A Vain Pursuit

I search in facebook and my email box

in a vague play of eyes and finger-tips

for something – anything – I don’t know what.

Except I do. I want to smash the locks

that death instals so deftly: kiss the lips

of those I loved, as if alive. They’re not.

And friends I used to talk to when online

have nothing new to tell me now; their quips

and loving wisdom stilled, while bodies rot.

Likewise, they don’t absorb one word of mine,

though I pine.

Written for the curtal sonnet challenge at Poetic Asides
Also linking to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #371

The Light Seems Holy

The light seems wholly blue when I look out

from my front door, discovering the day:

a day of starkly brilliant winter sun.

The dark blue mountain range right opposite, 

the vast and shining blue of morning sky,

pervade the street below. 'Thou art the one!'

I sing to Life (for God is Life, we're told).

On such a day, my soul must dance and fly

in sheer delight, pure joy that I was born.

This moment is the whole. This truth I hold:

all's one.

Written for a form challenge at Poetic Asides

In Difficulties

I wrote a curtal sonnet but it stank.

I needed all of 14 lines to say

the whole of what I had in mind; present

a thesis that would float before it sank –

in fact not sink at all but stretch and play,

its movements elegant and confident.

Instead, alas, it doesn’t wave but drown.

Without room to manoeuvre, there’s no way

to save it – what I meant as eloquent

is chopped abruptly, three lines short, shut down
unspent.

Written for a form challenge at Poetic Asides

On Not Going Home Again

Across remembered waters, bay and sea,

the island lies that I will not forget,

the one I know I'll never see again.

The mountains and the rivers nurtured me.

In memory the crashing waves repeat

their rhythmic play on ancient cliffs of stone.

Old forests grow unhindered, thick and tall,

fed well by rich dark soil, by gentle rain –

in memory. In fact they've since been cut,
the lakes and streams polluted, air made foul.

All gone.

Written for a form challenge at Poetic Asides

Nomenclature

He's asking us to write a 'curtal sonnet'.

I told him once before, the word's 'curtail'

(as in truncation, lopping off) but he

persisting with his error – set upon it –

will judge our efforts. I don't want to fail.

I'd better just shut up and let it be.

They call me grammar Nazi; spelling too.

I like precision to the nth detail.

And Hopkins said 'curtail', so why not me? ...

Oh, never mind the name – just write one, do!

(Or three.)

Written for a form challenge at Poetic Asides.

(Adopting a bit of a persona for this one. I don't REALLY think I'd be failed for cheekily correcting a spelling mistake.  And actually, it turns out he's right, I'm wrong! I have now ascertained that 'curtal' is a variant of 'curtail', and is indeed the word used to describe this form.)

The Sisters, Death and Night

Those

sisters,

Death and Night,

aren't really twins –

though people assume

they mirror each other.

Both can be sweet or bitter,

soft, or impenetrably dense.

But Night always dresses in darkness.

Death – do notice! – is enfolded in light.

Written for the Sunday Mini-Challenge at 'imaginary garden with real toads', for a poem of 10 lines maximum. The subject of the title, suggested as optional, caught my imagination.

Is the Etheree

Is

ether-

ee ether-

eal? Is the

etheree, eh, is

it really ethere-

al, all of it, really, or

is it merely a light fantas-

tic melody, lovely and summer-

y, highly incorporeal, eh, eh? 

Is the etheree ethereal, real-

ly? The etheree? Is it then real-

ly ghostly? Ghastly ghostly, or

merely unreal, the ether-

ree – the unreasonab-

ly, ethereal-

ly etheric-

al ether-

ee, eh-

hey?

Having tried an end-stopped etheree for dVerse, here now is a completely enjambed one. And having aimed for coherence last time, here is nonsense. (I chose the photo for suggesting both ethereality and summer.)

Upon a Time

Once,

I said –

once there was

a sweet summer,

long days all golden.

Oh, you don't believe me?

But I was there, I knew it.

I traipsed the wide green all those hours

indeed all those days, the blue above

deep and endless, in my sunny childhood.

They nodded indulgently – well, some did –

and turned away to their own pleasures.

Their summer was city buildings

and hot streets drifting with dust.

How could they hear my talk?

They wanted ice cream

and movie screens,

not my old,

distant

'once'.

At dVerse just now, we are writing etherees about summer. 
I made it an exercise for myself to do it with all end-stopped lines.

The photo is of where I live now, not where I spent my childhood,
but it illustrates the kind of landscape well enough.

Passages

Sometimes, working late, I hear

a thump on the door, and think,

'There's my old cat wanting to come in' 

though I know it isn't, and can't be, 
and won't. Never again. My cat is dead.

***

Deep night.

That mournful sound:

faintly, a plane going over

high and alone up there,

droning its way away

dwindling into distance.

***

That tree, a weed not pulled,

grew fast, filling my skyline.

I try to remember now, and can’t –

had it even begun as a tiny shoot
when he was still here to see?

