Wildfire

Nature's beauty
Comes in many forms.
Some, infinitely terrifying.



Seeing the Domke Lake fire today, seemingly burning more furiously than ever, reminds me that no matter how hard we try to control our environment, there are times when nature still has the upper hand. I am humbled, yet grateful.

Poetry Thursday--a poem in dialogue

I have to admit I like these prompts. It is like taking a class with no precise hours, no exams or grades and you don’t have to do the homework unless you feel like it. It’s pass-fail without the fail.
Today’s prompt is to write a poem in dialogue. In the past I would have run away from this one but I’m getting more daring the more I do this. I wasn’t aware of this format until recently I discovered a poem in dialogue in Meadowlands, by Louise Gluck. The dialogue took me unawares: no quotation marks. It took me a while to feel appreciative but I found that it works as poetry, at least in her hands.
Here is an excerpt from The Wish:

Remember that time you made the wish?

I make a lot of wishes.

The time I lied to you
about the butterfly. I always wondered
what you wished for.

What do you think I wished?


I’m not printing the end of the poem because I believe it pushes the edge on copyright law. But you get the idea.

I ‘m going to borrow Gluck’s format for my poem which is a dialogue with myself. Talking with myself is something I do far too often.

Poetry

So, don’t you feel a little silly,
Doing all this poetry stuff?

Yes, it’s not what I intended.
I’m a prosaic sort. No imagination,
I guess.

If it doesn’t engage the real-life senses it isn’t real?

Sometimes it seems like that.

Isn’t poetry a sort of adolescent journaling
You should have outgrown by now?

Yes. Like love letters and mooning
Over a favorite teacher.

Then why do you do it?

To dance with words, each line a pirouette or plie
My body could never accomplish.
But my mind can.

Won’t they laugh?

Not if I don’t tell them.

Driving do's and don'ts

Do As I Say. . . .

Don't talk on the phone while driving,
Above all don't write a poem.
Don't look for something on the floor
Or program your Palm Treo.
No candid shots of passersby
Or flipping rude drivers the bird.
And absolutely, never, ever, take
This photograph.




By way of explanation, as I was heading to work on Tuesday, traffic hit a total slow down, and boredom overtook the anxiety of knowing, I'd arrive late at work. I took a few photos and wrote this poem. When the cause of the traffic was visible I took one shot but with the blockage passed there was no time to focus or frame the photo.

Poetry Thursday--bowing out this week

Sorry Poetry Thursday folks. This will be the second week I bow out of the optional prompt. Last week, I knew I wasn’t going to stash my poems in corners of the greater Chicago area. I just couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t even stash Shakespeare’s poems for that matter, but mine . . . !
This week, there just weren’t enough hours in the day. I think I wrote a Villanelle for English class in high school. I spent hours on it and had a good time but didn’t get a very good grade. I remember the disappointment, not because I was obsessed with grades (which I was), but because I actually liked the poem I had written. I guess you can’t win ‘em all.
Kudos to all of you who did either or both assignments. You are hardier and braver souls than I. You folks make up a great community which will keep me writing, reading and thinking about poems and the people who write them.
Yesterday morning I did an unusual thing. I sat in the bathtub and read a poem or two. That day’s reading was Louise Gluck. The first time I opened the book, I was unimpressed but liked it more the second reading. I don’t have the book in front of me so I can’t tell you the title at the moment. Something with meadow in it I think.
My poem for the day is a photograph. I am very proud of this photo. I think it is one of my best wildlife photos. I think the wee bird should be very proud of his fine appearance and judging from the photo, he is.

Poetry Thursday

Some months ago I visited a cemetery and photographed the stones. At the time I was struck by the photos in porcelain of many of those buried there. I have written previous poems about those resting there. Here is one incorporating a line from a poem, "trapped in the frame of an old photograph," graciously provided by Sara from The Shores of My Dreams.



Eva

Whose mother, sister, wife, were you,
Living on, forever trapped in the frame
Of an old photograph?
Who took your picture on that day you so
Carefully pinned the lace atop your head?

A life story spanning two centuries is
Now forever buried with you.
You left behind children who endowed
Your stone eternally.
Beloved Mother. Age 63 Years. At Rest.

Forgive me if I have disturbed
Your peace
With Speculation and Photography.
Eighty years have passed
But your stone still bears witness.

Letter to a Poet

My response to prompt #2. I think maybe I'll print and mail this one.

