On The Road Again

And we're off! But before we hop aboard, you just have to join Willy while he wails about our trip! Take a look at this American icon if only to get a gander at Porter Wagonner's sparkly suit! Then ride with us on these bumpy roads less traveled.



Here we go...

The Bug

Poetikat

Muse Swings

Jeanne Iris

Dave King

altar ego

Jinksy

Helen

Rachel Fox

swiss

Stafford Ray

120 Socks

Liz 

Carolina Linthead 

Peter Goulding
 
Enchanted Oak

Totalfeckineejit (our fearless leader)

Weaver of Grass 

Various 

annell 

Titus 

Dick Jones

And here's my ticket. Don't even ask...

LAZARUS

Did you pull the cloths around you,
holding on for all you had?

Did you try to stop your ears
against the swarming in your head?

Did your bending knees creak
when they hit the cold stone slab?

Did your papery feet quell
when they stood upon that  floor?

Did your eyes regret the light
that poured in through the vacant door?

Did you hide your irritation
at arising from your bed, or

Did your parched throat croak a plea
to simply let the dead be dead?

Which Way Do We Go? Here Comes the Bus!

I'm driving the bus on November 15, and even using a trusty map, a GPS, and my innate sense of direction, I'm still idling here where two roads diverge. Which way do we go? Robert Frost says it makes all the difference.

The challenge for passengers this week will be to write about one of the following:
(1) a time you had to choose between two clearly divergent paths; (2) a time you were called to walk a  path you didn't choose for yourself; or (3) a time you refused to travel the path you were called to follow.  If these won't work for you, write anything about a choice you made. Drop me a note here when your poem is ready, and I'll link in the post above.

In the words of that great word person Yogi Berra, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."


...or in the words of Robert Frost...

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

by Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

this pearl

This week marks the first birthday of my sweet granddaughter,  and today was the day of her baptism.  For Juliet:

this day

this pearl
of water
and word
our blessing and our hope
the closest we can come
on earth
to heaven's
treasure



 

Matt 13:45,46  says, "Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls,  who having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it."
 

about a sunflower

ABOUT A SUNFLOWER


I am  sitting tonight in front of the window
staring at the blackness staring back. A cozy scene:
a woman, seated at a worn wooden table, a bowl
of oranges and lemons in front of her, an arrangement
of cheerful plates on the wall behind, pen in hand,
her arm lying across a paper angled just so, big dark eyes
like holes in her face looking back from the glass.
All summer, I watched from this same seat
a sunflower, a tall hairy stem, pointy sepal arms,
hundreds of bumpy brown seeds, bursting
little teeth, little rows hoed in circles, a plinking
stone in a still brown pond,
bonneted, beribboned, turning this way
and that, reaching up a round child's face,
angling for her father, a heavy earthen mother,
finally falling beneath her weighty thoughts, beaten
by the rain, become a blinded skull, her eyes pecked out.
Examined from the ground up, imagined
from the sky down -- the worm's view, the crow's view,
in memory, the poet's view -- a blind reflection
in the glass tonight while the words can't find
where the woman fits in the scheme
of all these things.

unspoken

Ghosts are not always frightening, and sometimes we hold them hostage rather than the other way around.

The Poetry Bus runs on Monday, and Liz Gallagher asks that we write a triolet or some other poem about Halloween business. This poem began as a triolet and evolved into a villanelle. It's funny how words will have their way.

Or will they? 

UNSPOKEN

all my ghosts are friends
things I should but did not say
I’m haunted by my sins

damnation never ends
redemption lies one breath away
all my ghosts are friends

familiars whom I did not send
but held until the tongue decay
I’m haunted by my sins

unspoken and unpenned
persistent shades with whom I lay
all my ghosts are friends

whose present tense attends
to bind and hold my soul in sway
to things I should but do not say

till time shall split and world transcend
till reticence shall fall away
all my ghosts are friends
things I should but do not say

In a Name

Argent's driving the Bus this week, and our challenge is to write a poem about a meeting. Meet contemporary American poet and two term Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins.

See the challenge and read the entries of other passengers here.


















IN A NAME

You'd think that by this time,
We'd be familiar--
Sweet William,
Wild Bill,
Maybe Billy Boy.
After all,
He's naked in the hallway,
Turning circles
Shuffling round the house.
Every night I sail with
Billy Collins.
And still it's Billy Collins, first and last.
I have known just Keats alone,
And Shelley. Shelley,
He's still three as in the past.
But as for my new lover
Billy Collins,
It's Billy first;
It's Billy Collins last.
Now I spend my nights with Billy Collins;
We're drinking tea and writing hard and fast.

In the Balance

IN THE BALANCE

Notice how she waits in expectation,
contemplating maybe, just how justice works.
Does she sense it hangs on holding steady?
Does she sense unbalance in the end?

Doesn't she look like somehow she might not know
that the weight she holds so level will shift as on a whim?

One little thought falling like a feather or one wrong move heavy as a soul;
one of her decisions, shiny as a pearl or light as a pocketful of poesy--
just one small word and the world can lose its balance.
Just wash it from her hands and it all falls down.

Progress

NanU's driving the Bus on Monday, and her challenge is to write in a time, place, or circumstance outside of our usual writing environments. 

Many times, I am struck with inspiration while driving but lose my thoughts because I can't stop to write them down. This morning, two things happened that allowed me to fulfill the Poetry Bus challenge. First, I noticed that a barn I pass every day had been razed, and second,  traffic stopped right in front of the scene. I grabbed my handy iphone and used my thumbs to type the following poem on the Notes page, then I emailed it to myself. Okay, NanU. How's that for Progress? Hmmm...

PROGRESS

In the field
where the barn
used to stand,
progress has left
only a scar --
a few black wires
hooping out
of the ground,
brown earth
scraped clean,
packed down,
devoid of any living thing.
In the pasture,
white cows turn their heads
and look the other way.

Shades of Falling

The Poetry Bus is being driven this week by Niamh Bagnall, and her challenge for us is to find and write about an article in the news. I have a confession to make: I wrote this poem and then went looking for an article that would suit. Believe it or not, when I Googled "burnt orange fashions," I found three web articles published today and numerous articles published in the last several weeks. So...here's the poem I wrote this morning, inspired not by the news but by the color of my new soft fall jacket. You can read other poets who probably followed the rules here.

 

 SHADES OF FALLING

The last time I wore
this particular shade,
it was also fall.
I was seventeen.
It was the Fireman's Ball,
held in the hall of the local Guard.

My burnt orange dress
fell from my firm young breasts
in the Empire style,
but you were the one who laid siege
until you conquered me.

It was fall, and we were
a young fireman
and his even younger sweetheart,
falling in love
in the spring of our lives.

They say if you hold on
to anything long enough,
it comes back into fashion,
just like all of this
comes back to me now
in shades of orange,
as burnt and sweet as autumn.

Spinning Wonder

SPINNING WONDER

I'm showing you the poetry
In a silken strand that shoots
From tree to bush then waves
On the wind over the water and back
To land upon the branches of the trees,

And I'm thinking of this magic,"Let it be,"

While you try so hard, over and over
In that way you have of never letting go to sail
On strands of magic, to explain the science
Of spinning such a marvel to one who only wants 

To live her life in astonishment and wonder.