What are we Doing? a Glosa

Cabeza  based  on PK Page’s poem Planet Earth, itself a Glosa, based on a poem by Neruda

O this great beloved world and all the creatures in it.
the rivers and little streams with their hidden cresses,
the sky overhead night and day
and the stars keep on shining overhead.

***

O this great beloved world and all the creatures in it
how we do mistreat our fragile home
by covering it with concrete, brick and tarmac,
abandoning the sane and healthy farming
of our forbears, planting, raising cattle,
caring for the soil that gives us life
using hands and sturdy horses, toil infinite ,
Replacing living workers with machines -
juggernauts compress the earth beyond safe limits;
earth, the habitat of man and linnet.

Rivers and little streams with hidden cresses,
poisoned with nitrate run-off from the land
collapsing  bankside dwelling  of swallow and vole;
filled gravel bed with the  detritus  of infamy:
beer cans and their lethal plastic packaging,
trivial trash that violates, transgresses
laws of nature designed for our protection.
Lead weights of selfish anglers kill the swans.
Such travesty. This feeble poem expresses
our anger, which may, just may, be what refreshes

our consciences. The sky overhead night and day
provokes reflection on the state of man -
what we have done to cause climatic change,
send thither the sunshine with its pleasant weather,
provoke extremes; wash away soil with floods;
tornados, hurricanes and such betray
our security and that of every creature.
Do we blame the work of God omnipotent?
Who made the universe and all that’s in it?
Greatest mistake of our naiveté,
‘tis ignorance and greed that cause decay.

And the stars will keep on shining overhead
when we learn from all our errors, co-operate
with our environment by using, not abusing;
inspire diversity: in place of monoculture
heal the land with fauna, flexi-grazing,
rotation of the crops and go ahead
by nature’s way.  It will take time and effort
to redress the balance of our silly actions
so that we no longer live in dread
of  devastation,   live simple lives instead.

For dVerse Poets’ Pub:  the prompt  is to write a Glosa poem,  a Spanish form that works as well in the English language as in Spanish.   Glosas open with a quatrain from another poet,  followed by four ten-line stanzas terminating with the lines of the initial passage in consecutive order.  The sixth and ninth lines should rhyme with the borrowed tenth.

Following an online conversation with Sam Peralta, who set the prompt, I have played about with the stanza form, placing the ‘borrowed’ line first,  keeping to a rhyme scheme in lines 1, 6, 9 and 10.  I have mainly written in iambic pentameter, contrary to the usual way of keeping to the style of the cabeza lines.  This poem is very much a first draft.  All suggestions welcome.

Haiku: Tragedy averted

Bomb in local field -
war remains to remind us
of catastrophe.

In the news yesterday:  a dramatic account of the discovery of a WWII bomb in a field near where we used to live.  All roads closed, school evacuated to another village, elderly folk royally entertained in a Salle de Fêtes, and the brave bomb disposal unit wasted no time in disarming the first of two detonators.  The second was more tricky, as the bomb was lying on it.  Nervous sweat and courageous muscle managed to turn the weapon and disarm the second, made of “culot”a metal, but which normally translates as cheek or  chutzpah!  A huge ‘ouf de soulagement’  (sigh of relief) as the harmless remains are trundled away on a tractor to a waiting lorry.  After 7 hours the roads were re-opened and the inhabitants brought home.

For the love of worms

by Poseidon AKA Earth Shaker

I want to tell you about my friend and rival -
Earth Maker, ie worms.

It’s Be Kind to Worms Year
to stop the earth being spoiled
by large swathes of monoculture,
heavy machinery ploughing deep,
too much building  covering the earth
compacting the dirt, impacting
the habitat of good bacteria
and worms
who exist to keep our soil
fertile and aereated for food.

I could go on at length,
but you get the idea:
BE KIND TO WORMS
long worms, wriggly worms
worms that go squish if you squeeze them,
but don’t make two new worms if you do.
I heart  lumbricus terrestris.

