*Magnify*
    March     ►
SMTWTFS
     
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Archive RSS
SPONSORED LINKS
Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/757065-Green-Peas-at-Stake/sort_by/entry_order DESC, entry_creation_time DESC/page/4
by Joy
Rated: 13+ · Book · Personal · #757065
A poetry journal of everyday clippings
Free Photo


"The astonished muse finds thousands at her side." *Laugh**Laugh*
R. W. Emerson

I made this poetry journal because I like to play with words and lines and I wanted to put somewhere some of my practice work (or first draft) in verse, written--within a very short time, probably daily on the spur of the moment, with the idea to work on the entries later--with or without the help of the astonished (should I say shocked?) muse. *Laugh**Laugh*


Some of the haiku I have mixed with senryu, not only because I am not a purist, but also because I like to do what I like to do given what I feel at the moment.

Previous ... 1 2 3 -4- 5 6 7 ... Next
April 16, 2008 at 2:59pm
April 16, 2008 at 2:59pm
#579761
This Dark Thing

                   "I am terrified by this dark thing"
                                       Sylvia Plath


Dark weaves its web
at the center of the earth,
celebrating a black light
of a certain glow, not so kind,
changing plain stones to stars
--all mystery and splendor--
then to black holes, like a fierce ascetic
sending vibes, drilling holes in
your life to turn all your words
into shrieks, for you lived
worshiping shadows with
future diminishing and
a steel wind in a haste;
still unfinished,
you hold up a lamp with
the flame of your oracle eyes.

April 14, 2008 at 12:07pm
April 14, 2008 at 12:07pm
#579340
Missing

What is it I am searching
for who-knows-what confused reason
and cannot find?
Hitchhiking on poetry's freeway
without missing a beat in doodle time,
I've seen houses on wheels, but
I cannot turn my knotted wood
into planks for my stationary hut.
Does some other material exist?
So I search for more.
Maybe I know the answer, but it
eludes me and no one can tell me it,
because the question is mine.
What is it that is missing
like a door from a wall
or a sock from the pair?

April 13, 2008 at 4:51pm
April 13, 2008 at 4:51pm
#579182
Selling Knives

                   to whom it may concern

I don't mean to change the subject
from your fun activities like hunting deer or
candidates or Italian villa rentals to
dramatic dismay, and I know it hurts too much
to talk about the war, homelessness,
dead children, where we are headed,
bloodletting, and suffering.
Instead, I pick on the knife industry
that advertises its wares with words like,
"Lifetime supply of incredibly sharp edges."
I pick on the phrase lifetime supply,
I pick on the sharpness virus,
the cutting, the preemptive anything,
the rubble we lost ourselves in,
while not letting seeds regenerate under
the ground to feed the entire planet.
I pick on this one ad, because trifles
veil reality; trifles console me.



April 12, 2008 at 11:38pm
April 12, 2008 at 11:38pm
#579079
Beggar Girl

People change their paths
to avoid you as if granting you
a favor, making you recall the blood
inside your worn-out shoes
and the purple veins creep up
your forehead. Your footpads
like tropical fruit -akin to papaya, mango-
were not made for panhandling
in Port Authority.
Still, you wade through
the passengers with your own pliant style,
and purring, prowling, prancing, adrift
on tiptoe, you bend your voice to
this cranky climate.
I watch you bounce about like
a child playing with flashes of sunlight,
and I question myself with a tone
I do not recognize. Then,
as you whisper some meaningless words,
I slip a dollar in your hand,
only because my ego needs
the grace of your smile.



April 11, 2008 at 4:07pm
April 11, 2008 at 4:07pm
#578887
At Lunch

When we enter the cave of
Duffy's Sport Grill,
waitresses in green confess
their powers of devotion,
commissioned to our orders,
as the din of thousand TV
screens meddle with our
conversation. This deal--
supposedly business--will
take a strange zigzag, for
with mirth and abandon,
beer flows, the holy water
of whooping laughter.
In the opposite booth, the woman
with the navy paisley shirt
and moxie pinches sugar packets
like hunted Easter eggs
into her bag. Our looks cross;
she smiles, so self-assured
her gray eyes that I feel like
offering her my job.


