National Poetry Month

National Poetry Month 2015

As most of us involved in (and out of)  the cyber-world of poetry have already noticed, April is the month of the year in which the spontaneous generation of poetry in all forms is celebrated and encouraged. There are many organizations and sites, blogs and writer's groups which encourage and support writing a poem a day. My own favorite poetry site, the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, will be offering a daily challenge throughout April to help provide inspiration, as will many others. 

I have been blogging here at Verse Escape since October of 2010. Since 2011, I have written 30 poems in April each year, and this will be my fifth year of attempting to do so. I want to emphasize the 'attempting' aspect, as I never know if I will actually be able to do it. I also am adding another goal to the month, and that is to READ a (non-blogged) poem a day, from an actual book, of which I have many, and which too often spend their lives gathering dust. In the event I cannot write a poem for any given day, I will share my daily read here.

During this highly focused period, everyone appreciates and needs support, even though sometimes it's hard to make the usual rounds and leave the usual in-depth comments, so I want to say in advance, I am grateful for just a word to know you have been by, and if you are also doing this project, please let me know, so I can in turn support your efforts, even if not in my usual lengthy and verbose style, to which you have hopefully become accustomed. ;_) For those not involved in the madness, I will still be around to read and comment as usual.

 I look forward to seeing the fireworks that this sort of discipline can produce, and to enjoying the company of those as stressed as myself coming face to face with that blankness Bob Dylan once described when he said: "...if there's an original thought out there, I could use it right now..."

 Happy Poetry Month To All

Photos: copyright joyannjones 2015

 Please feel free to use the 'poetry month' photo if you'd like, any way you'd like.

 

Perfect Day

Perfect Day

Clothes colored dirt

hair blown like hay

hands in the birth bed

where laboring lays,

easing and turning

crumbling and pushing

life from old life,

broken as an eggshell

by tireless pecking,

face to the wind;

a scatterer of seed

gatherer of water,

an eater of flowers

blind

to which meal

is 

the last.

~March 2015

posted for    real toads

Challenge:...An Old Man's Fancy

Corey Rowley (Mexican Radio) asks us to visualize the perfect spring day; therefore I have forced myself not to write about anything ominous, shadowy, dark or painful, so enjoy it while you can. 

Photos copyright joyannjones 2015

Out Of The Mirror

Out Of The Mirror

"Everybody's wearing a disguise
to hide what they've got left behind their eyes
but me, I can't cover who I am..."
~Bob Dylan, Abandoned Love

She saw the way his restless eye

moved blind past her every word

and so she took his face out of the mirror

carried it carefully home

to keep it nearer.

She put it in a special box,

a casket carved with sunsets,

walled with moon

and told it all the jokes

he never gets.

It laughed so intimate and close

and winked at her with

a silver seeing eye

made suddenly luminous,

all callousness washed out,

sketching sweetness in the charcoal 

smudge of the remitter,

delusion's kiss---

till in some ignorant apogee of bliss,

she let it out.

The box spilled hot laughter hissing
back to its glassy home, and

a bloodstain on the nacreous quilt of dawn,

as surely all along

she should have known.

~February-March, 2015

posted for             real toads

The Tuesday Platform

Image:  Still Life with Spherical Mirror, 1934, by M.C. Escher
Fair use via wikiart.org

Night Ride

Night Ride

Don't let go the mane of the mare,

the mercury mare married to night.

Look down, love, at her wild eye-white,

turn your face to her cinnamon stare,

the jeweler's work deep-set in her skull

bridging abyss, canceling null.

Don't draw back from her wire-harsh hair;

she's your only way in, only way out,

my Dancer on memory, Rider of doubt.    

Fill your eyes with her fine Arab air; 

the delicate leg, the hooves henna-bright

pacing the years from sundown to light.

You know she'll toss you, but not just where--

which rippled well, which beckoned bend.

Only let go where the fall never ends.

Lay your hand on the mane of the mare,

bury your face in her cinnamon stare.

Comb the wind from her wire-harsh hair,
fill your cup with her fine Arab air;

you know she'll toss you, but you don't know where.

~March 2015

 

posted for     real toads

Challenge: Play it Again with Margaret

The discerning eye of Margaret Bednar (ArtHappens365) once again winnows out three selections from the plethora of past Garden challenges . I have chosen to try my hand at one of Kerry O'Connor's form challenges, The Constanza, explained with all Kerry's usual clarity HERE.  
Caveat: I have not, however, stayed completely faithful to it.

Images: Bathing Horses, by Volodymyr Orlovsky    public domain via wikiart.org

Rearing Horse, by Leonardo da Vinci, 1503   public domain via wikiart.org

  

Wolf Wind

Wolf Wind

She wears night

for a bonnet, winter

her black pelisse, hood flared

in the wolf wind.

She never looks

anything in the eye;

it's all done with

the shrug of a shoulder.

She carries grey shadows

to term in the flare of her hips,

breaking them from her skirt

in eddies as she walks.

In the snow of her petticoats

dawn lies stillborn;

the cricket's fiddle is iced

in the drying rushes.

Every door is barred

against her,

yet she comes and goes

as she wills

in the same dusty clothes

and behind her,

darkness pushes.

~March 2015

posted for     real toads

The Tuesday Platform

Sometimes you see something, and it makes you write.

pelisse: 1.an outer garment lined or trimmed with fur. 2.a woman's long cloak with slits for the arms.1710-20; < French < Late Latin pellicia: mantle, noun feminine of Latin pellicius: of skin...pellis:skin   Dictionary.com Unabridged

Image: found on facebook, author unknown

no copyright infringement intended

Dining In

Dining In

You looked at me across

the brimming glass. I seemed to see

a butterfly on your plate,

a meal on wings in a web too blue to be.

Serve yourself, you said, as sweet

as summer almond on the spur,
for what you've fluttered for

is blooming here.

Nibbling the small absurd
crustaceans of indifference well-assumed,

followed by a toss of  salad words,

fatigued in vinegar and oil to bite and blur,
till appetite on top at last flicked off
the garnish, two soft-curled buds
beside the tart smooth cream;
wine spilled on scarlet linen stays unseen.

Next there came the twist,
main course surprise,

all salt and sauce and judgement over-ruled--
the steam of it rose humid in our eyes;

in the end we had the dish we each would choose--

brief, delicious, light but quite forgettable,
with endearments for dessert, so green
so indigestible.

~March 2015

posted for     real toads

Weekend Challenge: Poeticizing Out

The multi-talented Karin Gustafson (ManicDDaily) asks us to write something inspired by a meal at a restaurant. I have kind of run a bit wide and wild here, but that's where I started.

Top Image: copyright Karin Gustafson,

Used with permission

Footer: Still Life Of Fruit And A Plate of Oysters, by Osias Beert

Public domain via wikiart.org