Tuesday, April 30, 2013

NaPoWriMo: Cherry Blossom Promise

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

For the last day of NaPoWriMo I'm sharing one of my poems. I wrote it for a friend a while ago. Go easy on me - I'm shy about this kind of thing.


Cherry Blossom  Promise


Before I knew our love would grow
A promise blossomed in my soul.
I will bring you to this place of peace --
Exchange a flower, love shall increase.
You’ll be my cherry blossom bride,
Forever and always at my side.  

The seasons did not make me change;
My heart stayed true, our souls engaged.
Your beauty beckoned, winsome and sweet,
Dark eyes, shy smile, fair face, all complete.
I brought you to this sacred place
Full of dancing, loving grace.

In Tsuruga, the moon shines high
Words of love escape on a sigh.
This temple, with its ancient secrets,
Holds our truth, simple and sacred.
A love song pure from two strong hearts
Lovers entwined, never to part.

Once we were two, now we are four,
Love combined, fragmented, made more.
The years have passed, the mountains remain,
Traditions abound, life is the same.
Painted  with love on life’s canvas,
This – my cherry blossom promise.
  
                                                      by Jennifer Bogart





Monday, April 29, 2013

NaPoWriMo: Claudette J. Young - take two!


April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Claudette J. Young



Claudette J. Young began writing seriously in 2008 and continues to write in multiple genres.  She strives to learn something new each day—a new poetry form, new writing technique, new foreign word, or whatever strikes her fancy. Her primary genres are poetry, science fiction/fantasy, flash fiction, children’s literature, women’s fiction, along with creative non-fiction, essay, and memoir. She tries to cover all of her bases by writing for audiences that range from young children to senior citizens.
Claudette has been published in numerous online publications for poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, as well as print magazine issues and two international poetry anthologies. She continues to hone her craft by working on multiple projects, including book-length ones. Her regular work can be viewed on her collaborative website and blogs at: 2voices1song.com/ .


Beginning

Wandering moons above a world
Of calming seas bereft of life,
Sparking flickers of light unseen
By countless liquid eyes long
Empty, awaiting breath and body.

Moving within eons of passage,
Small changes modify the is
Into the will-be and onto
The unimagined and miraculous,
Molecules begin to dance, coalesce.

Cycles continue; broadening,
Multiplying, until patterns emerge.
Patterns held in giant hands
Powered by will’s design,
Crafted by determination.

Fractals double, triple,
Quadruple until an endless
Progression covers the world;
All identical though unique;
All new while old in design.

Thus has life begun its march
Toward dominance of all else,
Stubborn, constantly evolving
Static-free examples of Earth’s
Potential extinction’s certain face.

                   © Claudette J. Young




Sunday, April 28, 2013

NaPoWriMo: Collin Kelley


April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Collin Kelley



Bio

Collin Kelley is the author of the novels Conquering Venus and Remain In Light, which was a 2012 finalist for the Townsend Prize for Fiction. His poetry collections include Better To Travel, Slow To Burn, After the Poison and the newly-published Render. Kelley is also the author of the short story collection, Kiss Shot. A recipient of the Georgia Author of the Year Award, Deep South Festival of Writers Award and Goodreads Poetry Award, Kelley’s poetry, essays and interviews have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies around the world. He lives in Atlanta, GA.

Links

www.siblingrivalrypress.com (publisher of Render)


Mr. Rogers Made Me Fat

It was after Make-Believe,
when I was vulnerable.
He made the peanut butter
jar appear on his kitchen table
between the Museum-Go-Round
and Daniel Striped Tiger’s Clock,
dipped in a spoon, lifted it
to his mouth like sacrament,
proclaimed it good.

Wishing for Someplace Else,
I wanted to please him, 
so I scampered to the kitchen,
climbed the counter to the top
shelf and found my first addiction.
As the cold metal touched 
my tongue and salty sweet
the roof of my mouth, I was hooked.

The empty jars would stretch
to the moon now, Fred is dead,
and the magic Trolley still runs
on schedule, perpetually empty.
It disappears into a hole in the wall
faster than Lady Elaine Fairchild’s
boomerang-toomerang-soomerang
and I’m too tall and wide to follow.

Raise the Titanic

At the bottom of my old toy box
the Titanic is wrecked,  listing
between Big Bird and Bionic Woman
red and black paint faded,
stacks cracked, masts long gone.

The night I built her, I bit down
on the crusted glue tip, sealed my lips,
and while my mother screamed in horror,
my father grabbed a toothbrush
to scrape my mouth clean of poison.

The model would never float. It ran aground
on my dresser, until it went nose down
into toy graveyard, littered with the forgotten
and outgrown, settled into long dark.

But now that Lillian Asplund is dead at 99,
only five when she huddled in a lifeboat,
her father and brothers sinking un-cinematically
into icy Atlantic, I hold my breath and dive
into the sea of basement damp,
bring the ship back to surface.

I can almost see Lily waiting on deck,
breath hovering like a ghost,
deciding she will never speak of this again,
will disappear into the ether, take memories
hidden in drenched pockets into next lifetime
to be stored in a cool, dry place.

