Uncategorized | pictured words

August 8, 2018

ANTI-AE FRESLIGHE (pronounced ay fresh lee)

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I do not like Ae freslighe, Ma’am.
I do not like her sans iamb.
She messes with my rhythmic ear.
I wish that she would disappear.
I do not like Ae freslighe, Ma’am.
I’d rather eat green eggs and spam.

“The Ae freslighe (ay fresh lee) is a fascinating, but fairly challenging Celtic poetic form.” ~ R.J. Clarken

Per Terry Clitheroe of The Poets Garret (http://www.thepoetsgarret.com/celtic1.html):

Ae freslighe: (ay fresh lee):

Each stanza is a quatrain of seven syllables. Lines one and three rhyme with a triple (three syllable) rhyme and two and four use a double (two syllable) rhyme. The poem should end with the first syllable, word, or the complete line that it began with.

x x x x (x x a)
x x x x x (x b)
x x x x (x x a)
x x x x x (x b)

4 Comments

August 8, 2018

Clay, With Humid Incubus

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Caring for the yard is hard
when clay sits atop
once-upon-a-swamp
and damp drains down
heavy on your skin,
and feels like breathing soup
as you heave your weight atop a spade
to dislodge one weed from clay.
Repeat, all day.

August 5, 2018

No Place Like Home

Photo credit: Pixabay

The garden gate parts,
releasing sweet aroma
of former florae.

She softly steps in,
breathing the beauty that binds
virtuous voices.

The presence of peace
silences the restlessness
grinding at the gate.

Now bejeweled with joy,
renewing friends and florae,
she picks up her pen.

Response to Poetic Bloomings Prompt #209

4 Comments

August 1, 2018

GRIEF

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Grief is a peculiar beast,
prowling when
and where
and how we least expect –
often at inopportune moments
when there is no fitting release
and nothing to do but cram it down,
thinking it will recede
and let us be,
but no
it lingers about,
then slinks in
at the next inopportune moment ,
chafing,
never ending,
like a run-on thought
or a spinning yarn
with no end in sight
and no

… funny,
how relief,
though brief,
comes conversely
through
tears,

and laughter.

6 Comments

August 1, 2018

HOLY BOOK (Sonnet to the Word of God)

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A book of books; a letter to mankind
God-breathed to men of many walks of life –
And yet this faultless work is undermined.
Some say its very Author causes strife.

Translated into fourteen hundred tongues,
No other book approaches such renown
As this, which is as breath to failing lungs.
Throughout, God’s living hallowed voice resounds.

Amazing in enduring relevance
Astonishing consistency of thought
Unparalleled in unbound eminence –
Deny its holiness? No, I cannot.

Though there are those who disregard His word,
My God will not be silenced, nor unheard.

4 Comments

May 30, 2018

CEASELESSLY CLOSE (in Cyrch A Chwta form)

An Echo Azure Butterfly (Celastrina echo) on Forget-me-not Flowers

Photo from http://www.flowermeaning.com/forget-me-not-flower-meaning/

Seldom did we disagree –
So alike, my mom and me.
Selflessly devoted, she.
I’ve been told I came to be
Through her plea on bended knee.
No one taught me to foresee
That she wouldn’t seem deceased,
Once tomorrows ceased to be.

3 Comments

May 18, 2018

RETURN TO THE HILLS (Sonnet for My Keith, and Our Little Blue Cabin in Ohio’s Hocking Hills)

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How many years have you and I come here
To seek a respite from demands of time?
We listen long as birdsongs echo clear,
From porch swing’s nest, to hills we dare to climb.

We had to leave behind our getaway,
As pressures of life’s urgencies took charge.
This season rendered cabin dreams “someday,”
But pressing needs no longer loom so large.

We’re homebodies (both you and I), and this,
Our quiet cabin nestled in the pines,
Feels so like coming home, it’s simply bliss –
This space where life and harmony align.

I’ve seen these hills with no one else but you.
There’s none with whom I’d rather share this view.

2 Comments

April 24, 2018

St. Thomas Island’s Caret Bay (“Someday” Comes – a Roundelay)

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Exploring life on new frontiers,
Today my luvs move far away.
Our seasons come in waves and tiers
As drizzle falls from sky of gray
I hug them tight, yet curb my tears.
I have to hold my heart at Bay.

Our seasons come in waves and tiers.
As drizzle falls from sky of gray.
Attentive to the fleeting years,
I want for them sun’s ray. Son’s ray.
I hug them tight, yet curb my tears.
I have to hold my heart at Bay.

Acquainted with life’s fleeting years,
I want for them sun’s ray. Son’s ray.
May God’s vast grasp be crystal clear,
And richly sensed on Caret Bay.
I hug them tight, yet curb my tears.
I have to hold my heart at Bay.

May God’s vast grasp be crystal clear,
And richly sensed on Caret Bay.
Goodbyes are said, and it appears
The time is now, and not “someday.”
I hug them tight, yet curb my tears.
I have to hold my heart at Bay.

8 Comments

April 17, 2018

Term-inally Lovesick (A Sonnet, Besotted)

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Etymologically express my love?!
I can’t speak love with consonant and vowel!
I’m verbally decrepit! (Well, sort of.)
I’m giving in! I’m throwing in the towel!

Emphatically pronoun-cing love seems daft.
Yet hypotheticals won’t mean a thing.
While rubbish bin spills over with my drafts,
I’m left with participles dang-l-ing.

To write of love? I cannot comprehend.
I’m tense and stressed and non-affirmative.
These split infinitives are hard to mend.
There has to be a fast alternative.

I need to let my gerundings gestate.
My present perfect love will have to wait.

4 Comments

April 7, 2018

PUNK

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I sat at the left end of a long
cafeteria-like table.
No food before me,
no scent of food.
My eyes focused on something
in my hands, which
I cannot now recall.

Forward and to my right,
old fashioned, quilt-look, diner-style
double swinging doors
open.
I glance up
smile
glance back down,
before my heart quickens in my chest
and I look back up.

“Punk!” barely escapes my lips –
more air than voice
as our eyes engage –
His,
smiling, crinkling at the sides.
Mine,
misting as my lips quiver.

He comes to me,
his cadence the same as my heart
remembers.

“Punk!” barely escapes again
as we hug.
His scent and chuckle,
unchanged.
His breath moves my hair.

His familiar voice in my ear speaks only a few words:

“What do you want to know?”

An unexpected question.
My heart quickens again.
What do I need to know?

“Punk, I just want one more hug.”

He backs up
just enough for me to feel his warm hands
on my cheeks.
I can see only his smiling eyes.
I look into them, and see
everything.

It can’t be explained any other way.

Everything.

In less than a moment.
Everything that ever was
seen
felt
heard
known
unknown,
is now
ever will be.

The beauty of it all filled me full.
Left me no words.

He gave me one last hug,
walked to the double doors,
glanced back with those smiling eyes,
and walked back through.

And the living live the here and now,
but those who have passed
and are alive in Christ,
know.

3 Comments

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