A Fall (Shadorma) – September 10, 2016

Today on Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie – “B&P Shadorma & Beyond” offered to us by Candy – we read a delightful poem by Lisel Mueller who born in Nazi Germany was forced to  immigrate to the Mid West, United States with her family in 1942 when she was 15.  In 1997 she won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

Here a one of Lisel’s wonderful poems:

Things

What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock as face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language

and because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long slender neck.

Even what was beyond us
was recast in our image,
we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye.
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety.

© Lisel Mueller

our Candy wrote a Shadorma inspired by this poem and asks us to do the same:

you are my
stella lucida
shining when
darkness comes
illuminating corners
where nightmares can hide

© cgk 2016

(Here is my attempt …)

A Fall 

just falling
off my path’s shoulder
I tumbled
into a funk
then this topsy turvy world
seemed reality

like Alice
all logical thought
suspended
I wondered
when my fall would ever end
and still I tumbled

(free falling
vanquishes breaking
not crashing
– gravity
guarantees a brusque return
to reality)

stark naked –
reality’s blush
seemed modest
to the fool
at the heart of fashion news –
copy cats just purr

© Gsk ‘16

A Single Dandelion – Free Verse (Wordeling) – June 30, 2015

 

a single dandelion
stood in that empty spot
next to an ancient
wooden spool
swaying

NaPoWriMo: Day 14 – Late – April 15, 2016

in the morning of time
the child arose smiling
birds sang in the trees

walking down the path
as each new spring day begins
the perfume is sweet

these silver dew drops
twinkle under the new sun
life’s precious gems

why rock the old cradle
certainly no child lies here
except in memory

listen to these notes:
they are the keys of my soul
or so you tell me
although written long ago
for a moon long forgotten

© G.s.k. ‘16

 

1sojournal – NaPoWriMo: Day 14 – Words: child, walk, silver, cradle, keys, moon

I didn’t write on my blog at all yesterday and so this is a day late.

A to Z Challenge – The letter M – April 15, 2016

A monumental moment
Means meeting mice and men
Whilst mincing in the market place
Maybe marvelling at melons
Mellowly matured …
March marching with the March-hare’s
Marvellous maiden aunt
Maevous Mabel
Like a marionette from a matrix.
Ah yes,
Monumental moments
Monstrously magnetic moments
Like Mao’s March in China
Mages going to Memphis
Mork meeting Mindy and more,
Mommy making muffins …
My my … to marvel is more that meets the eye
Meet me inside the mirror
I’ll be a mysterious mummer
or maybe merry Marc’harit
You be the mystic monk
or maybe Merlin’s Mordred …
Moving through the mirror
We’ll avoid mediocrity
Perhaps making our own monumental moment
a million miles from morning.

© G.s.k. ‘16

Monumental Moments

Mid-way through the #atozchallenge!

NaPoWriMo – Choka – April 13, 2016

a silent minstrel
sat at dawn his fingers limp
(the blue sky streaked red)
reminding him of lost friends
a song dangled there
(just out of reach but so near)
he touched the taut strings
and struck a sweet cord
then, heard a sistrum jangle
the music began
flowing like a spring river

he sang of karma
he sang of resurrection
of life – birth and death
and of red dawns and sunsets
o’er the mountains and the sea.

© G.s.k. ‘16

“The choka (長歌 long poem) was the epic, story telling form of Japanese poetry from the 1st to the 13th century, known as the  Waka period. Most often the Japanese poet would write epics in classical Chinese. Still, the occasional poet with a story to tell would tackle the choka, the earliest of which can be traced back to the 1st century. It describes a battle and is 149 lines long.

Originally choka were sung, but not in the Western sense of being sung. The oral tradition of the choka was to recite the words in a high pitch.

The choka is:

• a narrative.
• syllabic. Composed of any number of couplets made up of alternating 5-7 onji (sound syllables) per line. In English we can only treat the onji as a syllable.
• unrhymed.
• concluded by a hanka, an envoy in the form of the waka, 31 onji or sound syllables in 5 lines with 5-7-5-7-7. “han” meaning repetition, the hanka is to summarize the choka. The word tanka is often substituted for hanka or waka (they are all rooted in the same 31 syllable, 5 line form, their root seems to make them interchangeable with only subtle differences to separate them.)
• Another way to write a choka  is to write several katauta (5-7-7 syllable stanzas).
• The poem can be as long as you like and in classical times there have been choka with hundreds of lines.