From this depth, I can see my father
looking down at me, his face rippling
in the dank air, smiling, telling me
to go on ahead and not be afraid,
that he’ll be on the next boat.


Saturday, April 27, 2013

NaPoWriMo: Michele Brenton take two!

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Michele Brenton

Given the events over the past few days I hope people will find these offerings help a little.  One of the ways my poetry makes itself felt is in response to world events.  Sometimes my poems manifest as biting satire and sometimes they arrive in a more healing capacity.  These are the latter and I have married them with images which felt appropriate.



The flower images are wild flowers I snapped in my days on Kefalonia and the wall image was taken by my son Alister who is a promising photographer and who is the subject of the following poem:
Bedtime story.

Once upon a time
there was a genetic code
and the genetic code was made
of many tiny messages
and each message
was made of even tinier words.
And every story the genetic code tells
from the very first person
to the ones living now
is a story of growth
and of survival
and of how each mistake
and of how every change
means each story
is special
is unique
is the newest chapter
to be read with wonder
and astonishment.

And you my beautiful child,
with your questioning eyes
and stormy words
may be my 'broken baby'
but those breaks make you
who you are
and take your story into places
you would otherwise
never see,
and that is your adventure.

Michele Brenton
12th April 2013



Alister

Friday, April 26, 2013

NaPoWriMo: Charles Larch

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Charles Larch



 Charles Larch is a nom de plume for the author of Euneria and Towers of Dust. He is also known as Living Challenged (LC) on Authonomy

Euneria is a series book collection of flash fantasy stories woven together with a singular theme and shared characters. Written primarily for his son for his enjoyment, each story has been edited and approved by him. In the first of the series, Euneria - The Tales of Gibbers, Pips and Miu ...

... meet Pips, the brave warrior goblin and his beloved guardian mount, Kerthaan.

... tag along with Gibbers, a kobold on a mission to become the first member of his tribe to own a dragon.

... become enchanted with Miu, the tiny dragon who loves shiny baubles and a little girl called Emeline.

Watch as their lives unfold before you and they share the world of Euneria, a world filled with laughter, beauty and danger.



Heroics 

You, a hero? 
Hoary, antediluvian in a badly worn cape 
And saggy tights. 

Jezebels crowd you, 
Fishwives on your lap 
Inciting your derring-do. 

Hither and thither, 
Your brave deeds. 
Gasping and bent. 

Thanks be! the unwary cry 
As they roll their eyes 
And take their places. 

Gather your hens 
With adulation and honey. 
The needy shall cling. 

O, Death 

He traveled life quietly like a small lad 
And never commanded a ship. 
Now but a discarded seashell, 
Old like whale bones, 
He rises as a cold moon, 
A dead sun, 
A miniscule wave against the shore. 

"O, death, you are a blusterous wind. 
A barren shore upon which I lie. 
A rough sea against the jagged reef, 
And I am your last breath." 

Charles Larch. 

Thursday, April 25, 2013

NaPoWriMo: Claudette J. Young

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Claudette J. Young


Claudette J. Young began writing seriously in 2008 and continues to write in multiple genres.  She strives to learn something new each day—a new poetry form, new writing technique, new foreign word, or whatever strikes her fancy. Her primary genres are poetry, science fiction/fantasy, flash fiction, children’s literature, women’s fiction, along with creative non-fiction, essay, and memoir. She tries to cover all of her bases by writing for audiences that range from young children to senior citizens.
Claudette has been published in numerous online publications for poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, as well as print magazine issues and two international poetry anthologies. She continues to hone her craft by working on multiple projects, including book-length ones. Her regular work can be viewed on her collaborative website and blogs at: 2voices1song.com/ .


Song Maker

Moonless sky, polka-dotted,
One wooden flute’s notes glide,
Through darkness, capturing
The unwary spirit for a soul-ride.

The sound speaks of times past
When animals spoke as men
And trees had souls that sang.

Staccato rhythms carry the music
And lure spirits on airless paths
As mounted horse does the rider.

Only night and the flute exist now,
Soaring high to worlds long gone,
Where time moved with a river’s pace,
Weaving gorges through ancient landscapes,
Never planned or envisioned, yet painting
Maps for only those of the air to see.

Joy within life comes with lighter notes,
Seeking expression within the song,
Giving of itself what listeners take
Away within hearts touched by sound.
Soon drums add their voices to the song,
Punctuating song's tune with bass notes.

Night jars squawk when song pauses,
As if to protest the lack of sweetness
Provided by wood and stretched drumhead.

Owl adds its own bass notes to the mix,
Warning small world travelers of its flight;
Mouse quivers underground, fearful, hungry,
While Rabbit waits timid, unsure of dark’s safety.

Flute laughs at the uncertainty of life,
Knowing all things reveal themselves in time,
Being what they are, when Life proclaims them.

Earth spins to its song, voicing its presence
Through flute and drum, the spirit and body
Of all creation comes forth to know Life’s dance.

