems narrated by Linda Roper if anyone is interested.
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Hands Say So Much
Hands say so much about a person…
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A Poem & A Picture (Day 3)
Caterpillars
By Brod Bagert
They came like dewdrops overnight
Eating every plant in sight,
Those nasty worms with legs that crawl
So creepy up the garden wall,
Green prickly fuzz to hurt and sting
Each unsuspecting living thing.
How I hate them! Oh, you know
I’d love to squish them with my toe.
But then I see past their disguise,
Someday they’ll all be butterflies.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Okay I know this caterpillar will turn into a moth. A Polyphemus moth to be exact but shhh she thinks she’s a butterfly.
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Emily’s Simplicity
Emily Dickinson
(December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886)
Today I thought I’d visit the modest rhymes and musings of sweet Emily Dickinson but then I changed my mind.
Not that I don’t adore Emily’s simplicity – we were like best friends for a long time. Did you know if she hadn’t died of kidney disease or heart failure she would have been 184 years old next month? We were going to go skydiving…
Okay, back to earth and the late Emily Dickinson.
Instead of sharing the standard fluffy stuff of hopes and dreams and sugary illusions of death she is known for I decided to show her darker side with this letter and poem to her sister in law Susan Huntington Dickinson.
I heard if you invert Em’s photo you’ll see that she actually has horns. [gasp! yikes! yee gads it’s true!]
She lived and died in Massachusetts ya know.
THE LETTER
Tuesday morning – [1854]
Sue – you can go or stay – There is but one alternative – We differ often lately, and this must be the last.
You need not fear to leave me lest I should be alone, for I often part with things I fancy I have loved, – sometimes to the grave, and sometimes to an oblivion rather bitterer than death – thus my heart bleeds so frequently that I shant mind the hemorrhage, and I can only add an agony to several previous ones, and at the end of day remark – a bubble burst!
Such incidents would grieve me when I was but a child, and perhaps I could have wept when little feet hard by mine, stood still in the coffin, but eyes grow dry sometimes, and hearts get crisp and cinder, and had as lief burn.
Sue – I have lived by this.
It is the lingering emblem of the Heaven I once dreamed, and though if this is taken, I shall remain alone, and though in that last day, the Jesus Christ you love, remark he does not know me – there is a darker spirit will not disown its child.
Few have been given me, and if I love them so, that for idolatry, they are removed from me – I simply murmur gone, and the billow dies away into the boundless blue, and no one knows but me, that one went down today. We have walked very pleasantly – Perhaps this is the point at which our paths diverge – then pass on singing Sue, and up the distant hill I journey on.
I have a Bird in spring
Which for myself doth sing –
The spring decoys.
And as the summer nears –
And as the Rose appears,
Robin is gone.
Yet do I not repine
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown –
Learneth beyond the sea
Melody new for me
And will return.
Fast in a safer hand
Held in a truer Land
Are mine –
And though they now depart,
Tell I my doubting heart
They’re thine.
In a serener Bright,
In a more golden light
I see
Each little doubt and fear,
each little discord here
Removed.
Then will I not repine,
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown
Shall in a distant tree
Bright melody for me
Return.
E –
* * *
For more information on the life of Emily Dickinson check out the Emily Dickinson Museum.
