Truly

This poem is for Linda Kruschke’s paint-chip poetry (at the last minute again) and is linked to DVerse OLN. Also, I decided at last to write a décima out of this, so I am linking it here. I’m not 100% happy with this, but I just want to get this posted before tomorrow. 🙂 Update: I don’t know what WordPress’s problem is, but it is forcing me to use the unwieldy block editor tonight, so I am having A LOT of difficulty. If the formatting is messed up, that is why.

More often than every blue moon.
But every day requires courage:
Pain like hot lava can ravage,
Or if not now, it might be soon.

A sense of humor is a boon,
An optimistic way to look,
Lovely as a babbling brook,
Whose flowing water makes storms still.
No matter what comes, true self will
Cause peace to shine, strengthen outlook.

May Life Speak Kindly

This is for FOWC: Eulogy and Angie Trafford’s Writing Wednesday, “memories.”

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Eventually for all of us, this
Ubiquitous ceasing of earthly
Life arrives — what is left behind?
One’s family, friends, one’s love,
Good memories and a gracious state:
Yesterday’s gone; what words live today?

I like this image because it looks like she’s rather casually poking the skull. Found on an image search.

Equinox

For Frank J. Tassone’s current haikai challenge, autumn / spring equinox. I wrote a haibun.

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We may have had all summer to enjoy the sun, and now night and day are even. Yet as autumn begins to descend, I can’t help feeling it’s not a fair fight. I keep waiting for the last leaf to fall — for the other shoe to drop.

Flaming, leaves are red —
In a world that’s upside-down
Somewhere it is Spring

Fighting Against Pessimism With A Pen

This is for Ronovan’s décima challenge, a bit too late, but I figured this week, better late than never. 🙂 We are supposed to use the word FALL in the B rhyme spot. By the way, this is almost totally unedited because I really wanted to get it done tonight, so your comments are appreciated.

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Life’s not like fairy tales we pen,
Only one it is like at all:
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
And could not be put right again.

Pessimism’s tempting, often.
Nevertheless, I hope to write
A story a little more bright,
Even in some uncertain days —
Reality all hope betrays,
But other ends are in dream-sight.

Much Is Missed

I am sharing this poem with today’s Writers’ Pantry. It’s a shadorma that I wrote this morning. I intended to post something else but honestly think this is the best poem I’ve written recently that hasn’t already been posted.

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cast in mist,
the future’s blurry
past is missed,
and today
must be content with distance,
masks and Lysol spray

Spacey

This short poem is for Paula Light’s Thursday Inspiration (on a Friday). The prompt word was mystery, and the image is below.

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Slowly yet swiftly have the days advanced,
As a puzzling mystery, have they danced.
Slowly have the pieces fit together,
Yet we’re astronauts without a tether:
Will this maddening puzzle be done soon?
Should we believe that there’s cheese in the moon?

The Future

This is  for Linda Kruschke’s paint-chip poetry #35. I think it turned out okay for something that was almost a stream-of-consciousness, but I do think we were supposed to write something uplifting, which did not happen this time.

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The future is like a red-velvet cake:
Despite its classy name
I’ve never preferred its flavor,
Just give me the same
Chocolate cake I’ve been baking.

Here’s a piece of honesty: I’m bluffing
When I say it’s exciting.
This “new normal” is like planting
An acorn in a little terra-cotta pot —
Do you expect a towering oak?

Sunrise is my favorite time of day:
Morning-glory hues up high
But I must ask if it is morning that’s broken,
Or if under that sky,
It is I who broke, and am breaking?

Look at Those Faces

For DVerse MTB this week, we are trying our hands at verbing. I do this a lot with friends in my non-blog life, but finding a good idea for it in a poem was unexpectedly hard. 

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Look at those faces:

They sunflowered for a few weeks,

Nature summered for a few months —

See the birds use their beaks

To peck the seeds from what once

Loved the sun’s embraces.

 

Ferocious Optimism

For today’s Weekly Scribblings, we are considering our foundations. I am also sharing this with FOWC: Nothing. Special thanks to Sarah for her beautiful and life-filled poem Walking at the Edge. Although the topic is much different, I read her poem earlier today and was inspired by the life in her poem, and I felt like her poem contained a “ferocious optimism,” hence the title and inspiration for this poem.

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Yes:
Every breath means she
Is not drowned underneath
New, bad news arriving daily.

Yes:
Every step means she
Has not allowed depression
To render her inert, bedridden.

Yes:
Every trembling of the Earth she
Wonders if this is the “Big One;”
Somehow there’s still a foundation.

Yes:
Every morning means she
Breathes, steps, and wonders anew
That nothing has beaten her too blue.

Grains of Wheat

For DVerse Poetics today, we are to write inspired by wheat. At first, I was completely at a loss for any inspiration, but tonight I wrote this Chaucerian stanza.

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Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon
The fertile ground and die, a sacrifice,
It remains a single grain; but once gone
It returns, and is now worth well past twice:
Potential on which you can’t put a price.
Does wheat feel trepidation ere the fall?
Is falling in the field falling at all?

The Angelus, Jean-François Millet