What, she wonders, are these scribbles and these scratch-outs in this mess of paper and lined pages of your notebook left upon the table in the mornings?
Songs, I reply, or the seeds of something to maybe becoming music, if I can only find the rhythm again when strumming the guitar in my mind
for #verselove
Song Cycling
I've slow-pedaled this thing for years each piece, something spoke, in lingering lyrics and subtle chords, a story, unspooling in song, and still, this project remains an abandoned bike, broken, until fingers stretch on strings, pushing melody against surface, again
for #verselove
It's hard to fathom the warning when listening to an orchestra of birds on such an beautiful morning
It's hard to fathom the warning of a world, built slowly storming,
and how we're told but only heard: it's hard to fathom the warning when listening to an orchestra of birds
a triolet poem for #verselove https://www.ethicalela.com/try-a-triolet/
Poems became the ash of what was left in us when the world fell apart
Spent decades inside this screen and paper, dusty fingers trying to ink together memory, once nearly lost, forever; a heart
knows only what no longer works when parts and pieces collapse, but poets look to plumb the numb, for hurt is the place where a kindled line of wonder and healing might eventually start
for #verselove and #mastoprompt
The first song I ever shared with anyone was the song shared with Murph -
my best friend from childhood from the old apartment turf -
a drummer with impeccable time to compliment my rhyme, and when we were teens, we got down to work:
setting up microphones, and a borrowed Tascam four-track recorder,
spending hours like a puzzle putting down sounds in just the right order
And now? I don't know, we lost track in the years;
I moved into writing and then into teaching, and he started a studio, or so I hear
But his beat still provides me with sonic echos of the past, reverberations of Murph and memories that last
for #verselove
What? Were you daydreaming again? 'Cause I missed you in the side pocket, today, a corner shot deep with spin, spoken off the top of my head, my words in full ricochet tinted with scuffed-up blue, when I heard you wonder out loud to a friend, in guffaw: Was I? Daydreaming? Again?
A “What you missed” poem for #verselove
Murmurations
I had starlings on my mind last night as I watched, and then joined, a hundred or so kids and adults storming the gym floor, in motion, traveling in tandem, playful together,
a pulsating flock of bodies on the move, three minutes of relentless action, and the fulcrum source, a soft ball still in motion, a fabric magnet that drew us here, then there, then everywhere
and when a goal scored, the cheer from both sides became deafening, a kind of beautiful thunder no bird ever could make, but we could
for #verselove (inspired by a student vs teacher event at my school) Audio: https://sodaphonic.com/audio/0zU1FUNKkDeY2C6pdlwS
Someone asked if after the reading there was reconciliation
After the reading, someone asked if I still pray to God
My lip leaving the reading in a way completely understood
After the reading I was shattered
After the reading I told joy and then after the reading someone cried
Blackout/Found Poem via “After the Reading” by Tiana Clark https://poets.org/poem/after-reading for #verselove
At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time When you set your fancies free ...
— Robert Browning, Epilogue
At the midnight
(waiting, as always, for the moon clock to chime, the falling star seconds beckon the eye)
in the silence
(you hold hands, not tongues, in these hours, when the long day's no longer young, but aged in galaxy light)
of the sleep-time
(grass dew pillows beneath your heads, she said earlier how she needs roots and seeds, not feathers, to hold her mind, upright, tonight)
When you set your fancies free
(waxing, not waning, the silver shine always and forever reminds you of her, in the now and for the always, this night when you watched the quiet unfold)
for #verselove https://www.ethicalela.com/a-poet-like-me/ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43753/epilogue-56d2229481e30
Who was the first person to think:
I could use oak galls for passable ink?
Who was the one who wrestled with the idea
to ground down the shell and dip in a pen
and wrote out a note, then did it again?
for #verselove and #mastoprompt