April 10, 2008 at 3:53pm
April 10, 2008 at 3:53pm
#578709
Emulation haibun

I still don't know all the answers this late, and it is April once more. The earth heaves with life. White ibises, imitating catwalk models, stroll on their thin stilts, to feed on languid salamanders.

Circling round and round,
cannot come up dry for lunch
tall birds poised, intent.

Returning from the grocery store, I wave at my elderly neighbor outside, who stands still with the newspaper in his hand. He stares at the bushes, fascinated. Something in his stare makes me shudder. I walk up to him.

Brain, the dimming bulb,
threading on a string of years,
refuses amends.

Gesturing toward the bird, my neighbor whispers: "Hush! My wife is out to get them. Smart lizards are in hiding." His wife died last year.
I withdraw, walking backwards into the house, to hide from the dread of my own years lying in wait.

Hello and good-bye.
Can you leave anything here?
Just sweep up the dust.
April 9, 2008 at 12:01pm
April 9, 2008 at 12:01pm
#578482
In the Clouds

I'll be a cloud diviner
like the aloof man from China
I once met at the foot
of the Golden Gate Bridge.
He sat on a rock, facing
the clouds at dusk with
reverence, "For mortality; yet,
for immortality," he said.

But, I'll be a seer unlike him.
Unlike him, I'll breathe fire,
I'll fatten up the clouds to
slide on for dancing the tango,
my tango nuevo, for kicking the air
with my shapely legs, and I'll
wear my red bolero and red
stilettos with ankle straps;
then I'll take my brushes up
to paint the clouds in dazzling colors.

Next, the show-off that I am,
with my ceremonial hands,
I'll put bee-hives in my clouds
for the bees to pollinate life
again, for I'll plant flowers on
all continents that no one can
trample. But first, I'll ask
the clouds this, about me.
This yearning for another realm,
will it ever go away?




April 8, 2008 at 11:46am
April 8, 2008 at 11:46am
#578291
Pettiness

I am sabotaged by memory.
An internal tantrum
is about to descend
to cut big in shark bites.
To reciprocate the betrayal,
I breathe in, breathe out,
in deep, long mantra-puffs,
and my recall returns like
the ivory inlay on a box
after a good scrub.
What if I find
what I tried to remember
is of no consequence!





April 7, 2008 at 9:51am
April 7, 2008 at 9:51am
#578048
What is not said…

Auntie Em, at eighty-two, with damp
white hair and pale face, talks of
her life in ceaseless thirst: the bliss
of her childhood when she rode
in the rumble seat of Model A Ford;
the hands of a pianist, her first
love; how she fell into marriage like
a meek doppelganger with icy eyes;
how she gathered sea shells and
kelp from the sea foam on sand
on her wedding day; the child that
never was; her immigrant neighbor’s
swearing like an anarchist in rage;
her husband’s ashes in the urn
one day she’ll throw in the sea
as she promised him, just not yet.

Auntie Em talks of the town council,
Orchard Drive’s traffic, old fashions,
pinwheels, her barmaid sister-in-law,
her cane, bean soup and prophecies,
crabapple trees, caraway seeds,
pineapple upside-down cakes, tarts,
éclairs, weather vanes, night sweats,
rheumatoid arthritis, backaches, but
she never talks of the cancer,
gnawing her within, gruesome, aslant,
and in between her voice
and my nodding, what is not said
encrypts itself into how similar we are,
in holding back our shivering
inside word clouds, as if
paying homage to life.


April 6, 2008 at 7:25pm
April 6, 2008 at 7:25pm
#577952
Hmmmm…

What was it like
when I saw the first light…
the first light coming in from
the afternoon sun on faces,
smiles, tears, beds, chairs, sky,
cats, cigarettes, puddles,
my own hands and toes,
a crack on the wall,
an ant hanging on to the curtain
that boogied with the wind?

Then, when the hush of the evening
dropped in, did I think
the darkness blew away
the sights and the sounds?
Was it then when I fell in love
with words and fiction
people uttered, ignoring
what I could hear?

