dogtrax

A place to gather words before they get lost.

Quarter note staccato sounds, his bass rumbles in the basement beneath the attic of the horns – here we sit, an audience in rapture at this place where mystery abounds – then the woman next to me erupts in applause before the solo's even over, and I find myself following suit, snare drum to her cymbal crash, then others adding in, too, our skin and hands becoming one rolling thunder in a night of wonder ...

and in a shared quiet of a single moment, pause; shut-eye listening

*Haibun poem, remembering a moment from Christian McBride's New Jawn concert at Bombyx Center on March 29, 2023

for #verselove https://www.ethicalela.com/rest-resist-composing-a-haibun-poem/

Look — Mama didn't raise me a fool – I get that in this place, I'm ain't ever gonna be one of the cool – but at least give me a chance and let me get my feet in the dirt – and refrain from the pain of the words that hurt

for #mastoprompt

For ballast and balance - you act as my keel

A first step to constructing a frame of the real

My sails sing out towards horizon though I'm prone to submergence

But when I am battered, you, my underpin, my stable one

you, my love, you keep me adrift, riding safe currents

for #mastoprompt

What if every moment you had the urge to write

a surge of words suddenly emerged in sight?

A poem a play a story might unfold on imaginary lines

instead of getting lost; the cost of an active mind

for #mastoprompt

A feather found on the ground

dipped in ink and scratched across the page

a quill to quiet the world

for #mastoprompt

Blank page still to be filled — a difficult terrain — a map like this needs directional compass and a point from which to begin

for #mastoprompt

Drop anchor, wherever, but remember

you don't need to stay where you are, forever

for #mastoprompt

Things Left Behind By The Illumination (Writing In The Margins Again)

Now, with winter nearly gone, we rediscover the worlds alive beneath stone and rock, seemingly oblivious to us - but maybe not

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And where do we go from here, she asks, as if I am somebody in the know but I am not, nor ever was — still, I trace my finger along the folds, down streets, and into fields, and through woods, hoping for a safe place to land

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Night's notes – play them soft – in tension with the upward design of day's sweet melody, and write what you hear, even if it's silence tucked inside your solitary head

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Where gravity pulls you, resist the urge to fall into it – Instead, find the focus knob to turn the thoughts into something useable – a poem, a song, a story, a shout of love into the crowded unseen world; Then, listen close to the reverberations

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And white light, blown into view by the particles, shaken inside the invisible; I wait for it, the movement meant for me, a signal to begin dipping my pen into the ink of shadows left behind after the illumination

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Some of us are bound to wonder, in wonder, with wonder, constrained in infinite space, but still left pulling up the corners to witness what's beneath

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Moonlight, three a.m - the thread that I lost earlier suddenly is there, here, it's become a whisper that won't go quiet, and try as I might, I rise before the sun for another poem has begun

Riffs of Terry's Triptych – https://impedagogy.com/wp/blog/2023/03/26/a-triptych-of-observations-taken-from-my-daybooks/

Video Curation: https://play.soundslides.com/W0qSFC9K

At dawn, crocus yawn, humming inside morning's song; the rains, not long gone

for Algot

Go on ahead - Stick your fat head in the sand

I think we have all come to understand

it's been a trial and you?

You're stuck in the muck of deep denial

for #mastoprompt