Dear Mr. Kooser,

I have never written a letter to a poet or any other writer for that matter. I doubt you will even read this one. But I recently discovered your Delights and Shadows and found them, well, delightful. You find poetry in the most ordinary and challenge me to look at the simple things of life in a more profound way. Who would have thought to write a poem about depression glass or a jar of buttons?
I greatly enjoyed the image of the early bird "hauling the heavy bucket of dawn." It seems to suit this early spring season well.
It does not matter if I will ever write a poem worth reading as long as I still have the privilege of reading a poem worth the writing.
Thank you for sharing your vision of the world with us all.

Sincerely,
Sarala Kron M.D.
Chicago, Illinois

Poetry

Poetry Thursday has assigned two prompts for this week. The first is:
Write a poem to, for, or about a poet.

Part II is:
Write a letter to a poet and then share it with the Poetry Thursday community on Thursday.
Here is my poem although it is does not exactly meet the prompt's criteria.

Ode to Poetry

I majored in French Literature
And read a lot of poems.
I wrote one or two.

Mallarme, Apollinaire,
Rimbaud, Baudelaire,
To name a few.

Mandatory English-speaking poets.
Whitman, Frost,
Shakespeare, Donne.

Then, I lost touch,
Immersed my self in the Cynicism of Science,
And the Misery of Medicine.

Is it midlife or menopause
That now I read,
Reread and write?

New poets have entered my world.
Kooser, Oliver, Gluck.
(Not poetic names).

Someday I'll revisit
My old French companions.
Know any new French poets?

Night and Stars

(Public domain image courtesy of Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:VanGogh-starry_night_ballance1.jpg)

Poetry Thursday challenges me to write a poem from within a famous work of art. I chose Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh because I have a fondness for both the painting and for the author's sad story of madness and possible Bipolar Disorder.

Night and Stars

Walking the lonely hillside,
Approaching warmth and comfort,
Visions of home and hearth
Draw me faster onward.

The night sky calls to me.
Venus sways seductively.
Moonlight beckons and
Stars sing their siren song.

“Join us in our dance,
Loose your earthly bonds.
Harken unto voices
Sighing your name.”

My vision wavers
With milky wavelets.
Thoughts race to join
The manic music.

I long to jump,
To soar and fly
In that endless sky
Of melodic mayhem.

But leaden chains
Of sorrow and despair
Shackle me anew
To pedestrian plodding.

Here is the top of a mosaic table I made in a class some years ago. The colors aren't the truest but I don't have a great set-up for lighting. My cat was investigating.

Poetry Thursday--a new word.

This week’s prompt is to select a random word that is unfamiliar, and define it through a poem. The definition is a made up one; based on one’s own intuition of the word’s meaning. To find a word I opened up the dictionary to two random pages and wrote down the words I didn’t know. I found this way: firkin, fisc, podesta, pogonia, poilu, poincian, poind. The word I chose was pogonia, partly for the sound of it, and partly because, by sheer coincidence it falls in the dictionary right after poetry. Here is my offering.

Poetry in Paradise

The day is hot and humid.
The air hangs heavily over the plaza.
A church bell tolls the noon hour.

Enter the stranger.
Pale skin and freckles mark him as foreign.
As does the phrase book he carries.

He approaches the lone on-looker,
A woman lounging over a cigarette in a café.
He struggles with the language.

“Senorita, donde esta la Playa Santa?”
Lifting a languid hand, she points.
“There. Towards Pogonia.”

Her English is perfect.
Relieved, he thanks her and continues.
Santa Isabel resumes its siesta.


I am traveling to Puerto Rico in two days. This clearly guided my use of Spanish and references to the tropics. The actual definition of pogonia is:
Any of a genus (Pogonia) of terrestrial orchids of the North Temperate Zone. They have terminal solitary flowers with a crested lip.
Definition found in Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Fifth Edition, 1948. I’ve had this dictionary since I was a kid. It has a lot of memories attached to it.

Poetry Thursday--Red

The prompt is red. As I am doing too often of late, I am a day late on this one. I am posting the poem I came up with late last night. Then I am posting one I read this morning (see below).


Anger

Seven Deadly Sins
Pride Greed Lust
Envy Gluttony Anger
Sloth.
Only one is red.
Carnation red. Blood red.
Fire engine red.
Why is Anger red?
What color is Sloth?

One other association I have with the word red is of course of fire. I recently joined the Sierra Club. Having grown up in the western U.S. I have a weakness for environmental causes and what with global warming, I definitely feel the need to do more. Back to the issue at hand. My membership comes with a subscription to Sierra Magazine. The latest issue has an article by Gary Snyder about fire. Here is an excerpt from his poem, "Control Burn."