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Written for NaPoWriMo inspired by the mandala and words found on 1sojounal NaPoWriMo: Day 13:

minstrel, dawn, strings, blue, flow, fingers, jangle, dangle

A to Z Challenge – The Letter G – April 8, 2016

Photo Credits: Frugal Café Blog Zone

On the groaning agrestic table
Gastronomic goodness abounded
Gracefully arrayed.
Greengrocer’s plants galore,
All gloriously arranged beginning with
Giant grapes and plump gooseberries
Grapefruits, guavas and galia melons glistening.
Granulated sugar
Blended with eggs, milk and
Fresh ground grain flour
Were agreeably transformed into
Griddlecakes!
(Graced with golden syrup
And fresh ground ginger root)
Guiltily in their gluttony
Gourmets tipple with grappa and dry gin
Whilst gusseted gypsy queens
Girlishly gobble green tea gelato!
Glorious yes quite glorious
Was the cold gazpacho
It temped both great and small!
And the vision grew with more marvels still …
Until in the grey morning was heard:
“Great gads!”
(It was Gregory who  groaned grievously
As he glanced upon all the goodness.)
“Give me the gift of a gourmand’s gut
So that I might taste it all.”

© G.s.k. ‘16

Tackling the Challenge with Gusto!

A to Z Challenge – The Letter F – April 7, 2016

PHOTO: REUTERS

Fending freely
In fields and forests
Foraging for food
From trees and vines:
Fungi, flowers and fruits
Maybe field mice
Or frogs and fish.
Feasting at times
At others,
Frankly frugal repasts!
Formidably
Our forefathers
Fended for millennium thus!
Following food with the seasons
Frightened sometimes freezing.
Finally,
First feeble weapons were fashioned
Then fire was fabricated
Finally farms were founded
Furnishing families with food
In abundance!
But fatally
Fortifications, fratricide and fallacious fantasies
Of supposed superiority
Followed forthwith;
Filthying men’s minds,
Undermining faithful friendships,
Fomenting frustration and felons.
Fine, fine fare thee well!

© G.s.k. ‘16

Blogging A to Z – F

A to Z The letter “C” – April 4, 2016

Candy Caraway
Created a commotion
Crooning “Copacabana” as she
Careened ’round Carruthers’ Cafe,
Costumed in a cream coloured cambric costume!
“Uncannily cautious,
Curiously coy!”
Critics commented caustically:
“Cream cambric clashes colossally
with classic calypso castanets!”
Conga, calypso and Caribbean dance coaches
Clavered, clamoured and finally clambered
Cleaving consistently to clothe’s codes
centring on colorfully creole colours…
Candy Caraway,
Chuffed, cutely chirruped:
“Caramba! My cheesy chemise and costume
changes … crimson cream
creates a colourful costume
complimenting Caribbean Calypso –
critics – clamour no more!”

© G.s.k. ‘16

 

C is for Creation

Awaken to Live – A to Z Challenge (Cleave Poem – NaPoWriMo) – April 1, 2016

Awaken now my love let hope into your heart
See, the sun is shining, no longer lament your sort
Feel the warmth of spring, winter’s time is passing
Hear the black-bird sing – forget the howling winds
No longer grope in slumber, for a new dawn is born
Awaken now to life – rejoice my love, rejoice!

© G.s.k. ‘16

NaPoWriMo

Burning Advice – Shadorma – March 17, 2016

“Cooling waves”
pontificated
bright-eyed Sue
“won’t prevent
Dave getting frightfully burnt
just watch and you’ll see.”

And of course
she was just too right!
A lobster
was paler
than young Dave’s skin that evening
and far less in pain!

He’s happy
although a bit crisp.
He did say
he hates Sue’s
haunty know-it-all advice
and would druther burn.

© G.s.k. ‘16

 

Shadorma (3 – 5 – 3 – 3 – 7 – 5)

(5) Words: | WAVE | COOL| PREVENT | BRIGHT | WATCH |

Weekly Writing Prompt #28 Week 14th March 2016