Spring Dance

In March,
winter and spring
change places.

Spring, the master
composer, squeezes runs
from the dying snow.

The whole street stretches,
shares a faint
but urgent beat.

Feeling the rhythm,
the squills create blues
for the golden horns of daffodils.

And Spring trains the robins
to warble the words,
as she calls out the dance.


This poem is for The Sunday Whirl in which poets are challenged to write a poem using these words: march, change, master, die, street, train, faint, places, stretch, calls, create, words, share.  If you'd like to see what other folks wrote, click here at The Sunday Whirl.

When I Was Eight

When I Was Eight

Bundles of lightning

bring on

bolts of thunder.

I remember.

The sounds shook

over an ash horizon,

trapped me

trembling

in damp corners,

as a storm climbed

the husk of sky.

I remember.

A lifetime;

still the scars

and bright memory of gold

remain.

The poem is written in response to The Sunday Whirl poetry prompt.  In Wordle # 75, we are asked to write a poem using these words:  bolts, ash, corners, damp, climbed, shook, trapped, remain, bundles, storm, bring, husk.   If you’d like to read what others have written, click here for a link.  Text in colour red will take you to another website with additional information, if you click on it.  Photo was taken by my sister and brother-in-law.  Words are copyright ©Carol Steel.

Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis

Mists at dawn

and chills of evening

carry scents of hydrangea,

the last of my roses.

Winds rattle dry leaves.

Blue Jays call

my changes.

Mama Zen at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads found at http://withrealtoads.blogspot.ca  challenged poets to create a poem using their own power image in 25 words or fewer.  A power image is one which turns up frequently in your work, one you return to often.  Mine is metamorphosis, often linked to changes in the natural world.  And often in my work, changes inside mirror changes outside and visa versa.

Text in red will take you to another site with additional information, if you click on it.  Words and images are copyright © Carol Steel.  To read what other poets wrote and linked to on this challenge, click here.

Anxiety

Anxiety

Dear operator,
while I am on hold,
waiting for news,
you may be forgiven
for using your pencil
to trace empty designs
or copy a recipe
from a co-worker,
in your chain of fenced cubicles.

While I am on hold,
you don't see me.
I have been waiting
since before the sun
rose
to hear.

You sit efficient,
doling out the essentials,
numbers,
information,
appointments,
connections
to doctors and labs,
while I am on hold.

The only link between us
this phone call.

You can't know
how I need
to hear something,
anything
before dusk,
before this unknown
darkness
fills with  fear.

I am on hold.

This is for the Sunday Whirl Wordle #71 on August 26, 2012.  To learn more about the Sunday Whirl, click here to go to another site with more information.  This week's wordle suggests creating a poem using the following words:  link, chain, recipe, rose, operator, trace, forgiven, fence, essentials, dusk, pencil,empty.

Photo and words are mine, copyright Carol Steel.

Sympathy

Sympathy

Sometime make the time to drink a vintage port.

Anchor yourself in a chair on your deck

and pitch conversation,

over tiny crackers, Stilton cheese,

and walnuts in a bowl.

Fill your glass.

Navigate

the marrow of memory

to a place where it links

to your store

of stories.

Fill your glass.

Sink your teeth deep

into dark chocolate.

Perhaps,

a slice of Bosc pear with brie?

Fill your glass.

Tell the tales.

Tumble tears.

(Reminisce ‘til only

the deck rail

can help you

to stand.)

Fill your glass.

Soak

from your heart,

the stern shards

of loss.

And you’ll see, my friend,

vintage port

makes for a most comforting wake.

Ah yes, fill your glass.

This poem is for the Sunday Whirl, Weekly Wordle # 68.  The instructions are to create a poem using the following 12 words:  port, marrow, deck, store, rail, wake, anchor, pitch, link, stern, sink, navigate.

If you’d like to learn more or see poems written by others, click on this link:  http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/wordle-68/

Photo is mine.

Family

Family

Family,
this connection of flesh and blood
is one long muscle of lineage and kin.
What happens when a shock
strikes,
rips like sciatic lightning,
cuts sudden and deep?

No one muscle moves
alone...
in any movement.

Does muscle tear,
form scars,
enlarge,
emerge stronger?

Do hamstrings tighten
to maintain center,
to stand
upright?

Will the muscle belly
pull in
and bind back upon itself,
forever changed
unable to recoil, to rest?

... remain open,
gashed and bloody?

Will it leave the tribe
limping?

Blood ties
do not always
mean smooth flow,
cannot always
connect
family.

Sometimes family
does not mean
family.


This poem is written for We Write Poems poetry prompt #117, "what words mean" on August 2, 2012, at http://wewritepoems.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/prompt-117-its-post-your-poems-day/

The prompt asks:  Write a poem that begins and ends with a one word line, that word being the same at both beginning and ending. Yet allow the body of the poem to create that shift in meaning for that one word.

Pin Ball Machine

Pin Ball Machine

Life
has a strange way
of falling
through the sublime
into the wayward frenzy
of a ball rolling down
a rough channel.

Always
after robust attack,
it will settle.

Life.


This poem is a response to Wordle #67 from The Sunday Whirl, a poetry prompt suggesting the use of twelve words to write a poem:  frenzy, strange, ball, rough, falling, robust, settle, wayward, sublime, channel, attack, life.  You can learn more about The Sunday Whirl and read other responses at:
http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/wordle-67/

Unrestrained Summer

Unrestrained Summer

A single gold lily
cannot be melancholy
in this erotic garden,
where feathered grasses
fling their pale gold spray
and cover the earth
with seed,
where fragrance fills
the heated air
with rosy dreams,
and stray powders swing
on the backs of bees
fertilizing
every breath
of this
intoxicating
summer.


This is a response to The Sunday Whirl, a wordle poetry prompt in which one is to write a poem including the 12 words:  swing, fling, rosy, powders, melancholy, stray, grasses, gold, erotic, pale, cover, spray.   This is Wordle #66 for July 22, 2012. 

Red text includes hyperlinks that take you to another web page where you can find out more.

Photo is mine.

Lavender

Lavender

Lavender grows by my back door.

The way it smells, makes me want more.

I’d like to plant it everywhere;

yes, share it till it fills the air

with scent so sweet and mauve galore.

There may be those who will abhor,

who find it cloying at their core,

who find it makes them ill, where’re

lavender grows.

Is to love just one scent a bore?

Should I ask of neighbours before

I plant these flowers everywhere?

What if they breathe it in and glare

or roar at me, no more, no more

lavender grows?

This is a light-hearted response to the poetry prompt for Friday, July 13, 2012 from Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads.  They suggest writing a rondeau of 13 lines and a 4 syllable refrain, the first half of the first line, used twice.  The rondeau is arranged in 3 unequal stanzas, usually with two main rhymes, plus a third rhyme in refrain.  It’s supposed to be iambic lines with 4 stresses, but I have not quite captured the iambic cadence in each line.  The rhyme scheme is aabba, aabc, aabbac.  One of the most well-known examples of a rondeau is the poem "In Flanders Fields."

If you click on words in red in the text, you will go to another site with additional information.