1. Lawn Cutting
2. A Clock Watch
3. Wildlife Map
4. De Rewilding
5. Polishing Me
6. Inhale Dappled Sun
7. I Make A Cuppa
8. To Encourage
9. The Hedgehog
Uncategorized
A Poetry Showcase for Michael Lee Johnson
Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL.He has 272 YouTube poetry videos.Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 44 countries, has several published poetry books, has been nominated for 5 Pushcart Prize awards, and 6 Best of the Net nominations.He is editor-in-chief of 3 poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 443 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups.Member Illinois State Poetry Society:http://www.illinoispoets.org/.
My Life
My life began with a skeleton with a smile and bubbling eyes in my garden of dandelions. Everything else fell off the edge, a jigsaw puzzle piece cut in half. When young, I pressed against my mother’s breast, but youthful memories fell short. I tried at 8 to kiss my…
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“Created Responses To This Day” Jane Dougherty responds to Day 344 of my This Day images. I would love to feature your responses too.
Tree-stone
In the tree slowly turning
to stone a face looks out
man bear dog
with an expression
of great sadness
the sight of this world
slowly turning
from green and growing
to the stone
of closed hearts and motorways
the last light in brown eyes
slowly turning.
#TheWombwellRainbow #PoeticFormsChallenge. It is weekly. Week Twenty-two is a Welsh form a #Toddaid. I will post the challenge to create a first draft of a poetic form by the following late Sunday. Please email your first draft to me, including an updated short, third person bio and a short prose piece about the challenges you faced and how you overcame them. Except when I’m working at the supermarket I am always ready to help those that get stuck. I will blog my progress throughout the week. Hopefully it may help the stumped. Also below please find links to helpful websites.
The toddaid is a Welsh poetic form of quatrains (or four-line stanzas).
Guidelines:
Comprised of quatrains (or four-line stanzas).
Lines one and three have 10 syllables; lines two and four have nine syllables.
Lines two and four end rhyme.
A syllable near the end of line one rhymes with a syllable in the middle of line two.
A syllable near the end of line three rhymes with a syllable in the middle of line four.
Note on length: Toddaid can be one stanza or multiple stanzas.
Thankyou to Writers Digest for the above information.
Helpful Links
https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/toddaid-poetic-forms
https://www.angelfire.com/art/formsofpoetry/agamemmnon’s.sanctuary.irishforms.toddaid.html
Burning skies
A poetic response to Paul Brookes’ ‘This day’ photograph. You can see the image on Paul’s blog here.
Burning skies
How many fires in the sky
before the snakes and strings
of cultured gemstone-light
sink into the ocean of dark night?
Moon-sun perhaps
will wash them away
and when daylight rises again
there may still be eyes
wild and wide
to marvel at its pearl-soft purity.
Poetry inspired by Jack Kerouac and Joni Mitchell from Elizabeth Cusack
Jack They’re clamoring for Buddhists At the end of this sitcom Sometimes their hearts shake When nothing’s happening at all Like the gibberish they’re speaking Wondering what it means These underworld muses of Bedlam Who would like a drink Along with the monks On a Sunday afternoon After a brawl At a picture hall With mirrors breaking And stories they’re faking And IDs are required They find them eventually Then take off in a bus And strip off on a platform Separating the men from the dogs I’m setting love free Do not torture me Hate me But all love is blinded Whoever said otherwise Was laughing or lying Love always returns In a new disguise Like engines of blood Whenever it’s smiling But love will not work It returns later To pick up the dead With heads in the oven In need of more licks Should love be leaving?…
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Day 4: I Make a Cuppa
This sonnet is now in my forthcoming signed, limited edition collection “These Random Acts Of Wildness”, Glass Head Press, 2023. Thankyou Sarah.
Some say it is better with a warmed pot,
or with tea leaves through a strainer held
over a bone China cup. A specialist shop
had a bud float in my clear cup unfurled
before my eyes. Expensive and rare sight.
Indulgent, like days of Imperial
splendour when women tea harvester’s plight
long hours, low pay, working was very real.
My dad national service merchantman
mariner kept his life in the loft stored
in old tea chests, plywood box, steel battaned
edges. Brought home carved elephants for the sideboard.
We collect the wild as ornamental.
Domesticate, put on a pedestal.
Thank you to Paul Brookes for this lovely poem. I’m running on tea at the moment, and I love the way this sonnet captures the homeliness and exoticism of tea.
“Created Responses To This Day” Jane Dougherty responds Day 341 of my This Day images. I would love to feature your responses too.
Burning skies
How many fires in the sky
before the snakes and strings
of cultured gemstone-light
sink into the ocean of dark night?
Moon-sun perhaps
will wash them away
and when daylight rises again
there may still be eyes
wild and wide
to marvel at its pearl-soft purity.
by Jane Dougherty
What The Trumpet Taught Me by Kim Moore (Smith Doorstop)
Kim Moore’s riveting chronological account of practising the trumpet and becoming a trumpeter delves from her childhood into adulthood, exploring the emotional as well as the practical implications of starting to learn how to play an instrument at a young age and pursuing it throughout life. She practises every day for hours, takes part in concerts, becomes a conductor of brass bands and a brass teacher in primary schools. The short pieces in the collection entertain the reader with funny and serious anecdotes, surprising events, insightful comments and information about what it means to play the cornet and the trumpet. Personal reactions to the significance and impact of music in general and her close relationship with the cornet at first and then the trumpet are investigated too. In her writing Moore also shows a professional knowledge of the instruments which has been developed over many years of practising, reading books…
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Religion – A Poem w/voice by Tom Lagasse. Art by Josie Vie.
Religion
The
United
States
says
it
loves
Jesus
As
it
bombs
the
Middle
East.
Iran
says
it
loves
Allah
As
it
bombs
Iraq.
Iraq
says
it
loves
Allah
As
it
bombs
Iran.
India
says
it
loves
Krishna
As
it
bombs
Pakistan.
Pakistan
says
it
loves
Allah
As
it
bombs
India
What
a
shared
love
For
the
religion
of
bombs.
Tom Lagasse reads:
Tom Lagasse’s poetry has appeared in Poetically Magazine, The Feminine Collective, Black Bough’s Poetry Freedom & Rapture and Dark Confessions; Faith, Hope, and Fiction; Silver Birch Press Prime Movers Series, Freshwater Literary Review, Word Mill Magazine, The Monterey Poetry Review, a half dozen anthologies and more. He lives in Bristol, CT. Twitter: @tomlagasse. Facebook: www.facebook.com/tjlagasse, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tom_lagasse
Art: Montreal Rainbow (For Leonard Cohen), an image by Josie Vie (c) 2022. Josie Vie is just a soul passing through. She resides in Quebec, Canada.
The Wombwell Rainbow 