Posts for June 11, 2025 (page 10)

Category
Poem

Willow Speaks From the Heart

          I offer my presence
            offer my support
          I bring you peace
            bring you happiness

          My question to you:
          What more can I do?

          I breathe in your pain
            breathe in your suffering
          I send healing energies
            send loving-kindness

          Take me as I am;
                unapologetically, not your
                typical girl next door

          I’m nothing if not authentic
          Can’t live up to your expectations

          My question to you:
          What more can I do?


Registration photo of NETTIE FARRIS for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

WHAT WE HOLD ON TO

                Once

there was a term
for everything

                even

if we did not know it

                but
                eventually

                                nouns
                                 
began to disappear

                and

no one cared

                or 

were oblivious

                because

                        what use

                                                        is the term Georgia peach
                                                        when we can use the phrase
                                                        fruit with a fuzzy skin and a pit grown in Georgia

                and 

                        what use

                                                        is the word amphibian
                                                        when tree frogs no longer exist nor even trees

                then

                                adjectives

began to disappear

                also

                                that was not much of a loss either

                    what use

                                                            is an adjective without a noun
                                                            
the incremental loss

                                of verbs

instigated no uproar

                for 

                                                            we performed no function
                                                        
on and on until

                                    even the letters of the alphabet
                                    floated out of consciousness

                first
               
                            x y z
and so on 

                until

only the letter A remained.

                                                        The run-on sentence never existed.


Registration photo of Bud R for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Sat-is-if-i-cay-shUN

At the bar,
with clinking glass
and dim light
the floor rolls: a deck
on seas of change. 

We conspire, 
solving present 
puzzles and
fashioning 
future confections.

We are satisfied
in the moment

then return to 
empty rooms,
wishing the tender
could serve one 
more 

while we
transmute reality
to our will. 


Registration photo of Rafael Ribeiro for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Christina Aguilera and the Ecstasy of St. Teresa in Flames

Study exquisite fear.
For fright no one bothers. 

In desperation we might owe 
or possibly thank one another.

Memory sways through absence
steeped in bottles of spiced family wine.

None’s a Merry Christmas,
noise twitters and fritters,
 
quiet the stereo makes
four-thousand loaves from

La Teresa’s tender twenty-one
who stops, stammersings-astonished,

My Lord, you spoke this! this song—this
song, suchness-gift—! music and delivery.

Cut ebony, slick vinyl, grooves
and needle drop razors to mind where 

her father’s death breathes a clutch
of lilies, enwormed books littering brain—

one novel, his story, two—
lone lime grave stones at each end.

For full four weeks she soothes her self to bed, 
and so sitting here, again

strains of her self’s self burst 
to blazing flame

hearing Christina perform
in run-leaps, belts, and soars.

Silence, sweet.  
Silence. 

There are none—no anthems
true, but voices here Teresa knew.

Recall, impossible figures strum broken lutes 
with tallow soaked straws 

up on worn mounds, washed grey on blue—
this her basement, dark, a dark regretting hue

fled with family’s promise—
she splits 

the difference between
complications and distress. 

And St. Christina sweeps the palms—
catches children in her banyan platinum tresses, 

satin, bowed cupids, 
unassuageable lips lifting aria slow 

poring the velvet dark pillow
and settled brilliants, diamonds bright—

and come thundery Teresa’s ecstatic cry, 
someone saved my life tonight!

My God, thank you for sending me an angel,
who spoke not of death—or mine!


Registration photo of Christopher Mattingly for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

The Rising

 Do not tell me it is OK to leave.
Do not absolve me of my obligation,
Connection to this life.
Tell me to consider the best of times.
Our daughters dancing in the tidal pools of
Saint Augustine sunset.
The sparrow at Monument Valley.
I thought it was The ghost of my brother (maybe)
Come to forgive me.
I wish to savor and linger,
Tarry in a meandering way,
A stream clinging to the earth
As it wanders through the carven rock of its bed
Always down, down, down,
To the unfathomable sea.
I hold tight to what I love and cherish.
I think of your hair
Golden silk laughing in the sun.
I think of our children so busy with their youth,
The beginnings really are the best.
I think of the arc of the
Glooming sunrise morning.
It is then I think of all that has been given
To me unasked for and I am glad.
So do not give me freedom to leave.
Do not comfort me with goodbyes.
Bear the burden of my life
While my strength wanes and falters.
Tell me you love me
And will hold to me
Until I depart of my own
Until I am lost entirely to myself
And float on the wind like
Gray ashen smoke rising from the last
Dying
Embers
Of
Holy
Incense.  


Registration photo of Coleman Davis for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

The Thingy Went Down

      😉 with apologies, and gratitude 
 to Bronson for all the hard work he does.
  
  
 
 

Are you up yet?
  Yes, not out of bed yet.
  It’s early, I’m still stiff.
Have you seen the thing?
It went down again.
  It’s not up?
  Maybe Bronson’s not up.
Do you think he’s gonna
get it up?
  Not sure.
Hey there! It’s up!
Did you get yours up?
  It’s up, just barely.
  Oh, its down again.
I couldn’t get mine up,
I was playing with it and
it went down again.
  Well, mines up, I guess,
  can’t tell right now.
 
Chris just sent an email,
he apologized and said
this has happened 
before and they are 
applying a solution. He
added that it will be 
back up, soon as possible.
 
Do you think Bronson will 
get it back up? 
  Not sure. Maybe his firm 
  is unreliable.
Ya know they say a good
man is hard to find or
something like that.
 
 It’s up!!!

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Registration photo of Greg Friedman for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

You took the vow of poverty

and the rest of us keep it,
said a priest-friend and
yes I took the vow, and
it clings like a puppy
to the hem of my friar’s robe.
It’s not the toughest vow to keep—
no, not chastity
but obedience, giving up
those elusive possessions:
the ego, the will, the petty
need to be in charge.

But meanwhile the shelves groan
under the books that a superior
once predicted would tumble
on my sleeping form:
“FRIAR KILLED BY WALL OF FALLING BOOKS”
(Film at eleven).
They multiply when I’m not there,
and in my closet the shirts,
which looked so cool in the Facebook ads,
dangle in mockery
as Francis of Assisi
hunkers down
in the dust
under the hangers
in unfashionable rags.


Category
Poem

Moving on

There’s something beyond this

Something behind all the haze
I feel guilt for getting away
From this unsustainable dream
 
But I must find That future bliss
For I am myself in a daze
But I’m moving on till I find my way
I will grab this opportunity by the seams
 

Category
Poem

Not The ’66 Bonneville Either

And since there are only a few years left
I’ve had to give up some things
Long bodied dates and other big seeded fruits
Mango, avacado
Dried ones too
Neither animal protein nor nuts
I’ve given up the urge to go, also work and travel
But not pain, my insistent companion
And not quiet
The quiet nights of the unexplored hours
Sitting, watching, listening
To the nothingness that is still avilable


Category
Poem

Bouncing in the air

on their backyard trampoline
I saw 5 little heads bopping up and down
laughing and squealing while throwing
a green and blue and orange feather light
beach ball. I watched from afar settled
in a cushy chair on my patio while my dog
nudged my side for more pats because it’s never enough.

 The biggest one ran up the stairs of their deck
hollering down, “it’s time to eat now. We’ve got ribs
corn on the cob, and vanilla ice cream with strawberries
hurry up!” The ribs charred aroma of sweet tangy BBQ sauce
wafted my way. The birds got caught in the excitement
flitting from tree to fence to tree again chirping their own melodies.