Wordless Wednesday - Dreams of Sugarplums

 

Wordless Wednesday - Frosty Morning

 

Thankful 55

I love this time of year
when the land
gathers itself
preparing
for its long, cold sleep
 
when the leaves
no longer hide
the structure of
 the trees
 
and the work of
autumn
is complete
 
I love the small
points
of light
and warmth
in the darkness
 
I love
the reminder
of vastness
beyond myself

These are 55 words chosen and arranged for Verse Escape where Hedgewitch carries on the kick-ass tradition of the Friday 55 that was started by Galen, a most kick-ass human.  
 

Wordless Wednesday - Sighted While Walking

 

Wordless Wednesday - That Lone Tree

 

Election 2020

How dare you
bring your guns and your god
to the voting booth.
Take your threats
and your devotion to hate
they have no place here.
Fold them carefully
and put them into a box
and store it on the
highest shelf
in the back of your closet.
This is no longer acceptable.
It never was, but
the man behind the curtain
tried to make to believe
it was.
You were fooled, taken in.
We forgive you,
but now you know better,
so do better.
Put away your hate and your ammo
and pull the blinders from your eyes.
Welcome back to sanity,
to humanity.                    

Wordless Wednesday - Shitty Beer

 

Friday 55 - Catwalk

I live in the country.

I have a barn, and barn cats.

The cats come with me on my walks.

I walk a long way and they have short legs.

Summer get so blasted hot,

and the winters get bitterly cold.

 

I tell them to go home

but of course, being cats,

they don't listen.

                       

 

This is for Hedgewitch at Verse Escape who carries on the good work of Friday 55 started by Galen.

Wordless Wednesday - October Snow

 

Friday 55 - Of Cats and Cars

Some days I feel
like a slinky, black cat
tiptoeing gracefully through life
feeling sleek and
mysterious,
giving you
a knowing wink
 
Then there are days
when I feel as if
someone put sand
in my gasoline,
chuffing
and sputtering,
hardly able to work
my eggbeater hairbrush,
about to break down
at any moment.

Wordless Wednesday - Curved Lines

 

Pure Souls and Saucers of Milk

Acolytes roam through the city
looking for pure souls
and saucers of milk
 
It’s nearly time for the rapture
and all the worthy
are gathered in the street
 
That’s right, suckers,
cats rule
and dogs and humans…
well, you know.

This is for The Sunday Muse, where Carrie provided this delightful picture to write about.

P.S. I'm not pleased with the title of this, but finally wanted to post while it was still Sunday!  Any suggestions?

Good Friday 55

It’s Friday.
but no fish on Fridays
people have turned it into
a celebration,
a treat.
Now we look forward
to Friday fish fry. 

                                                 
Perhaps we were not made
for a severe, vengeful god
but for a god of
delight in the wonders
of this world.     
when ordered to make a sacrifice 
How amazing that?

Wordless Wednesday - Autumn Posies

 

Friday 55 - Otis

My blind dog whines

because he wants me to play tug.

He does not whine

when he bumps into the door frame,

or the chair I forgot to push in.

And if I make him stay home

when I go somewhere

he always welcomes me back

with doggy exuberance

and more love than I deserve.

This is for the Friday 55 at Verse Escape.

He Said - She Said - Albert Camus

 

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."

-Albert Camus

-Photo by Mary Bach

Wordless Wednesday - End of Days

 

We've Got Cows - The Sunday Muse

 

Come, sweet Hathor
my space-cow
bring your children
back from playing leapfrog
with the moon.
 
The glass on the counter
is half full
and the sweet clover
is blossoming in the field
and soft, September breeze
spills milkweed seed everywhere.
They fly with exuberance,
though they will die,
preparing for next year’s
butterflies.
 
Come with me, Hathor,
from the Aaru
back into to time,
back into this world
of grass and dirt and sun
 
back to this afternoon
of warm sunshine
and soft grasses
of falcons circling high above
and crows preening
in a nearby oak
talking amongst themselves.
 
Of course, it won’t last forever
my dear,
that’s what makes it
perfect.

 

The image is provided by The Sunday Muse.  