After all the years, after
my majestic performance
when I take a bow and
the real darkness tumbles down,
will it be the words
I’ll miss the most,
all because I was never
too fond of reason?


April 5, 2008 at 4:45pm
April 5, 2008 at 4:45pm
#577760
Watch Where You’re Going

“Watch where you’re going!”
Don’t spill the brew
with a dark espresso gurgle,
swirling like a black hole.

How quickly we forgot the warning!

We darted, climbed,
plunged, as years whirled--
the same, anew--into
caffeine-filled avenues,
and we despaired
the same oracular S.O.S.
“Watch where you’re going!”
on slippery roads
in solitary nights with
stinging thorns.


Two little girls in
dark rooms, we bounced
on coiled mattresses
like coffee jiggling in a cup.
“Watch where you are going!”
Who’d know someday
we’d run into doors
we could not open?
April 4, 2008 at 10:30am
April 4, 2008 at 10:30am
#577532
Soft Soap

Soft Soap with soothing
Aloe Vera, the strip club
of genuine dirt.

I dig up my grime from
the ditches of memorabilia
while rummaging the junk
drawer when I handle
trinkets of no value from
my once-upon-a-time wars.

So I lather and rinse, vowing
to keep my sticky hands
off that rough stuff.


--------------------------------

*Lady Macbeth comes to mind.* *Laugh*


April 3, 2008 at 3:19pm
April 3, 2008 at 3:19pm
#577392
Morning Stroll

My lungs wave the red
flag. I stop and wheeze
near an Areca palm and
inside gray matter’s cavern,
as I replenish the recall
of walking distance and glance
at passers-by with faces like
vigil candles burning
long and slow;
then the sudden rain
etches on the momentary wind
your name.
April 2, 2008 at 6:06pm
April 2, 2008 at 6:06pm
#577228
Bugs

Sometimes the bugs are too loud,
fantasizing your swat
in their twisted minds and torsos,
as if an acknowledgment.
Maybe they need you to applause
and call out their name, shrieking in
high c’s in your maniacal style.
The lowdown is their torn up endings you
cannot help, as they wait for the campfire
to cook their wings or for their life to coil
around your fingers while your skin,
bitten blue inside your bedroll, smells
of their innards, because like a special treat,
either you or they have to exit the premises.

April 2, 2008 at 6:03pm
April 2, 2008 at 6:03pm
#577226
Graffiti Writers

Outside the window, the graffiti slows,
as the train pulls up to the platform.
The loudspeaker grants a parasitic explanation
of in and out destinations, and your work boasts
fattened, multihued letters like fresh croissants
and the crafty hands that baked them.
Such quizzical shifts in our styles...
but still in the same leisurely way, you throw
yours on the streets like discarded postcards;
I write my graffiti inside spiral notebooks with
crazy-legged letters, dressed in suits,
and we both lack that cutting edge voice
of the big man on the mic who sings his
tender words in tough-in-your-face format,
vividly presenting our extinction.
November 7, 2007 at 3:20pm
November 7, 2007 at 3:20pm
#547519
For miles we followed
the big old truck on Route 66
with a cargo that hinted at tears.

Once towering and beneficent
the mighty had fallen
pinned to the barrenness
of mercy without
the tangle of boughs
and empty bird’s nests.

Still mighty those
true knight-errants
who once touched the clouds
with their powerful heads
glowing brightly under the sun,
but naked now;
creatures with no limbs
those large tree trunks
thrust on a flat-bed and chained
like common criminals.

They say, “Big trees
grow back too; they
just take longer,”
but who can say
we’ll be able to unload
the cargo we carry?




November 1, 2007 at 11:27pm
November 1, 2007 at 11:27pm
#546090
Well beyond being
spring chickens,
my friend and I
reinvent ourselves
in a Chinese Restaurant,
opening up secrets,
as we talk of
torn away, defamed loves.
I fear the grey plate,
and united like sisters
playing the fool,
the chopsticks
are out to get me.
Then, the fortune cookie
clenched in my hand
crumbles like an obscene gesture.
“Make someone else happy.”
The words shake like dice,
as I pause to sip diet Coke,
mulling over the speech
of our food.