Photograph:Earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris).kids.britannica.com

If you want to know more about the damage we are doing to our soil, there is a very interesting article called Living Soil in Resurgence Magazine. This prose poem is number 6 in the Poseidon sequence, written for prompt 158 about slogans at We Write Poems

new page of pictures up

here

Epithalamium

for Poetic Bloomings - an epithalamium is a poem to or about a bride and groom.

A bride is always beautiful,
the groom a nervous cliché.
and maybe a trace hung-over.
But it is fair to say
that this pair is perfection -
never a pushover wife
nor heavy-handed husband
just a contented team for life.

Betrayal

A couple of grouchy senryu for Haiku Heights

My body betrays
my desire to write poetry -
my purpose in life.

*

Hospitals are no
place to rest and recover:
too much kerfuffle.

Parliament of the sea creatures

 Image:  appliqué and embroidery quilt by ViV

‘Hear ye, hear ye,’
the trumpet fish waved his long snout
’The Boss is anxious to sort things out.
He’s calling a meeting of all you chaps
to right a few wrongs, so perhaps
you would kindly make your way
to the reef at eighteen degrees South
by one four eight East
on Sunday week at half past four. ’

At the appointed hour Poseidon thumps his trident.

You should have seen the throng:
of whales and sharks and lion fish
with cod and hake and herring;
anemones and sea slugs
sea cucumbers and angel fish,
coral, fighting shy of parrot fish -
it should have been a disaster
but I quelled them with one Godly look.

We’re here to talk, not nibble
you can quibble later. I’m having my say
and what I say goes.
We need to keep a balance
of species and varieties,
so you must control your appetites.
Give and be given, live and let live.
It’s those blasted humans
who’re spoiling the ocean for us -
whose greed and careless waste
cause  pain, pollution and worse.
That’s what we’re here to discuss.

Mutter mutter, argy bargy,
piffle, waffle and baloney -
after hours of fruitless discussion,
the God’s expression stony,
he came to a momentous decision.
What I propose is to intervene
with the Gods of storms and weather,
but most of all with the human race
to work together,
clean up our act,
save us all this bother.

‘Twas soon agreed by one and all
that it was worth a try:
the case was taken to Zeus, my brother,
and won – unique in unanimity.

 Great Barrier Reef image from Reef Education Network

Researchers say it is important to have large areas of oceans protected from human impacts, not only to preserve fish stocks and protect vulnerable marine species – but also as an undisturbed baseline for understanding the changes that human population pressures and climate change are bringing to the oceans as a whole.

Another of my Poseidon adventures, for We Write Poems, and also, for dVerse Poets Open Link Night.

Sorry no post yesterday

0230am,Tuesday – just got back from hospital with a mouthful of wadding  and a bag of ice (too many anti-coagulents, like happened before) and may have to go back tomorrow morning.    There will be a post tomorrow anyway, because I scheduled one.
I haven’t read and commented much either.   A bientôt.

Coitus Interruptus

Sorry folks, this one’s a bit dark – blame the wordle words!

The lover’s touch hovers,
tender, awaiting the next breath
to break the nebulous tension
between them.

A blazing torch disturbs desire,
crushes embryo emotion
with blundering intrusion.
Bad timing brings tragedy.

The lover’s vision opaque,
he sees a bleak future,
prophetic of his end on a funerary slab.

A vicious crime against poetry

Poetic Bloomings prompt 108, is to write a really bad poem.  Here are the instructions.