 

Aaru – in ancient Egyptian mythology the Field of Reeds, is the heavenly paradise

Hathor - ancient Egyptian goddess depicted as a cow, or a woman with the head of a cow, considered the primeval goddess from whom all others were derived. 

Friday 55 - Look Out

I think one day

the world will be taken over
by grey haired, women poets.
They are a radical bunch
eloquent, but enigmatic
with their coffee and tea and gin
their gardens, their books
and their views
that society should
be tipped on its head.
So, if you’re at the top
brace yourself
because it’s coming.

Image:Author unknown. Please email me for credit or removal of image.

Wordless Wednesday - Maurice and Otis

 

Offer it Up

It’s not the wickedness that kills us
but the expectations
and the pretense

It’s not the poison apple

or even the apple

of The Knowledge of Good and Evil

it’s the hundreds of apples

over the years

bruised and mealy

offered for our own good

 

It’s not the single, clean stab of a blade

it’s a thousand paper cuts

it’s not one deep gash from the sword

but a million little jabs of the pen

that add up to our demise

 

Death by hypocrisy

death by conformity

death by good intentions

 

Image by Brooke Shaden.

Written  shockingly late for The Sunday Muse.

The Trouble with 'The Trouble with Poetry'

Today I read

the 'Trouble with Poetry'

by Billy Collins

and the trouble with that is

that now I want to steal

those words he has written,

which is exactly

what the poem is about.

Well, exactly, sort of,

in the way poetry is always

about something, but it’s really about

something else altogether too.           

Autumn Fruits

 

Over at dVerse Poets' Pub Laura has asked us, keeping September in mind, to write a nine-line verse, taking one of several lines from different poets so that each consecutive word becomes the start of the next line of the poem. I chose the following:

Those/ pale /flowers /might /still /have/ time/ to /fruit  from Karina Borowicz’s ‘September Tomatoes’ 

 

Those autumn evenings grow crisp at the edges.

Pale moonlight spills on fields as that first star

flowers in the darkening sky.

Might this inexorable transition towards winter

still surprise us, still catch in our throats?

Have we lost our awe of beauty, death,

time slipping into past?

Today we should enjoy the final

fruit, sweetened by September’s breeze.

Wordless Wednesday - On My Walk

Wordless Wednesday - Almost Autumn

 

Over Time

I make these plans

and sometimes they work out

but sometimes…

well, it would be interesting

to eavesdrop on my self

five years ago, or fifteen, or fifty

to hear the things

I thought were

so important

then turn to

my worries of today

This is a quadrille, for dVerse Poets' Pub where Kim has asked us for 44 words, exactly, that include some form of "eavesdropping."

Wordless Wednesday - Summer Smiles in Yellow

Back in that other place there was a thing called Wordless Wednesday.  You post a picture with no explanation and the hashtag "wordlesswednesday" (and whatever others are fitting).  So, this post is not wordless, and it's not Wednesday, but I'm going to start doing it here with this "wordy Thursday" picture. :)

The First of September

So what do I write on this first day

of this new month, September, this

almost autumn?

Do I write about how the garden

is nearly exhausted?

Do I write about how the leaves

are already beginning to turn?

Do I write about my dad, born in this month,

whose favorite color was red,

whose favorite flower was the American Beauty Rose,

whose favorite season was autumn?

Do I write about his strong, freckled hands,

or his neat-nick habits

or his quick mind

or his laugh that filled rooms

or his clever sense of humor?                  

Or do I write about the cooler nights

and the shorter days

and how death is coming for us all?

This is linked to dVerse Poets' Pub for their open link night.

Growing Pains

There is treasure all around

but you blacken and turn inward.

You are an ink blot

on an illuminated manuscript

a burning nettle

in a field of wildflowers

a sliver

in the pink pad of a finger

Let me help you pack

your blanket and suitcase.

You no longer belong

or want 
to be here. 


55 Words for Hedgewitch at Verse Escape.       

Everything Old is New Again

About 100 years ago (give or take a few decades; well, quite a few decades; well, in my defense I was told there would be no math) I started a blog on Blogger called Writing in the Bachs.  And in time I migrated over to Wordpress, where I wrote and took pictures at In Other Words. And I was relatively content there.  But they changed something that bothered me just enough that I decided to come back here and start over.  So here I am.