(Written as separate gogyoshi, then I discerned a theme.)

Linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #280

Bears and Elephants

Elephants and bears hold grudges, hiding in trees, waiting, pistons pumping — from “ARTIFICIAL WILDLIFE SANCTUARY” by Craig Rebele. Quote found in The Bibliomancy Oracle

1.

I gave my small bear, named Red for his hue,

to Teo, three.

I spoke to Red mind to mind, to explain

this had to be.

A boy just starting to talk needs a bear

far more than me.

Red went away without a backward glance.

‘You’re boring,’ he thought at me. ’Now I’ll dance.’

2.

In my friend’s neat unit, the elephants

both large and small

are scattered all over. She bought not one.

‘Gifts,’ she said. ‘All’.
They have different colours and attitudes,
all beautiful.

The largest lifts a sideboard on his back.

His narrowed eyes tell me he loathes the work.

Written for 'The Eye of the Beholder – Micro Poetry' at imaginary garden with real toads'. We're allowed to write more than one; I hope it's permissible to write two together!

Form: Cavatina

The photos are mine and must not be reproduced. © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2015

A Girl I Once Knew

Hello, Anna, I tell the TV

quietly, only me here to see

when she appears, as she does

occasionally, in her public role –

old now, but not as old as me, and still

unbelievably beautiful.

A beauty that in youth attracted tragedy.

But you have survived, Anna, and survived well.

And, sadly, there is no-one else

who knew you then, still alive to tell.

Inspired by the Up Close & Personal prompt at 'imaginary garden with real toads', but linked to their Tuesday Platform.

If Unicorns Were Real, Where Are They Now?

I am wearing a white T-shirt with blue writing:

Unicorn Success Club, and there’s a picture –

black head in silhouette,

a flicked-up mane and one long horn.

Where have the unicorns gone?

And what would be success for a unicorn?

I ask an angel, who says:

‘They are on their own planet now,

but they go all over the universes

clearing out areas of negative energy.’  Yes!

Written for Up Close & Personal – Micro Poetry (limit 10 lines) at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

To Boredom

I'll learn to live with me; no loneliness,

I said when first bereaved and left alone.

I did not know that I would find me dull.

My conversation I could second-guess;

opinions and reactions, all were known –

nothing over which to slightly mull.

However, I am getting used to it.

I find that dullness can be comfortable.

There's no-one I need please except this one.

I like the lovely, lazy lack of effort,
I confess.

Written in response to Poets United's Midweek Motif ~ Boredom

(Dear Readers, it's a bit tongue-in-cheek.)

No Going Back

It is because he went away

that she is waiting in the rain.

If he comes back to her again,

what will she do, what will she say?

On that unbelievable day

she will speak to him of roses

and how the path that he chose is

petal-strewn but also thorny.

Will he return sad or horny?

Either way, somebody loses.

Robert Lee Brewer at Poetic Asides issued a form challenge, to write a decima. I am away from home, having adventures, and was not in time for the deadline, but I wanted to try one anyway. 

It fits, I think, with the latest Poets United Midweek Motif: Watershed Moments (which alter everything thereafter) -- except that it's fictional. But it's also speculative, in the non-genre meaning of the word, and I'm sure we've all had moments something like this.

Now Falling

Now

falling

through soft rain

comes the slight sound

you almost dismiss,

the one you tell yourself

is imagined, but you know

it is the tolling of that bell,

it is your death announcing itself
although only faintly yet and far off.

An etheree for the latest Play It Again at 'imaginary garden with real toads.
Also linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #263

Twelve American Sentences

First dark; lichen breathe after water — no wind; dawn on seed tendril.

Garden bough, bird can listen summer, the sun ancient and animal.

Warm vine when you cycle, happy gentle wild spirit: behold my bright.

River like light; lonely life with only winter cloud shade secret blue.

Quiet watch, grow shine above soft wild — feel fresh fall, to thrive how squirrel.

Soon spring, beneath deep almost air that will let cold blossom climb rock, root.

Sweet rose always why insect walk through leaves, tree breeze, thick mountain mosses.

Deep dawn blankets gentle flower garden; how shine stone or river rock.

You wander that summer sanctuary, grow happy — wet mountain moon.

Cover for love make prairie night sweet secret they see above wild cloud.

Bee murmur give bloom a soft rustle, as thick sun colour rose vivid.

Almost dusk here, bird watch — this daffodil and grass rest: green harmony.

The Sunday Mini-Challenge at 'imaginary garden with real toads' asks us to be inspired by the poetry of Marilyn Chin. Among others of her extraordinary poems, we were directed to her Twenty Five Haiku. I noticed they were in fact American Sentences, a form of haiku devised by Allen Ginsberg for Westerners — but with a vivid intensity I had not seen before in any American Sentence. 

Mine are not haiku (or even American Sentences) as I'm used to writing them — i.e. in-the-moment observations of the external world — and they are not meant as imitations of Chin's remarkable work. I am sill exploring the Magnetic Poetry site, so these are composed by selecting random words and using scenes from my imagination. This time I used the Nature kit.

Boldly Going

Yesterday the news

that Leonard Nimoy had died,

and we all felt we'd lost

an old friend.

(But then, we didn't really

believe it either. Mr Spock

will inhabit our universe

forever.)

Today's facebook reminder:

It's 32 years since the final 

episode of M.A.S.H.

with stones on a hillside
saying that huge GOODBYE.

Submitted for real toads' Flash 55 1 March 2015  (55 words including title) and for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #241

14 Words for Love 2015

I've participated once again in this little exercise of writing separate 14-word pieces on love in the lead-up to Valentine's Day. Below is my collection. See others at the website. I am submitting this series to the Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'

Not your death pains me

but your pain before that.

It’s my love hurts.

******

Our shipboard romance

long ago becalmed

still floats sweetly in memory

which is kind.

******

Though you leave, you stay

forever in mind and heart

which never leave you.

******

I remember your eyes

the blue-green of the sea …

I drowned in your eyes.

22/1/15

Pretty in pink,

my dear old Aunty

in her photo.

I recall her warmth.

******

My friend's voice on the phone.

At once I breathe in,

relax and smile.

******

Across miles of air and ocean

I reach to you,

grasp your virtual hand.

******

Will you ever return?

Look for me in memory,

wait for me in dream.

******

In soft morning light

your head next to mine.

Your eyes open, you smile.

28/1/15


The birthday you had

this last lifetime

arrives again.

I toast you

in coffee.

******

Last thing at night,

thoughts of you.

First thing on waking,

thoughts of you.

First thing on waking

thoughts of you,

last thing at night

thoughts of you.

*****

It’s Lughnasad here.

What a harvest I reap
from our season together,

Bright One!

4/2/15

Because your face is yours,

I find it beautiful --

or, your beauty finds me.

******

A glimpse.

Someone who looks like you.

But after all

no-one

looks  like you.

5/2/15

Between kisses

we laughed together.

That was in

another lifetime.

Now I cry alone.

******

Unrequited love

is also sad

for the one

who cannot requite,

and must hurt.

6/2/15

Old friendship long cooled —

but when we met

in last night's dream,

we kissed.

7/2/15

My Answer 
(14x2)

'What direction shall I go now?'

I ask the oracle stones

I made myself.

Scrabbling deep,

ha! — I pull out the one

on which I drew a heart.

7/2/15

Such tenderness I feel,

seeing the back of a head

that might be yours.

******

Thought I'd lost you

but memory retains all your details;

that loss is impossible.

8/2/15

A handwritten letter

sharing your day,

and I am with you

in quiet delight.

10/2/15

The smile in your eyes

when you look at me

is reflected in mine.

******

Love is also

being glad you’re gone

away from discomfort

and this trying weather.

11/2/15

Valentine’s Day. I wave

to my three old husbands

(and sundry lovers)

in Heaven.

14/2/15

The friends who hold your heart

may warm it a long time,

outlasting lovers.

15/2/15

My Black Cat

My black cat,

my handsome black cat,

the perfect cat for a witch,

is named Levi. His other name is

'familiar'.

When I cast

my magic circle

on the night of the full moon

my black cat is with me, and also

the fairies.

He grows old,

this dear cat. Me too.

Sometimes, when the weather's cold

only the fairies dance, by the light
of the moon.

At dVerse Meeting the Bar this time, Tony Maude invites us to try an extended (or expanded) cinquain with one extra syllable per line than the form invented by Adelaide Crapsey. What this version might be called is still being debated, but the term Maudern cinquain, suggested by one user, is proving popular. Although Tony himself feels it would be arrogant for him to use it. I have no such constraint and am adopting it forthwith. This poem is a sequence of three of them. 

First Steps on a New Path

We four women, old friends and new,

drove to the Castle in Spring sunshine.

‘You are a Way Shower, aren’t you?’

said my newest friend, making me glad.

We stood in the smoke from a big pot

of burning eucalyptus leaves.

The Elders told us the true history

passed down through the grandmothers.

‘We came from the stars, but we were made

here, long ago, the first people.

‘This land is far more ancient than you know

because you have been told lies.’

The custodian of the land we stood on

declared us adopted.

Now we too have responsibilities
to the land and to the truth.

We all closed our eyes while Priscilla sang
the Song of the Beginning.

31 Poems in 31 Days (from Poewar / Writer's Resource Center). Prompt: syllabic verse.  Each verse of this poem is a 17-syllable 'American sentence' (a form devised by Allen Ginsberg) divided into two lines. I am also trying for something I call 'ghazal-type' in that it's somewhat discontinuous, with gaps in the narrative, like a ghazal (indeed a quasi-ghazal). Hence this is my 'ghazal-type 17-2' invention. (I already invented 'ghazal-type 17-3' — and yes, I know it's a cumbersome label, but at least it gives some indication of what it purports to describe.)