Category Archives: Poetry

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Sacred Ground #Tanka Tuesday

pixabay image

The soil is charmed, morning-cool, and damp from last night’s dew. Droplets of light embroider a rose’s scarlet petals, and the zucchini by the stone wall lifts its giant green hands to catch the midsummer sun. Warmth drips like a fountain. The trees clap their leaves in approval. I don’t wear gloves and my fingernails are caked with dirt. Today, I’ll plant another batch of wrinkled kale and buttery coreopsis. I’ll pick broccoli and make a bouquet of wild daisies to brighten my kitchen sill. The bees hum a symphony. As I brush my fingers on my jeans, the enchantment of the hallowed earth sustains me for another day.

Despair cannot bind
A spirit to hopelessness
A heart to darkness
When rooted in sacred ground
Consecrated by the Earth

 

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A haibun/tanka for Colleen Chesebro’s #Tanka Tuesday.

We had to use synonyms of Hex and Blessed (enchantment and hallowed)

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Rain, Slugs, and Hospitals

My dad is in the hospital again, so I’m staying with my disabled mom. Nothing too serious but as always, complicated by dehydration. A sharp contrast to the weeks of drenching rain outside.

I have one more garden haiku to share while I take a few days away from the blog.

compliments of pixabay since I’m not in the habit of photographing slugs!

 

slimy slinky slugs

gather in soppy gardens

to feast on fresh greens

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Yes, my garden is inundated with slugs!

I’ll be back soon. Thanks for the visit. ❤

 

 

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Rose Garden Haiku

sensuous beauty

blushing beneath the sun’s tongue

pink folds unfurling

 

white linens windblown

a dancer’s petals whirling

in joyous spirit

 

spring rain surrenders

 May’s roses lift fair faces

to sunlight’s warm breath

 

vintage tapestry

roses stitched on wine and jade

grandmother’s bouquet

 

harlequin tumblers

decked in frippery and frills

perform for the sun

 

fuzzy chubby bee

revel in your golden wreath

sated with summer

 

Thank you for visiting my garden. ❤

I hope you’re doing well.

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The Red Bridge #Writephoto #Tanka Tuesday

copyright Sue Vincent

I decided to combine Sue Vincent’s beautiful #writephoto prompt (above)

with Colleen Chesebro’s intriguing #photoprompt (below)

photo provided by Vashti Q. Vega, image credit: Balaji Malliswamy

Hmmm…

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Beneath the red bridge

Innocent waterlilies

Bloom with pink brushstrokes

While spring’s fecund beauty hides

A predator’s lustrous eyes

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Horizon #Writephoto

copyright: Sue Vincent – Causeway

Horizon

Dare I fly from the sea’s rim to the sun’s white center
When sorrow bleeds crimson from my tongue and fingertips
Will I sing through the throat of hope, the beauty of the human story?
My wings unfold with the flame of a yearning soul

When sorrow bleeds crimson from my tongue and fingertips
If heart’s betrayals bend me beneath grief and despair
My wings unfold with the flame of a yearning soul
As hallowed skies blaze away the bruised ache of living

If heart’s betrayals bend me beneath grief and despair
Remember by faded day the child’s longing for life’s horizon
As hallowed skies blaze away the bruised ache of living
In night’s full wildness dream of yes beneath the weary bone moon

Remember by faded day the child’s longing for life’s horizon
Dare I fly from the sea’s rim to the sun’s white center
In night’s full wildness dream of yes beneath the weary bone moon
Will I sing through the throat of hope, the beauty of the human story?

 

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I’ve been trying to write a pantoum for a year, honestly. I love this form, but struggled with it!  Sue’s Thursday #writephoto prompt inspired me to just go for it.

Be peaceful, be well.

 

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Perception #Tanka Tuesday

Pixabay image by Michael Seibt

Perception

“Cross the bridge.” The crone points her staff to a log spanning a luminous pool.

I squint at the strange collection of creatures impeding my way. I’ve been lost for days in the swamp’s wet greenness, breathing the emerald dew. So many moons that knobby horns sprout from my skull. Vines weave through the fibers of my clothes, and my skin grows iridescent scales in myriad hues of moss. I am hungry despite a bellyful of beetles.

Upon the bridge, a naiad plays her flute, the sound hypnotic though the melody unfurls backward. “Wayward magic,” mutter I, one wary soul who’s encountered these tricksters before. Does this one revel in opposites, mirrored reflections? Which is real, the opposite of whom? Is there any way to know what’s true? My ears droop at the bothersome riddle.

The pipe’s dulcet sound charms a viper, its crescent fangs smiling. Safeguarding or warning? Did the sprite awaken the snake, or does she lull it to sleep? Beneficent or Mischievous? I wrinkle my snout in study. And which of the two covet the poppy? All three could be lethal to me. Beautiful peril, perilous beauty. Or simply a flower?

“How am I to cross?” ask I, my jade whiskers twitching.

The faceless hag shrugs.

choose your poison, child
life implies no guarantees
forsake illusive
dreams of immortality
perception decides the truth

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I had the privilege in September of choosing October’s mid-month photo image for Colleen’s #Tanka Tuesday. What fun to finally write for this fairytale image. If you enjoy syllabic poetry, visit her site and check out her fun prompts. Thanks, Colleen.

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Empty Space #Tanka Tuesday

 

Rail against despair

When deceit inters the truth

When corruption shrieks

And Narcissus chokes the void

With yowls from a vacant heart

 

For Colleen’s #Tanka Tuesday #Poetry Challenge. We had to use synonyms for empty (vacant) and space (void).

Sorry about the politics. I couldn’t help it with those prompts.

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Fades to Black

Pixabay image by Susan Cipriano

A double Etheree for Colleen’s mid-month poetry photo challenge. This month’s photo was selected by Jane Dougherty.

Fades to Black

white

ice melts

in trickles

etching gullies

calving blue glaciers

until oceans submerge

gray ashes of field and farm

when birds and butterflies succumb

will we bray for justice, thoughts and prayers

proclaim false innocence, righteous despair

or rue our excuses and pay our debts

spill tears for an absent tomorrow

bewildered as our children drown

between islands of lost trees

rooted in salt waters

among dying leaves

a wasted world

of green life

fades to

black

 

 

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Monochrome #Writephoto

copyright – Sue Vincent

Monochrome

My mother’s home
bows to the leaden clouds
through withering years
her gravity weights us
frail fingers of need
suspended from my shoulders

She clutches my arm
like a worn-out child
I bear without bending
but why do I feel
my feet have grown tap roots
and I cannot extract them

They are declining together
that house and she
sagging and creaking
water-marked and fractured
fragile veins of rusted pipes
crumbling the foundation of bones

Beauty requires altered eyes
the blurred half-distance of memory
a chorus of overlapping echoes
in party dresses and baby’s breath
when the decay of age was nothing
a coat of paint couldn’t hide

She has lost the sharp-edged borders
scarlet tulips and peach-rimmed roses
glories of the morning in royal blue
black-eyed Susans and apricot orchids
mums in the amber blaze of twilight
winter’s bittersweet

I will remember
her spring blossoms
ceding to blood red chrysanthemums
and garlands of evergreen
until the day I too fade
into monochrome

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I just got home from another visit to my parents. They’re doing fine but declining, especially my mother. This poem is bleaker than the real situation. It’s just the muse and image tugging me along. Thanks to Sue Vincent for another Thursday #Writephoto prompt. (I missed the deadline, but happily post this anyway.)