Versification Unsublime

Pain defeats poetry;

I resort to mere verse.

My back in spasm

demands full attention.

Doggerel or worse

is my best. The orgasm

of lyrical beauty eludes me,

as does invention.

Yet, may this exercise in rhyme

(called bref doublé)

rate some mention

if only as a weird phantasm

in the annals of poetic divers-

ity.

A 55-word piece for 'imaginary garden with real toads'. Also my Day One offering in the facebook poetry chain for which I was just nominated. And, finally, linking to Gillena's 'Sunday Lime'.

River

The first river you paddle runs through the rest of your life. It bubbles up in pools and eddies to remind you who you are. — Lynn Noel

Poetry, rivers, reading,

these are all great loves of mine.

I float into joy, searching

for famous quotations on 

rivers, for a verse or line

to begin a new poem

about my love of rivers —

and see, I found the right one!

It says it all, so for me

I can add nothing, needing

only to bathe in those words,

let the river of them run

through my memories, speeding
or meandering, and shine!

Submitted for the Poetic Asides bref double challenge,

and for dVerse Poetics — It's Quotable

Empty Nest

Now that I have the solitude I craved,

and can please myself what I do when,

I find myself missing the hullabaloo

of unpredictable family life

the romping and squabbling and chatter

of two little boys, the necessity

of sports fixtures, lessons, meals, holidays;

all the warmth, the stress, the pleasure, the strife,

the many distractions, the constant clatter ...

now that I'm free to read, write poems, be who

I always thought I wanted to be —

that she quite other than mother/housewife —

I drift amongst all the things I might do

and wonder how much, after all, they matter.

A bref double for the current Poetic Asides form challenge

The Visitors

Slowly, they come slowly into the light

one by one, hesitant to show themselves,

keeping their faces hidden till the last,

but then, when finally … they shine, they blaze!

Who could have guessed such beauty, this bright grace

that now displays itself to all who cast

their eyes upwards to where the figures stand,

half avoiding, half inviting our gaze?

They are silent however, day and night,

during the season of their presence here,

suggesting their message is their appearance,

that in itself sufficient to amaze.

And then, suddenly, all of them take flight

and our miraculous present is past.

Another for the Poetic Asides bref double challenge

Linking also to dVerse Open Link Night May 2014

No One Way

With perfect synchronicity

the local Regent cinema

puts on a Buddhist movie night.

I've been debating Buddhist lore

with my Zen friend, and he with me.

He chides me for my Pagan path

as sad irrationality,

and wonders what I need it for.

He tells me that there is no God.

I tell him God is everywhere;

the movies I've just seen agree.

It's tempting for me to point-score.

But all religions, I can see,

encompass much variety!


For Poetic Asides bref double challenge

Movies: Brilliant Moon: the life of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and Un Buda: a fictional exploration of Buddhism in the Argentina of the recent past. Only the second specifically suggests what I say in the poem they both do. (Poetic licence to fit the brevity of the form.)

Images: (1) Khyentse. Image from Wikipedia Commons  (2) Un Buda movie poster

Hopeful

Without knowing what

the outcome will be,

I place my hands on

my cat, for her healing.

When I look at her,

I think that I see

her face thin, sharpen.

I can feel the swelling

under her nipple.

How is it a cat

can get breast cancer?

But she's clearly feeling

lively as ever, free

of any pain yet.

(When she's lively, she's too fast for photos. I have to catch her resting.)

For the Poetic Asides bref double challenge.

On Deciding to Be a Reiki Master

I got up early
just before dawn;

turned the volume loud,

put the music on.

"Amazing Grace!"

All on my own, 

I danced and sang

to the rising sun.

Although from birth

we wake to fear,
finding my path
brought a joyous morn —

A flood to drown

fear of pain, fear of death.


P.S. This happened in 1988. I have been a Reiki Master since 1992.

Submitted for Poetic Asides bref double challenge and to dVerse's 
Those Pesky Questions: Describe a morning you woke without fear.

Incomprehensible

“You must come and see!” I called in my dream.

The lizard inside my front door was huge.

Its body was white, like leather, not scales,

and banded twice in black and red.

I didn’t know where it would run; I was scared.

Then I saw by the lintel what it obscured —

shoved under the carpet, severed of course 

and starting to rot — a horse’s head.

You’d think that would cue me to panic and scream

and wake. But not so. I called once again 

for the men whom I knew were in the back room.

They spotted some other small beast, also dead.

I suppose that these symbols are not what they seem.
Is there some hidden thing in my life to be feared?

For Poetic Asides' bref double challenge

The Wreckers

See those winding roads

through the slow hills?

When it’s dark and wet

don’t go that way.

There are those who wait

in the slippery dark

on the sharp bends

where the shadows stay.

They wait for spills

on the lonely tracks.

Perhaps they cause them;

that we can’t say.

Just never forget —
recklessness kills. 

I'm practising the bref double form for the next little while. 
There's a challenge on at Poetic Asides.

The Boy Who Climbs My Branches

He is seven. Or is he ten?

Every weekend he arrives

when the morning is still early

and comes up to nest like a bird.

Like others before him, he strives

to go higher each time, so high

that one day he couldn't get down.

But he cried out, and he was heard.

His father came with a ladder.

And I remembered when the man

was a boy climbing to the sky

through my branches. But not a word!

I keep the secrets of their lives —

all those young boys who long to fly.

dVerse asks for a poem from the point of view of a tree; Poetic Asides asks for a poem about a boy who — [fill in the blank].  And I wanted to try the bref double form. I'm delighted this poem also fits the current Poets United Midweek Motif, which is Children.