Fire is an old story.
I would like,
with a sense of helpful order,
with respect for laws
of nature,
to help my land
with a burn, a hot clean
burn.

This is a good, clean, red, poem. Wish I could do as well.

Disordered

A woman knows her every flaw
Each unwanted roll or
Chin, doubled.

Surgeons abound to
Sculpt a nose,
Lift a face or smooth a brow.

Suck the fat away,
Tuck a tummy,
Zap those unwanted veins.

Botox the laugh lines and
Peel the bad complexion.
An industry of self-hatred.

Models too thin to live,
Girls who purge their anger
In lavatories of loathing.

A woman knows her every flaw.
The mirror never lies
To jaundiced eyes.

Poetry Thursday--Changes

This theme seemed to sit well with my recent urban ramblings. So here's a poem.

Changes

Beware the wrecking ball.
That building was someone’s home.
Farewell to lonely aristocrats turned
Crack houses.
Monstrous high rises soar no more.

Urban renewal turning slum
Into pricey town homes.
Lake front views.
False promises by deep-pocketed
Aldermen. Contracts to their buddies.
Low income housing for the few.
Meanwhile empty lots reign.
Urban tumbleweed rolls by.

Thursday Poetry --a mathematical poem

Wye Equals Emex Plus Bee

Why you may ask,
Do we wish to see,
Wye entertaining Emex plus Bee?

Is Emex so beautiful,
Bee so divine,
That Emex plus Bee makes a great Valentine?

Isn’t it better,
Isn’t it fine,
That Wye equals Emex plus Bee is a line?

Why do I love poetry?--Poetry Thursday

It is a good question although the topic feels like a high school writing assignment. First I need to ask myself, do I love poetry? I certainly enjoy it; there are a few poems I love, but poetry is not central to my being. Nonetheless, here I am.
Words are central to my being. The exchange of words is at the heart of my chosen profession, Psychiatry. And I am a reader. I read everything. I have been known to read a cereal box if there is nothing else in front of me. In elementary school, I read my way through recess and on into the next class without noticing. I won the school book contest by sheer number of pages read. I read my way alphabetically through the children’s fiction shelves in the local library.
Besides my primary science major in college, I took a second major in French literature. I read a lot of great poetry for that. In fact, the only poem I ever wrote that won a prize was in French for a departmental poetry contest.
I have some favorite poems. Lately the beginning of Keat’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” has been running through my head. The poem begins with:
Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
One of William Faulkner’s novels introduced me to this poem. I wish I could remember which of his novels it was; I read several, all during one Faulkner phase I had in college. Faulkner repeatedly quoted the poem and referred to it in many of his works. The beginning of this one poem can evoke in me a memory of a time in my life, thoughts of art (aren’t Grecian urns lovely?), pleasure in a poem and a desire to revisit an American author. This is a lot of complexity for a handful of words.
I had a discussion about poetry with my husband recently. My son wrote his first poem for a high school English class. We both were impressed with it. It was a lovely piece of work. However, on reading it, we asked ourselves, how do you know if a poem is good? The rules pertaining to poetry are unclear unless one picks a fixed format such as a sonnet or a Haiku. Even then, the rules do not tell one if the poem is good.
A poem is good if it makes something happen. Faulkner knew this of Keat’s Ode. He entwined it into his prose in such a way that I had to seek out the poem. From that reading on, the prose and poem have become entwined in my mind and the words and feeling return to me when I think of poetry. Not many things in life have that power over me. In my life, perhaps certain smells (Proust knew and took advantage of this) such as fresh bread, sounds—ocean waves and seagulls, and images can do this to me. And so can poetry. I think this after all is why I love poetry.
Here is how “Ode” ends:
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."


Grecian Bowl (no urns available)

Men of Stone

Look West to the men of stone,
He said.
Past the leaning sentinels
And then look farther still.

Your journey shall be long,
And more.
Far beyond the sunset hills
Across the sea of woe.

And once upon the farthest shore,
Trek on.
Farewell to the men of stone
And the stones of men.

Thanks to Poetry Thursday for the prompt and to Pip for a line from her poem "Go Walking"--the line is:
"Look West to the men of stone."

Medication Management--Poetry Thursday

Prozac, Luvox, Symbyax,

Lizzie Borden took an axe
Gave her mother forty whacks.

Ambien, Valium, Geodon,

When she saw what she had done.
Gave her father forty-one.

