BASHAD

BASHAD

old, little-known;art-l trap
nes eeled lined appled
bo ewn hen ton, oder
best serve ovower
sage red signer
stoned


Found Poetry Review’s Day 3: Nico Vassilakis wrestles letters to free them of their word scrum. Stare at a word until the letters start to discorporate. You will find that letter cohesion, the letter glue that keeps letters stuck inside a word, is disrupted and dissolves. Fragments of letters will dislodge too. You are then free to visually interpret or document the life of letters outside their word existence as loosely or succinctly as possible.






(I was having trouble with this prompt and visited Vassilakis' blog site to see what else he'd done with this type of constraint (or "freeing") - I loved the idea of staring so long that letters began to fall off places and used one of my photos from last year's FPR project, and the poem beneath it for the "staring" part of the prompt. My result is bizarre, but I quite like it.)

DON'T YOU JUST

Don't you just
love days
that flower
full of song
and lack regret?
The ones where
you awaken,
as if
still dreaming,
inexplicably
delighted?
You stay
still,
hold your
breath,
listen
hard before
you ease
like Sol into
the shining sky.

No words
can portray
days like these,
none adequately
explain
the gift
of them,
a present you
construe
ephemeral.

Wonder
how to
transform
into something
permanent.
Know
the folly of
trying to
objectify
or water
flowers unreal;
the wilting
of dreams
other
than lovely.

WEATHERED UNDER

(in memory of Farley, the wolf - died 2015)

How difficult to say the truth
You know the way it is
Your beloved pet - a soul-mate who
shared your life for decades:
more than two
Became ill, weary of living, had to
be put to sleep yesterday

But when someone asks you how
you're doing, how you are ...
You say - oh, not too bad
Or - I've been better -or, covering
your pain with a pseudo-ailment
I'm a bit under-the-weather today

Nothing serious, your friend hopes
and you reply, you're sure not
Probably just the twenty-four hour
flu - not to worry - and you hurry off
Just making it back to your car
to hunch over the steering wheel
as you let grief pour from your eyes.

UNDER THREAT OF DREAMS

Under threat of dreams destroyed
or another run of terrible times
I am going back through my memories,
skipping over the ones that are hard
to think about now
Letting them dissolve in mists of scarlet
Trying instead to touch those that mean
the most, the ones that jump forward,
chiming clear as a church bell
on a Sunday morning
It's not enough to try and remember
the kiss of a child crossed with the tears
of yesteryear
Group it all together and maybe, just maybe
I'll have more left than expected.

THE WEIGHT OF THE WRONG SADNESSES

In memory of KJN (Jan. 1968 - Jan.2016)
 
The sky is matted with unshed tears
and the air thick with winter writhing
A friend buries one of his children
as the planet spins gravely out-of-control
She feels selfish wishing for anything
when so much loss shrouds so many
Instead makes her mind as blank
and empty as a death-row convict's stare.

Book Planner to take away self publishing pain

I took this short webinar from Joel Friedlander and was easily convinced to become a charter member of his latest offering "Book Planner". This is not Friedlander's first publishing rodeo. He knows his way around is all I'm saying and his advice is sound, so I had no qualms about accepting his excellent offer and advice.

M.C.ESCHER'S HANDS

M.C.ESCHER'S HANDS

Besides being artistically
brilliant were you also
hugely insane?
I can't help wondering this
because of some of the things
you managed to pull off ...
Like your self-portrait
when you drew yourself
holding a reflecting globe
holding a reflecting globe
 - talk about something
schizoid,  or split.

And then this one,
with your one hand
drawing the other
drawing the other
drawing the other
and so on - over and over
And not clumsily in the least.

There's not a miscue or a wrong
line anywhere; it's very convincing
as if you're doing it in real time
Were you? I wish you were
still around to ask ...