I prefer to write the best I’m capable of But
if I wanted to write a bad
poem I’d end all the lines with
weak words and/or meaningless conjunctions
I’d try to make the rhythm lumpy
count syllables instead of stresses.
with too much or too little alliteration
assonance and consonance would need to
be avoided like the twee cliché  plague.
I’d have no respect for rhyme.
lots of tautology abundant
punctuation missing or misguided
would exacerbate the felony
I’d fill the thing with adverbs
long words and
misuse the blank blank apostrophe
End of

Fizz to Physiognomy

Kelvin at dVerse poetics  having had  a most unpleasant reaction to a self-portrait because of his Asian appearance, asks us to consider the Asian experience.
As a recent visitor to an International Festival said: ‘To be among thousands of people from all five continents happily studying, meditating, living and working together in perfect harmony, and not see an unhappy face or hear an angry voice all week is to see what world peace would be like.’ image  and quote from http://kadampafestivals.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/intl-festivals-2.jpg

I am not European or African, American or Asian.
I am a member of the human race,
conscious of the differences that make life interesting,
aware of our togetherness
behind the façade we present to the world
which defines us
in a way divides us
while we breathe the same air,
have the same concerns,
live, love and die the same.
Beauty and ugliness and everything in between
subjective, depending on your starting point.

A loopy, honey of a prompt

from Carole Carlisle’s Light Words , her picture just happened to fit with a Wordle-type prompt at Trifecta  asking for exactly 33 words, 30 of our own and three of the following:  topple     paradigm     underneath     nerve     honey     loop.  I couldn’t resist the combination!  And I used all six words.

A loopy, honey of a prompt

A patchworker in paradise
stands underneath a paradigm
of projects, about to topple on her.
Those curved seams,
three-dimensional cacti,
fancy trees and flowers -
does she have the nerve
for this colourful scene?

I’ve been missing from Trifecta for a while, as my Poseidon project has almost taken over my life.  My apologies to all Trifectans.

Six word Saturday

Slices of coloured strips to sew 

I have embarked on another mammoth project – a Bargello wall hanging in golds and greys. Having played about until I had decided on the order of the fabrics, long strips are cut and arranged carefully (!) so that I don’t muddle them during the rest of the process.  An old swiffer handle on the back of the keyboard trestles comes in handy for this stage.  I play with this until a harmonious arrangement is found.  They are all stitched together into one piece of material,  carefully keeping them in order, and pressing all the seams one way.  

The starting point

The piece of fabric  thus produced is sewn into a tube       
to be cut into loops of strips  of different widths – no wonder Jock thinks patchworkers are mad - so  the next step is maths, working out how many of each width  to cut.

Lines are drawn on a piece of cotton batting so that I know where to start. From then on it is a question of opening the tube in the right place – each one is different - and with heart in mouth the first strip is placed on it,face up and the second face down on top of it and stitched.

My loops of strips are all cut and today starts the adventure of putting it together, stitch and flip, press, stitch and flip, press, and so on ad infinitum.  I have done Bargello quilts before, but nothing on this scale.  As Jock often says:  ”That’ll keep you off the streets and out of mischief.”

Find out what others are doing today at Cate’s place

Friday Frivolity

Come what may
I will  make hay
while the rare sun is shining -
Hang the washing on the line
then go for a walk, combining
work and pleasure with a will
so long as the sun is shining still
but at the sound of distant thunder,
I run for home as fast as I can
regretting my stupid blunder.
I really can’t face
sheets a-hanging
round the place.

What with researching Greek Gods and tackling the near-impossible : metaphor in a prompt from Margo, I felt like a bit of nonsense in response to Keith’s prompt – in fact this is a truthful account of my day, and it is now teeming so hard I can’t see the hill across the valley.  Fortunately, the laundry was pretty well dry.

I Try to Meet the Bar

 

Velleity  means volition -
in its lowest form mere inclination
Now I understand that,
I will attempt an explanation
of the will that makes me write
of this, that, or the other
in my own voice
as the fancy takes me.

What comes into my head
is volition,
but the path from idea
to finished poem
takes many turns
around obstacles
up hills, with false starts,
abandoned attempts .

All this requires effort,
physical and mental,
cranking up the imagination,
dredging up  existing knowledge
researching the unknown
and trying to say it my way.

Anna Graham at dVerse Poets  gave us a prompt, volition or velleity which, frankly, I couldn’t make head or tail of, so for once I read the earlier contributions to find out what it was all about.  Fingers crossed that this attempt is what is wanted!