I have always wondered why psychiatric medicines had such nasty sounding names. All the x's, z's, k's. Most of them don't manage to sound like "happy pills". Somehow it turned into how to write a poem featuring drug names and then trying to rhyme them and Lizzie Borden popped into my head. This is how free association works, I guess. Especially when trying to write poems while driving. I was taught the Lizzie Borden ditty by my mother--Freudian? I never did jump rope to it.
As an historical aside, Lizzie Borden lived from 1860-1927 and was accused of the murder of her father and step-mother. She was acquitted but the murders were never solved. I am not trying to imply that Lizzie Borden was mentally ill or that the mentally ill are axe murderers. I am not totally responsible for my twisted mind, but mine is not responsible for these bizarre medication names.
For more on Lizzie go to Wikipedia.

Two views, same sunset, and a poem

Words cannot do justice
To a nature like this.
Poems do not suffice
To recreate experience.



First Beach, La Push, Washington

Forks, Washington

A Holiday Poem

When there is no prompt at all,
I’ll leap from thought to thought.
I’ll carol with Mr. Carroll,
As any poet ought.

I’ll mimsy with your momrath
Or mime without a meme,
Palaver on an unpaved path,
Drowse without a dream

Freely associate with me today.
Make merry with my melody.
Have a holistic holiday,
And relish your rhapsody.

May your nights be brillig and bright,
As you dance with all you hold dear.
Greet gifts with gimbled delight.
And Noel to a nouveau New Year.

Please don't laugh at me--Thursday Poetry Challenge #2

O.K. I liked the challenge to write a poem about a street because I immediately came up with the perfect street from my life.
This is the first poem I've thrown out in the blogosphere (except for a silly one for an earlier Sunday Scribblings). So laugh silently please.

Tiara

Tiara ought to mean
Lady Di before
Bulimia, Divorce, Death.

Amethyst crystals hidden
Within a geode,
Snow-capped mountains
On a sunny day,
Rime of ice
On partly frozen pond.

Tiara, actually, is:
A quiet street,
Ranch homes,
Dichondra lawns
Pavement burning
On bare toes.

Sprinklers activated daily
With metal key,
Palm trees,
A monkey named Kong,
Honest!
Crushing snails against stone.
They eat the plants.

Daily walks
Prevent heart disease.
Family feasts:
Brisket made with catsup.
Swimming and sewing.
She’s a seamstress.

Tiara,
Crown of memories.

And Now for the Words--Poetry Thursday--A Meme

1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was--I don't remember any first; I know I had a book of poems by Robert Louis Stevenson and one called Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle. Actually Dr. Suess is probably responsible for my earliest poems, of a sort. I am Sam, Sam I am, Do you eat Green Eggs and Ham? Green Eggs and Ham was one of my favorite read aloud books. A modern kids' poet I enjoy is Jack Prelutsky. It is also a great teacher of vocabulary words.

2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and........there were many. The Robert Frost one that goes "The woods are quiet, dark and deep. . ." Two fables by Jean de la Fontaine in French--these I loved and still love; I was also delighted to find out that my Grandfather had memorized the same poems when he was in school and (at the time I learned them) could still recite them. The poem whose author I have forgotten--"Some say the world will end in fire, some in ice. . ." A Shakespeare sonnet ("Shall I compare thee to a rose?"), etc. etc.

3. I read/don't read poetry because....I just bought two poetry books which are the first in ages. My interest was rekindled by some of the blog poets I've run into. An After-Hours Blog wrote in a post about people who write poetry but don't read it. It challenged me to read some and see what I make of some modern poets. I intentionally bought books by two poets I had never read before, avoiding classics I had or would have read in school. I think I usually don't read poetry because I've been continually reading novels, non-fiction works and professional books. I loved reading poems in school when we could study and discuss them together. I would like to go back to reading French poetry. Baudelaire, Apollinaire and Rimbaud come to mind.
4. A poem I'm likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is .......none comes to mind at present.
5. I write/don't write poetry, but..............I wish I did, in a way. I went to a (professional)workshop about creativity in therapy at a recent meeting and they had us write a poem which was my first in ages. I just don't want to write crappy poems.
6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature.....because poems need to be studied. You can gulp down a novel but a poem should be read several times to digest.
7. I find poetry.....stimulating.
8. The last time I heard poetry....I don't think I've ever been to a poetry reading. Does it count if an elementary school teacher reads it aloud?
9. I think poetry is like....clouds. The forms change with the winds and the eyes of the beholder.
One of two poetry books I bought this week: