Tag: flight

Imagine – a November Poem-A-Day Challenge – Diminishing Somonka

Poetry
Close your eyes and wish —
Magic can strike when you blink!
I’ll make my pen swish —
watch the letters as they link,
imagine what’s in my ink!
~
We’ll grow wings and fly–
(Watch the magic, see it flash!)
–swim an ocean sky–
(You’ve got stardust on each lash!)
–dance in moonbeams, till we’re ash!
 
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For today’s prompt, write an imagined life poem. The imagined life could be your own, or imagining a life for someone else–like a person you see at the bus stop, grocery store, or library. If for yourself, the imagined life might be another possible parallel outcome or a possible future (for better or worse).
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POETIC FORM:

Diminishing Somonka
 
A form I created by marrying the Somonka and Diminishing Verse poetic forms:
  • two Tankas (5-7-5-7-7), written as two love letters to each other.
  • remove the first letter of the end word in each successive 7 syllable line.
 
Variation: Poets can remove sounds if they wish like “flies” to “lies” to “eyes.”

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AUDIO FILE:
 
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New Feathers – A Quatern Poem

Memoir

 
I hope to fly, perhaps I’ll fall.
I’ve got new feather’s coming in.
They strain my shoulders, itch my skin.
I feel off balance, wearing thin.
 
It’s a growing season, you see?
I hope to fly, perhaps I’ll fall.
and no one knows it more than me.
This life is not always carefree.
 
We each must stretch, must reach and grow.
Although difficult winds may blow–
I hope to fly, perhaps I’ll fall.
The struggle’s worth it all, I know.
 
Before I leap, I understand–
I’ve got you here, to hold my hand.
I’ll make the jump, as I have planned.
I hope to fly, perhaps I’ll fall.
 
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POETIC FORM:
 
A quatern is 16 lines broken into 4 quatrains. Each line has 8 syllables. 1st line is refrain. In 2nd stanza, refrain appears in 2nd line; 3rd stanza, 3rd line; 4th stanza, 4th (and final) line. No rhyme scheme.
 
AUDIO FILE:
 

Advice for Travelers

Poetry

image

The road away from your door
will always sing a siren song.
There’s no use resisting.
So load your guitar and two
extra tires onto your bicycle.

You may miss your chance
to climb the distant tower,
but slip a stone into your pocket,
and you’ll find the right path–
one step and rock at a time.

Trees will no doubt invite you
to gaze into a magic mirror,
and renew some old promises.
Listen to the voice with the map —
it will nudge in the right direction.

Follow wings that swim circles,
and you may dance on the sand.
with an enchanting water-witch
–wet your bare toes in the scent
of rain on the summer wind.

When your bohemian feet grow tired,
gather up four corners of your heart.
Shake tangled doubt from your hair.
When you hear rhapsody on the road,
trust your voice to sing you home.

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AUDIO FILE:

Escape to Neverland (a #NaPoMo #APRPAD rondeau poem)

Poetry

2016-04-19-13.17.30.png.png

She said lost boys like her are free.
She smiled at me, offered her hand,
invited me to Neverland.
I asked myself how this could be.

She promised me that love’s the key.
This kind of thing happens, unplanned.

She said lost boys like me are free.
She smiled at me and squeezed my hand.

Behind her eyes I found the sea.

We flew and left behind dry land,
straight on till dawn, past two stars, and

I’ll never be the same — not me,
because lost boys like us are free!

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#NaPoMo INFO:

Poetic Asides #April Poem-A-Day Challenge – PAD #9:

For today’s prompt, write a hide out poem. When I was a kid, we’d build “hide outs,” I guess from our parents or other kids. An assortment of criminals (fictionalized and real) have their hide outs. But maybe there are other hide outs, like a “man cave,” “she shed,” or the local pub. Heck, maybe it’s the library. Give it a thought, and I’m sure you’ll find the right hide out poem for you.

http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2016-april-pad-challenge-day-9

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POETIC FORM INFO:
The poetic form focus for my PAD 2016 Challenge is the Rondeau — 13 lines in 3 stanzas; rhyme scheme: ABba/abAB/abbaA (uppercase letters are refrains) Usually 8 syllables per line. For info: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides/personal-updates/help-me-rondeau-help-help-me-rondeau-another-french-poetic-form

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AUDIO FILE:

I am the Hollow

Poetry

wordbowl

My flesh is a bowl
— words dripping
from the brim.

I am the place
where words breathe,
beat as a pumping heart.

I am a cavern —
empty, and full of
echoes and bodies,

spilling out words.
They cry in pain,
dance in celebration.

I am where words go
— to mingle, and to flirt
— to kiss, and to fuck.

I am the hollow,
and I am the spoon,
dipping out language.

I am white linen —
a bed dampened
by the sweat of ink.

I am the cup —
words — the elixir,
the heat and the cool,

from which a soul sips
reason or rhyme–
sometimes both.

I am the sanctuary
where verses pray,
incantations rising.

I watch them slip through
cracked, stained glass
— a poem taking wing.

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AUDIO FILE:

Haggard (a decima espinela poem)

Poetry

blackraven

My body bates at all that moves
as though I might bind to a peace
I’m sore and tired. I need release.
I hope with sleep my mood improves.
For now this ache all sense removes.
My thoughts seem just a pantomime.
I cannot force these words to rhyme.
The ink won’t flow or find the page;
My words lie trapped, in iron cage.
I feel my wing-beats out of time.
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POETIC FORM:
Decima Espinela — 10 line poem, 8 syllables per line, abbaaccddc rhyme pattern.

 

 

The Way She Leaves Me

Memoir

image

It’s 4 a.m. and she brings me coffee. She sits with me in the bed. And she says things that make the wings in my soul twitch and tremble, preparing to fly. Not away, I would never fly away from her, in the frightened uncomfortable way of wild, nervous birds. No, this is more of a soaring on pure, clean joy, at being so greatly loved and cared for.

We talk in the darkness, steam rising from our cups and honesty filling the room with wakeful heat. She is preparing to leave me for the day — it is a Monday and work is required — but I can feel her struggling with the desire to crawl back beneath the covers with me and stay. She falls silent sometimes, gazes at me like the Wolf she is, like I am the moon in her early morning sky. I am.

I watch her shoulders tense as if they were covered in bristling fur. I feel her teeth clawing at my neck and nails biting into my hip. She will leave me soon but she wants me hungry before she goes. What’s more, she wants to carry that hunger with her too. She wants to feel it in her bones all day — to know that no matter the distance between us, I ache with it just as she does.

She checks the clock again, and growls, rolling out of bed. The right thing is pulling her, and it always wins. It’s one of the things I love about her — although today, I groan, protesting loudly about it. I watch her putting clothes on her body, and wonder how she can make that process just as gut-wrenchingly sexy as taking them off.

She knows I will linger here, in her bed. I will sip the remainder of my coffee, pull her still-warm pillow tight against my body, and watch the sunrise through her window before drifting back to sleep. Oh. So. Hungry. She tucks in her shirt tail, and threads her belt into the loops on her jeans. She pulls the blankets up around my shoulders and leans in for a last kiss, then two more.

I watch her pull the bedroom door closed and then listen for the echo of her work boots on the hardwood floor. She is leaving. Twelve steps between here and the front door and every last one feels like the Grand Canyon. Still I smile in the darkness of her bedroom. I watch her headlights sweep the ceiling over my head. I know she is a hungry Wolf, and she will be back.

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