October 19, 2007 at 4:04pm
October 19, 2007 at 4:04pm
#542890
I.

All those I loved didn't really exist,
for their existence
was only a hope
like the ghost of a cloud
that didn't rain
but scattered to evaporate.
Such love no one ever witnessed
with a love poem
and a song
that weren't there.

II.

When the wheel of fate
disperses its colors into the black-hole night,
all my roads lead to your ocean
whoever I love, he becomes you,
and I call him with your name
for I was made for impossible loves
for I neither learned how to embrace you nor to forget you.
for I am stuck at the spot where the sun sets.

III.

Autumn, with warm palms
and arrowlike gaze,
smokes off the evenings
on purple hills,
as I hear your voice
from far away.

Pity, I lack the passport
and the roadmap
to come to you,
but separation, too,
belongs inside
my loving.

If dawn pulsed
in colors
with large child eyes
and if I could
only hold
your hands,
I could die
lacking
nothing.

IV.

When the guitar sings
time gets torn away
and coral-centered cigarettes
tell many a tale
to make you wonder
"Where did youth go?"


V.

With the moaning of
the song inside the disc,
with the poetry
spilling from your memory,
I blend with the dark

If you would stop
blocking my view,
I could see the world
and I would know
where I am.


VI.

You have changed too much.
I couldn't recognize who you are
and I cannot remember
if you preferred tea
or coffee.
white bread or rye,
or if you had brown hair
or white
like right now.

When you laughed
the moon used to rise
on my nights,
but now I am used to
the dark.
Is it you who changed
or could it be me?


VII.

Out of nothing,
your eyelashes carry
dew drops.

Is it the wind or the dust
attacking like the enemy
abruptly after an entrapment
when forgiving
quiets the din
inside my throat?


VIII.

To leap away
from grief's chasm,
you fall
from one abyss
into another.

All because
you loved
in a different way than
other lovers.

IX.

Who is he who rings my bell
I open the door and he is not there
He is never there.

Surely, I heard the ring

Maybe it is I
who is at my door.


X.

Your heart in thousand shards,
you go as you came.
The roads are vagrant;
you are vagrant.
On the roadside,
people trade love and hassle,
poverty on the right,
death on the left.
This city, the king
of all vagabonds,
can find no balm
for wounds.



XI.

I am a wall;
I never saw the sun.
My wounds do not display glory
but pain
for I embrace
all that was abandoned,
and in front of me,
they shot the condemned
as I stood standing
when the dead fell.
But then,
the clouds spit on my face,
although I was dead tired
and turned red
in bloody shame.

X.

Mother earth, a child
with giant fists,
frees from chains,
to leave my lap
like an overused bed,
crumpled, dirty,
but now,
I can fold myself up
and soar to the skies.



October 12, 2007 at 12:50pm
October 12, 2007 at 12:50pm
#541242
I cringe for today
but wish for other tomorrows,
other than what seems to be etched
on the walls and fallen towers;
other than when the moon
shows its dark side,
other than when ancient fish
reek and ripple with naked scent,
other than when each child
joins the circus
to run away from home,
but I am too hapless
to build a moat
of wishes around
anywhere
to ward off the sting
of bloodthirsty things.


October 12, 2007 at 8:57am
October 12, 2007 at 8:57am
#541176
useless tears
sighing words
torn dreams
stale grievances
silent fury
indefinable worship
creaking
like a harness
on bad roads
“some things
do not emit
or reflect enough”
-an Astrophysics fact-


---------

Prompt:Write a poem taking off from a scientific fact.
For "Poets' Practice Pad

128 Entries · *Magnify*
Page of 7 · 20 per page   < >
Previous ... 1 2 3 -4- 5 6 7 ... Next

© Copyright 2013 Joy (UN: joycag at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Joy has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.

Log in to Leave Feedback
Username:
Password: <Show>
Not a Member?
Signup right now, for free!
All accounts include:
*Bullet* FREE Email @Writing.Com!
*Bullet* FREE Portfolio Services!
Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/757065-Green-Peas-at-Stake/sort_by/entry_order DESC, entry_creation_time DESC/page/4