Friday, February 16, 2018

Friday 55 February 16 2018

Greetings all. Here we meet again at another Friday dedicated to the pastime, craft and/or art of verbal expression, all in 55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less. If you've been here before, you know the drill, you know all about the G-man, and why I do this, and why it matters, and if it's your first time, you are welcome to the table to see how it all plays out. As always, if inspired to write--in exactly 55 words, of course--please link your result in the comments below between Friday and Sunday morning, and I will be by to check it out.




My 55 for this week:






Ginger Jar








Love,

the black tsunami--

I think of Van Ness,
a ginger jar green-gold,

plum-smooth
the heart I keep inside it

not a thing of valves and blood
but daylight rain and
cricket-song

all wind-shattered soon
 
when raindrops
 sharper

than chirps will pound
at my feet
 paisley the sand

and the
void's mouth take
 this flower-blown beach.




 ~February 2018






















The Ginger Jar, 1926, ©Samuel John Peploe
A Rocky Shore, Iona (detail) ©Samuel John Peploe   
Public Domain
Both images have been manipulated.

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15 comments:

  1. grapelingFebruary 16, 2018 at 1:48 AM

    Van Ness... ah, one of the main arteries pulsing through San Francisco, from the lip of the bay peering at Alcatraz to what once was Army Street, now Cesar Chavez, because what we fight for changes, but love? Maybe the only thing worth the fight. Is it a paradox, to battle for love?

    No wonder we mostly hairless apes are so messed up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. grapelingFebruary 16, 2018 at 3:13 AM

      except

      hope you have a kick-ass weekend ~

      Delete
    2. hedgewitchFebruary 17, 2018 at 5:51 AM

      No I don't think it's a paradox--or a contradiction, but there certainly is an irony in the necessity of fighting for peace and love...perhaps that says more about who we are than we think. When I lived off Van Ness, it was a mild sort of street full of quirky businesses and old buildings--probably like everything else, not the same now, but I'm grateful for what it was then, and the time we spent together. ;_) Thanks for playing this week, M.

      Delete
  2. the walking manFebruary 16, 2018 at 4:43 AM

    All we knew will be removed for a reality we laid the base of, built on, but let others take the construction off to different places. Places none of us who cared imagined forty years ago.

    here

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    Replies
    1. hedgewitchFebruary 17, 2018 at 5:52 AM

      No not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined this place we are at now. Thanks for adding your 55 to the philosophical pile, Mark.

      Delete
  3. BrendanFebruary 16, 2018 at 4:52 AM

    From the first startle (Love, / the black tsunami) we view with that ravaged eye a history, its avenue (Van Ness) leading to the final fatal flowerstrewn beach, shadowed by a closing void's mouth. An empty place albeit a rich one, a strand where nothing has been left for partaking but the image itself, which is all we get with poetry and more than what most of us can handle anyway. This counts out to the rhythm of last breaths, and is full-hearted of it: A ginger jar to save, even sing. Eerily beautiful as Dido's song & shriekingly sad, like a cliff.

    My 55: https://blueoran.wordpress.com/2018/02/16/running-from-the-n-r-a/

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    Replies
    1. hedgewitchFebruary 17, 2018 at 5:55 AM

      Thanks, B. The richest and blackest emptiness of all is that crowded space with nothing left one is able to keep...thanks for writing about the unthinkable, so that we are forced to confront it--and thanks for your generous words.

      Delete
  4. Kerry O'ConnorFebruary 17, 2018 at 12:29 PM

    I'm listening to the crickets as I read your poem. This is one of your most beautiful 55s, Joy. I want to fold it up and carry it in a pocket over my heart.

    ReplyDelete
  5. hyperCRYPTICalFebruary 17, 2018 at 2:08 PM

    Your words are truly beautiful despite the pain they bear.
    Love is such a fickle friend and we are forever at her mercy. How bewitching she is as she invades our heart alters its function. And yes our hearts are full of daylight rain and cricket-song, a wonderful parade.
    And then she leaves us distraught, eats at our souls and moves on, abandoning our hearts in her wild rush, and the void she leaves is unimaginable and rent we are.
    But we will welcome her again…
    My offering here: https://hypercryptical.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/outsider.html
    Anna :o]

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hedgewitchFebruary 17, 2018 at 5:10 PM

      The wave comes for it all, love, life, and all things beloved. Thanks for your lovely comment, Anna, and for playing.

      Delete
  6. brudbergFebruary 17, 2018 at 3:33 PM

    I feel the beauty and the pain... the tsunami and the flowered beached made me think of 2004... such destruction, and a very strong metaphor.

    By coincidence the word tsunami is also in my poem...

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    Replies
    1. hedgewitchFebruary 17, 2018 at 5:27 PM

      Yes, tsunami is a heavy word, and not overtly poetic in sound or cadence, but sometimes it is what it is. Thanks for playing Bjorn.

      Delete
  7. hedgewitchFebruary 18, 2018 at 4:28 PM

    Mary Bach at In Other Words wrote a very topical, scathing and relevant 55--I had shut the comments down earlier, but saw it on Facebook, so here it is:

    https://othermary.wordpress.com/2018/02/18/how-many-more/

    ReplyDelete
  8. hedgewitchFebruary 19, 2018 at 6:42 AM

    Thanks to everyone who read or participated. See you next time.

    ReplyDelete

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