For JusJoJan day 20, we are prompted to write about humor. I’m not really in a laughing mood, so here’s this little verse:
One must make depression risible,
To avoid being all miserable.
image found on Pinterest, no copyright infringement intended
Water
Humpback Whale Songs
This was inspired by Linda Krusheke’s paint-chip poetry #2, and I also drew from my experience (link to JusJoJan day 16) learning about humpback whales at an aquarium when I was in Hawaii this summer.
Lost afloat in the ocean,
One hears the mournful
Humpbacks’ whale song —
Is the pod nearby?
The music reaches, bittersweet,
All the way to the salmon, sockeye,
Who sing the blues because
They can’t make their way home.
Water Under the Bridge?
For the final prompt in the Imaginary Garden, we are revisiting some of the best prompts throughout the years. I chose to write (again) to Sanaa’s prompt about water.
All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.
– Toni Morrison
If all water has a perfect memory,
And my body is 75% water,
Is my memory 75% perfect,
And 25% unsure?
My memory, gaslit,
Is imperfect yet legitimate:
My body remembers
What the mind can’t fathom
In depths of horror.
Is it water under the bridge?
Is it running through 75%
Of the same rivulets,
Memory trying to be made pure?
DVerse Prosery #7
This is the first time I am posting for DVerse Prosery. We are to write a piece of flash-fiction that includes a line from a poem. This week’s poem is “Cow” by Jim Harrison, and the line is “A cow is screaming across the arroyo.” Please tell me what you think, since this might get very strange. Have fun!
“the centre cannot hold;…
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”
— W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”
The earth and heavens have flipped: A fish is floating in the sky. A deluge drives down from the dark clouds, evaporating before it hits the cracked aridity of desert ground. A dehydrated cow fears being dried into jerky, and searching fearfully and futilely, is screaming across the arroyo, while it jumps over the crater-covered moon.
The sun and moon are in a desert dance, as earth and sky are battling. They must find a way to meet in the middle, yet it is impossible. Soon all fish will be floating, clouds will vanish, and all arroyos will be silent and dry.
Earth Drinks
This poem was inspired by a line from Psalm 104 but doesn’t really have anything to do with that psalm. I am sharing this with Poets United pantry.
Earth drinks its fill
Of the waters which flow from the hills,
To let the grass grow,
To make fields verdant not fallow —
Earth drinks as thirst
Goes from worse to worst, and we
Find life also when we
May drink connection according to need.
When Changes Come
For Poets United midweek motif: Changes, as well as DVerse Poetics: Less is More, more or less.
Change
Makes the tears pierce
Eyes’ whites and irises,
Makes the tears into
A waterfall, for all
That I anticipate missing —
Change
Seems sometimes senseless
When I’m used to a routine,
But fear seems needless
Dust and rubble rest,
We build a new beginning.
My Story
I wasn’t going to post my response to this prompt, but I kind of like the resulting stream-of-consciousness poem. We are using the following image as bits of inspiration. The picture is called My Story and is by Karina Llergo.
One book, flipping open across my spine,
Flapping facing backward, paper wings:
Another tome hovers like a hummingbird
Open away from my face.
What I have read is printed on
My body, this paper-thin skin,
As a magnifying glass scrutinizes
My hip. I have closed my eyes.
My legs are turning into rain,
With water-drops becoming red,
Becoming relief for a tree, becoming ink.
I write what I have read.
I give what I have lived.
But I plant one tree, one tree:
Growing a little more beauty.
Update: I am sharing this with DVerse Open Link Night.