                             © Claudette J. Young



Wednesday, April 24, 2013

NaPoWriMo: Dan Holloway take two!


April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Dan Holloway


My poetry roots come from a mix of the Beat poets, certain strands of contemporary performance poetry and to a certain extent the Brutalists. In other words it’s a bit of a mish mash though the emphasis is on lyricality and emotional honesty and rawness. It would be truest of all though to say that my main influence is the confessional wing of Young British Art, in particular Tracey Emin. I like art that reaches deep down inside the artist, wriggling under every layer of artifice to get to the red raw truth whatever that may be.

My solo show “Some Of These Things Are Beautiful” will be premiering at Cheltenham Poetry Festival on April 24th.

 http://danholloway.wordpress.com (where you can download my current collection “i cannot bring myself to look at walls in case you have graffitied them with love poetry” for free)
http://eightcuts.com is a literary project I run that combines online exhibitions and spoken word shows
http://79ratpress.blogspot.com is my experimental publisher, launching 6 collections by new poets this June.


Hungerford Bridge


 Remember the day we lay under Hungerford Bridge
And London stopped, just for us?

Like balletic bullets in a John Woo film
We toured the stillness.
Skateboards and blades played our private soundtrack
Scored from the clacketing
Backbeats of the Thamesside track.

We played hopscotch on Bankside,
Poured pints of London Pride
And downed them on the docks in Rotherhithe,
Embraced in the space between Bridget Riley’s stripes,
Defaced the latest White Cube canvas hype
With lines of lust typed blind on absinthe
And declaimed them to the planeless skies from Trafalgar’s empty plinth.

Neon flared through our Soho lair.
Electric reflections glared.
We spotted pimps and toms in strip joints coming up
for air
And in clip joints frotted by despairing gimps and johns,
The silenced timpani of Dean Street’s daily song.
We stole tubes of lube and 90 percent proof,
Got pissed on Chelsea rooftops,
Fisted, lay on Wembley’s centre spot
And kissed till our lips were blistered
And our minds went missing.


We met them by the river,
An army of the alkies and the dispossessed,
The depressed, repressed, the not so easily impressed,
The inconsolable and unconfessed
Who repossessed their lives for just one night
Howling Baudelaire like loons
And raving by a quarter moon,
Piping crazy tunes across the water –
A glorious guttersnipe Brigadoon.

Forget the lazy days,
The backward gaze, the haze, the sugar glaze we paint
upon our yesterdays.
We tattooed London in our veins,
Inked in electricity and linked up to the mains:
Its maze of urban arteries,
Its winding streets that bleed from us
Plying meths to find the key to us,
Suppress the lethargy that hides our dreams from us,
That lies against our sighing breast to squeeze from us
The dying breaths that wheeze from us
And leak into a lullaby that pleads with us –

Remember the day we lay under Hungerford Bridge
And London stopped, just for us.



Tuesday, April 23, 2013

NaPoWriMo: Michele Brenton

April is National Poetry Writing Month. In celebration of poets everywhere, and to encourage those who are just embarking on their literary journey, I will be posting poetry (not mine) each day for the month of April. Please take a look and enjoy this special art.

Michele Brenton



Michele Brenton's poetry was first published 2001 when her poem 'Enemies' got into the 'When the Teacher Isn't Looking' anthology brought out by Pan Macmillan and more recently in 2011 with the inclusion of two of her poems in 'Prompted - An International Collection of Poems' an anthology edited by Dr Pearl Ketover Prilik.

Three books of her seven book series the 'Alternative Poetry Books' (the Yellowedition, the Pink edition and the Blue edition) published in paperback & as ebooks by Endaxi Press can be found fleetingly from time to time in the Amazon poetry bestsellers lists.  The Alternative Poetry Books were conceived as a way of allowing both sides of Michele's poetry personality to co-exist comfortably in one volume.  Michele Brenton the poet produces thoughtful more serious works while banana_the_poet has fun uppermost in mind when penning a poem.  The 'alternative' series has funny/quirky poetry beginning on the 'odd' pages and her serious poetry titles can be discovered on the 'even' pages.
As banana_the_poet (Michele's quirky/satirical/funny poetry persona) she was voted the most popular human poet by the Twitter community in the Shorty Awards 2011.

Her last two books were satirical poetic parodies of the Fifty Shades phenomenon.


Imagine that!

Some children think the very worst thing
is having to eat their greens.
They haven't opened their imaginations
to what that really means.
If you saw your food the way I do
it would make you smile and laugh,
'cos gazing over your plate is like an aerial photograph.
It's not broccoli or Brussels sprouts
if you play you're in the sky.
It's fields of trees and cabbages
beneath your giant's eyes.

You reach your giant hand
carrying a giant fork
and spear a tree or two
and stick it where you talk.
You are so giantly giantish
living a giant's life,
that you can eat six cabbages
no need to use a knife,
they fit inside your giant mouth
and you give them a giant chew
and suddenly greens are much more fun
if you see them the way I do.

by banana_the_poet