no parade for average

Mediocre:
Forget it.
Vanilla, Milquetoast,
No way.
Not ordinary, bland.
Unique, unusual,
Ah, yes.
Extra-ordinary,
Oh, my.
Oh, yes:
Bring on the band.

Three Cups of Tea

When I'm between poems, I like to write to prompts provided at a number of sites run by great poets. A recent Poetry Jam prompt says to use the title of a NY Times bestseller as a springboard. I chose Three Cups of Tea (or it chose me), maybe because its subject is education. In truth, I own the book but have not read it, so it was easy to go in a totally different direction.

Visit Poetry Jam to see what other people did with this one.

Three Cups of Tea

As if her knees
no longer hold,
suddenly, she sits.
Her arms fold
upon her work;
her head falls
upon her arms.
Her heart listens
to the sorrow
singing in the rings
upon the wood.

She Wishes for a Light in Winter

Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads suggested we write a poem using the pattern in He Wishes for the Cloth of Heaven by William Butler Yeats. So, with great hesitation and profuse apologies to WB, here's my stumbling attempt.

If you don't or haven't visited IGRT, you should do so. The prompts are always interesting and challenging and the company is inspiring!

P.S. Isn't he gorgeous?


















She Wishes for a Light in Winter


Had I the glow of a winter moon,
The silvered blue of winter night,
The full or the half, the shrouded moon
That lights the night into half-night,
I would lead you through this forest deep:
But I, being blind, with darkness keep;
I stumbling lead into the deep.
Hold tightly, my love, for the forest keeps.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The Final Word

The Final Word

Do you hear my hand upon the door?
I have a key that works just as before.
The narrow bed grows cold until my visit,
and I, as years of old, have come to sit
again beside your fire of bitter blue.
Stay still with me and reminisce a few,
our discourse now a long soliloquy,
that issues at some length alone from me
while mute remonstrance simmers silently,
as I at last the final word am given,
and you, my dear, must lie at last and listen.

Dreams Deferred

Turns out I am not much,
Just such as dreams are made on,
The stuff of feathered nights
That blow away
With advent of the day.

Turns out I am so small
That all I see or seem
Falls beneath the lines
And creeps away
On feet of clay.

Turns out I've died,
Dried like a raisin in the sun
That shrivels, shrinks
And runs away
As sticky, sweet decay.

Crowned with Thorns

Crowned with Thorns

November bleeds
grey and brown.
Fallen leaves seep
into damp ground
and wrest away
the memory and breath
of summer.
Listen.
You can nearly hear
the dirge of dying birds.

Preposition, Post

Preposition

Moon behind the clouds,
knife in the windowsill.
You, full of words
on the floor.
On the floor, or under.
Knife on the windowsill.
On.
Flowers set in snow.
The knife is on the sill.
Your words are swords
In the dark.

Postposition

Moon, clouds.
Knife and windowsill,
You, wordful.
The floor, the floor,
The knife and the windowsill.
Flowers, snow-set.
Knife and sill.
Your words are swords.
Dark.