Poetry Week wrap up on Heartspoken.com

Desert Canvas wraps up Poetry Week

Months ago, Elizabeth H. Cottrell and I started to chat about featuring one of my poems on her Heartspoken blog…then we both got, ya know, busy.

I decided to have a Poetry Week on my blog, and the blocks fell into place.

The Poetry Week wrap-up, Desert Canvas, is on Elizabeth’s Heartspoken blog.

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Are you a small business owner? Learn how to connect, create, and communicate on Elizabeth’s Riverwood Writer blog.

Poetry Week boasts a funny bone, by Karen S. Elliott

Painful Process

Can’t write
I’m blank
Last typed
It stank

Sitting here
Fingers quiet
Cursor blinks
Creative diet

Tapping keyboard
Marking time
Can’t make
Deadline

Fingers stiff
Head full
Imagination
Set to lull

Beers swilled, shots tossed
Slouching now
Completely lost

Laptop
Slammed closed
Deadline missed
I’m hosed

Grab pen
Ink to page
No sense
Growing rage

Rip it up
Start fresh
Stanzas done
Still a mess

Note to self
Bury head
Give it up
Go to bed.

***
Ode

What is an ode?
Just a part of something else.

It’s unearthed in a mother lode,
And buried in a secret code.

Shaped inside a fashion model,
Sung amongst a mountain yodel.

***

Rollercoaster

Topsy-turvy
Stomach rumbles, a little erp
Should have waited on the buttery popcorn.

Topsy-turvy
Mouth opens, roiling burp
Wish I’d passed up that Tex-Mex chili dog, y’all.

Topsy-turvy
My clenching stomach is swilling greasy
Shoulda said no gracias on the empanadas.

Topsy-turvy
Makes me green and sickly queasy
A little nein on the brats and kraut would have been a good idea.

Topsy-turvy
Stop this mechanized lightning bolt
Why didn’t I say no grazie on the porchetta panini?

Topsy-turvy
Screeching wheels jar me to a halt
I couldn’t think of kekkou desu, no thank you, before I ate the sushi.

Topsy-turvy
Let me off, find a bucket
The international buffet is making a come-back.

***

Fishes

I worry about the tasty fishes,
Swimming with the sharks.
I’m sure the sharks look upon those little fishes,
As tasty, miniature, lunch-time dishes.

***

Karen S. Elliott was raised by a mother who wanted to be an English teacher and who worked for Merriam-Webster as a proofreader and an aunt who could complete the Sunday New York Times crossword in a day. Their favorite expression was, “Look it up!” Karen reads punctuation and grammar manuals for fun. Karen is an editor and proofreader, blogger, and writer. Her short stories have been featured in The Rose & Thorn Journal, Every Child is Entitled to Innocence anthology, Valley Living Magazine, BewilderingStories.com, and WritingRaw.com.

Poetry Week welcomes writer Pamela S. Wight

Snow Falls
Pamela S. Wight

Snow falls as silently as stardust on a bright clear night.
Stardust covers the houses and the trees and the ground and you –
if you’re out on a star-filled night.
The sound is a hush.
A hush as haunting and beautiful as a
mother’s lullaby to her newborn babe.
It’s the same sound of snow falling on oak and dale,
on lampposts and driveway, on forest and plain.
But the snowflakes are exposed by their very nature;
they are white and pristine on a background of pewter sky.
The snow shines like elegant moving polka dots
floating with the grace of a thousand ballerinas.
It’s the dance of nature’s beauty,
of the grace of life and death,
of love from the spirit of the universe.
Snow falls silently so we can hear
our own delight at nature’s spectacle.
Snow falls silently so we can accept
our life, and death,
on nature’s terms.

***

Pamela Wight is a published writer and editor.  She fulfills her need to write often and to write well by teaching creative writing classes in Boston as well as the San Francisco Bay area, and has written/edited/published a Zine of short stories and poems.  Belonging to the Women’s National Book Association/SF and the California Writers Club keeps her connected with other writers crazy for their craft. Pamela’s novels include The Right Wrong Man and (soon-to-be-published) Twin Desires, and in progress, Life After Kids and The Inn of No Regrets. Pamela highlights her passion for writing and living in her blog, Roughwighting.

Connect with Pam on Facebook and on Twitter.

Henry

Poetry Week welcomes the enchanting Mairi McCloud

Etymology

The word Valid comes from the Latin,
(As so many words do),
Originally meaning
Be Strong.

I want what I am feeling
To be valid,
But I do not want to
Be Strong.

Love
Is not so simple as
Validity.
It may be Old Germanic
(With a bit of Latin thrown
in too, just for good measure).
It means many things:
Desire,
Pleasure.
But it is also a bedfellow to the word
Leave.

I desire to pour myself
Into another human being.
To fill up all their dark spaces with
Light and understanding.
To feel pleasure in their company
And in the fact that they are near,
And always will be.

But I do not wish to be left alone,
And I do not wish to be strong.

***

I think of you easily

It is such a relief
Not to care anymore
Not to have that painful catch
At the heart, that longing,
Never to be satisfied,
Whenever you are mentioned,
Whenever a picture of you is seen.

I used to dream of kissing you.
Sometimes that was all I could think about,
Your sweet mouth, and your skin
Touching mine.

And yet I feel a little sad
To discard you,
Push you aside like a used
And forgotten toy

I think you would care,
But only as much and no more
Than you always cared.

And that was always the problem.

***

The ghost in my flat

There’s a little girl who waits on the landing
below my flat,
between the second storey and the third.
She likes to look out the window
so much so that she is distracted
most of the time
by what’s happening in the back garden
that she doesn’t see me when I come out
and lock my red door behind me.

But when she does notice me
she stares at me with
large, dark eyes with a serious look
and silently berates me
for taking so long.

She usually stays there, on the landing,
sometimes by the window,
other times peering after me through the
rungs in the banister.

Only once did she follow me,
stepping on my heels
trying to catch up
letting me know
she was there.

***

Crows

when they strut on the ground, look very grand
and stiff and self-important,
like fine gentlemen turned out in their best mourning
at an important funeral.
They don’t look comfortable,
but the do look important.

On the branches of trees they hunch their shoulders,
sharing conspiracies with each other,
rasping out warnings to the neighboring magpies
that shuffle nearby.
They are watchful, careful,
always on guard.

And when they fly their wings are a glistening array
of color: shimmering emerald
and a deep stain of indigo hiding beneath the black.
They curve through the air – graceful –
arrayed in the most beautiful of clothes.

***

Though I was born in Utah, and lived into my twenties there, I have since lived in central New York (think rural: farmhouses, cows and the like) and am now currently living in Glasgow. I have been in Glasgow for about two and a half years, studying archaeology at the University of Glasgow. I find Scotland to be an enchanting place, and have yet to explore all its nooks and crannies. I have loved to write ever since I was a wee girl, and find solace and joy in doing so. I keep a blog, ostensibly for my family to keep track of what I am doing, though I love that friends keep an eye on it as well.

Connect with Mairi in Glasgow.