24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
My love of language drives my passion to write but I’ve truly been only a writing dabbler most of my life. I’m a good starter but getting to that finish line with my writing has been a problem. Even so, I’ve had a few small pieces published in magazines and won an award for a flash fiction piece on Mother Earth. My poetry springs from something that touches my deepest emotions, most often connected to relationships in my life. I also find poetry cropping up in my prose in the form of similes and metaphors to convey a sense of place and experience. Painting what stirs my heart and soul is my other passion – mostly work inspired by my love and concern for our planet. Artwork has consumed much of my time since moving to Muskoka in 2010 and led to opening a small gallery (Heron’s Nest Studio Gallery) out of my home where I carry my paintings along with the work of 5 other artists. Finding time and figuring how to balance both the writing and painting is a challenge. If you have any tips, I’m open to hearing them!
Another great year – thank you Jacob and Caitlin.
This year I struggled more than usual, partly with too much on my mind. However, I hope to edit and rescue a few of those penned today.
Good night fellow Half Marathoners and carry on Full Marathoners. Wishing you inspiration for the next twelve hours. You can do it!
Cheers!
Combining a viator with words selected from Prompt #9 – a truly silly poem
A tremor travelled through the field
where beets were pushed up from below.
A bucket flew off from the fence,
it almost hit my elbow.
Lightbulbs burst throughout the farm.
A tremor travelled through the field.
The carport kept me safe from harm;
it saved me and my elk hat.
From the open kitchen door
I breathed in cinnamon so sweet,
A tremor travelled through the field.
the oven filled with apple treats.
I donned my well-worn jacket
prepared to flee the scene.
I scared a large jack rabbit.
A tremor travelled through the field.
Inspired by music from prompt hour 8
HOUR ELEVEN – Dawn’s Kiss
The first rays of dawn
tip-toe
across the dew-dropped grass
and leap
into my window,
flit across the polished floor,
slink over silken sheets,
and kiss
my face.
I relish such mornings,
like fresh bread and honey,
soft to chew and sweet on the tongue.
Light delights me as it plays through the day,
changing the mood of each place it touches.
Brown freckles adorn my face, arms, and legs; a few found their way to my back and my chest.
I’ve no need for tattoos with these ephelis marks; oft times viewed as beauty, at others as blotches
If I’m out in the sun, I produce more and more, ‘til most of my skin is brown and beige splotches.
I wonder at times if I joined all the dots, what masterpiece pictures they would suggest.
(oops – Sorry, I posted this one a little early)
The air fills with words and phrases,
metaphors and similes bounce off the walls
seeking their place in an awaiting paragraph,
as yet complete.
Writer’s mind whirls and swirls,
spinning notions, inspirations
clashing and merging, morphing
into tales to be told.
Keyboard clicks and clatters,
fingers fly across the keys,
letters court the virgin page;
its maiden head breaking.
From the writer’s loins
an idea is born,
a story – raw, filled with potential,
an intense, yet joyful delivery.
Prompt from Hour Six for Hour Eight
I see hellfire rising to embrace the follies of mankind,
a burning platter of human flesh falling from the earth into the abyss.
Evil does exist but only in the hearts and minds of the arrogant, the selfish.
No godlike being has condemned us, we have done that ourselves.
What the world needs now is love.
Redemption? Is that possible?
Turning our thoughts outward
from our self-centred preoccupations?
How many need to protest, to write, to sing, to cry, to scream,
Enough is enough?
Questions without answers.
Answers without actions.
I see an earth reborn, free of humanity,
like the phoenix arising from the ashes,
a fertile planet, abundant with life,
no longer struggling to survive.
I’m empty
where you once filled a special place
in my heart.
Sometimes, I find it hard to breathe.
Your voice echoes in my mind,
my ears deaf to the warning
of what was to come,
so sudden, so final.
No longer in pain,
I rejoice in your freedom.
Yet I will still mourn;
you never let me say, goodbye.
Shadows stretch out long fingers reaching for the dark
hiding our secrets, memories we lock away,
and bury in our hearts.
Remembrances cast shadows forward into our lives,
creeping into our consciousness,
when our resistance wanes.
When we face the light, those unwelcome echoes from the past,
release their deathlike grip,
allowing us to move on.
Today my brain strains
against the reins,
set me free from these chains
to create quatrains.
What is this bane
causing such pain?
Is it my restrain
that I disdain?
I must now refrain
and somehow retrain
my befuddled brain
to release new quatrains.
The strains of Danny Boy
play shrill outside my window,
my mind fills with unbidden images
of sunlit glades and rocky, fissured shores,
the sounds of battle cries, thoughts of long-lost loves.
It must be in my blood,
this land my eyes have not yet seen
for whene’er I hear the bagpipes played
– a sound some cannot bear –
my heart is stirred and set afire.
I must needs travel one day hence
to survey those sweet heathered moors,
the deep dark lochs, the fertile glens,
the forests filled with fairy folk,
the haunted towered castles from antiquity.
My familial roots lie in this Celtic land
of fidelity, acceptance, inclusion,
morality, modesty, humour.
I’ve inherited their inner fire
that stirs when anyone is wronged.
Oh Caledonia,
the pipes, the pipes are calling me,
from glen to glen, and down the mountain side.
I bid you bide, ‘til I arrive
upon the ebbing tide.