Father and Daughter (A Somonka, Hour Thirteen)

Father and Daughter

 

Heavenly Father,

I praise Your name and thank you

for amazing grace

and Your love, so undeserved.

You are my Savior.

 

Sweet Mandi, my child,

I loved you before you knew me.

Let not your heart be

troubled. I will not forsake

you; Be-lov-ed, you are mine.

(A somonka is a pair of tankas from two different voices that carry a central theme of love. It can be romantic, platonic, brotherly, sibling, from a parent to a child, etc. Each tanka is composed of five lines with a 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count.)

The Land Knows

prompt 14

They say the land knows you,
even when you are lost,
but what good does that do
when you do not know yourself?
A wanderer can only wander for so long
before his traveling
become his identity.

-h.e.m.

The Week Before

The Week Before

 

I hear the fireworks whistle across the sky, forming

into shapes that I can’t see. I wonder when the clouds

will blow away and ket the sparks shine through. I sit

in my chair, reclining, eyes drifting into sleep,

ears wide awake, clinging to each pop! And bang!

Prompt 17/H14 -Quote

The land knows you, even when you are lost

It wraps around you, smooth tendrils of grass
Or sometimes the bracken underbrush
Forming a path to your destination
Conjoining with you inside this creation
Comfort when you are alone.

The land knows you, it tells you its secrets
Wrapped up in a dock leaf or under a pillbug
Should you want for anything the land provides
Even when you are lost inside

The land knows you bear no ill will
It feels your respect whenever you kill
The rabbits come at your call, always enough
Even when all is lost.

Land -Poem 14

“The land knows you, even when you are lost.”

 

It feels your soul

It knows your gifts

It knows your sins

It washes you in rain

Solidifies you with cold

It melts your heart when the day is hot

The land knows you because you are from it

You walked on it, played in it

It senses your presence and sighs

When you are away, it calls to you

When you are lost, touch it

Hold it, be a part of it

Smell the flowers’ scents

Feel the breeze teaching your skin

Return to the land when you are alone

The land belongs to your soul

You soul belongs to the land

 

14 – War

At this point, I should know about these things, but I don’t. I should see then coming, anticipate them, but, they stretch my skin tight, and beat themselves against me in strange, terrifying, war rhythms.

I want to know if I am too simple, or if they are too complex, for me to see, feel,  hear, smell, taste, know that they are bearing down and about to blanket me.

I want to learn how I can condition myself not to let them steal the breath from my lungs, the sanity from my head, the hope from my religion. I want to know the escape route for when I realize I would not survive a conditioning of this sort.

Babies in cages.

I am not too simple. There is no escape. This really is war.

Running Away

Mountains.

Dirt beneath my feet, rocks poking my toes.

Cold air, fresh. 

Lost, wandering.

Trees tower above, their leaves vast and wild.

Their ancestors of the past crunch beneath.

No one around, safe. 

Intrigue swirls around my head, isolation.

Curves on the horizon mimic mine, ebbing and flowing.

Sun begins to set.

Darkness.

But I am not afraid.

“The land knows you, even when you are lost.”

Shade in Georgia

Hickory dickory dock

The Falcons are on the clock

The clock wound down

They drafted a clown

Hickory dickory dock

 

Hey diddle diddle

Kirby Smart played the fiddle

And the Bulldogs barked at the moon

Larry Munson Laughed to see such sport

Nobody wants two a days in June

 

Glory indeed to football in Georgia

Do your best and call it a day

What would ol’ Lewis Grizzard have to say?

BEEN THERE DONE THAT

BEEN THERE DONE THAT

 

Little babes with belly gas

Politicians showin’ their ass.

Employees working over time

Children made to tow the line.

 

Old farts with nothin’ better to do

When your neighbor wants to sue.

Actors and their temperaments

Landlords anxious for the rent.

 

Husbands with the common cold

Finding what you want’s been sold.

Athletes wanting higher pay

Being told to wait another day.

 

It’s times like these we make a fuss

When we’re feeling querulous!

Ameliorate (Hour 13)

It started as a feeling,
then birthed into a thought.
Took form within words of the mind
that inspired your tongue to speak.
From your voice, it was shared and became
conversation, expounded upon, others took it and shaped it
and passed it along to those they loved.

You took your spoken words and put them down on paper.
Setting them in print gave some permanence
to your idea, provided an initial draft of the perfection of your will.
And from this printed draft, you bore vision; you applied shape and color,
adorned canvas with the illuminative emotions hidden
within the words you wrote, bequeathed inside the tone of heart
you assigned to each letter.

From the canvas, others saw, and felt, and took pictures
to imitate and create their own version. And from your canvas
you summoned dimension, you pulled each shape into complete form,
molding clay into sculpted life, your idea given body, substance
smoothed by your hands, polishing its complexity with your caressing fingers.
A statuette of imagination, solidified by the drawing passion of your spirit,
the need to create pouring through each talent of your mind and body.
And from this bust, others could lay their hands
upon the blueprints of your creation, could let their own hands glide
along the structural lines you set as a foundation for new art.

And within this new art, a voice came forth from the statue,
a melody that harmonized with the source of your need to make better.
The song of your heart within all that you create, shared with and sung by others.
Reverberating through the creative consciousness of humanity.