June 2023
June butterflies days
with peripheral visions–
fleeting shadowed light
June butterflies days
with makeshift impermanence–
colors cast in dreams
of peripheral visions–
horizons weave time
into salty sea-sky wind,
fleeting shadowed light
tinged with endings—summer melts
backwards into fall
Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday prompt had us taking a test to determine our spirit animal. Butterfly was my answer yesterday, although if I took the test today it would probably be different. My answer to most questions of this type are “it depends”. But I’m not displeased–butterflies are wonderful creatures.
I wrote a troiku turning butterfly into a verb, as requested by Sarah for her prompt at dVerse. I also used words from this week’s Oracle 2 Random Word Generator.
winged surprise startles
as it alights on my arm–
the world pauses, stilled
The collages are old ones from the 70s that I discovered in my archives.
Interpolated (Thursday Doors)
The day is empty
like this house—tentative, flat,
merged with the landscape.
Each layer resides
inside its own dimension–
unfinished, ajar.
Spinning in circles,
a surface with no inside–
an imprint of thought.
A moment’s whimsy–
not really a door at all–
more like a portal—
A passageway to somewhere
in the middle of between
My final entry to the Thursday Doors May Writing Challenge, a haiku sonnet, uses a photo from Wheat Salt Wine Oil as inspiration. The collage is another one of mine from my youth.
Next week, back to my own doors.
The Third Story (Thursday Doors)
1
Majestic, they said, but
enter at your own risk–
dogs live there–horses, too–and
insects we can’t identify.
2
The thing is, the future requires
adjustment. Your Utopian maps
tell me nothing. They only
impede the stitching together of time.
3
Orange looks different at
night, but I turn on the lights so the
door is visible. You can’t miss
it. It sits in the clouds, gaudy, towering.
4
Space is always disordered–
check all the boxes and it verifies nothing.
Interactions are not a test—what is
permissible is learned, but not necessary.
5
Like home, the gift of colour
inside our far-flung journeys replaces
needless worry with surprise–
erratic prose turns poetic, jumps into the air.
Coincidentally, this is my third poem for the May Writing Challenge at Thursday Doors. When the Random Word Generator chose door as its first word this week, I knew I would once again be referring to its list for what I wrote. Another word that jumped out at me was orange, so I knew which photo I would choose to write about as well.
The W3 challenge this week from Punam is to write an acrostic poem from a list of words she provided. I strung two of them together, meditation and discipline. Then I chose a lot of the beginning words from the random word list and wrote around what resulted, including other words from the list whenever they seemed to fit. It is an interesting method of constructing a poem.
Above is one of my orange-embellished door collages from the 1980s. And for more doors from the present, you can always visit Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
Evasions (Thursday Doors)
They say our finite ocean is
but a minor detail–
a boat
resting on the back of Great Fish–
that our true home sets sail
below
~stars~
are where we came from—light scattered
and caught by His Eye–
arranged
into what reflects His Matters–
the opposite of sky–
held, caged
~far~
away from home—I wish to leave
this vessel, to unlock
the door–
there is so much I can’t conceive–
my mind keeps casting thoughts
ashore
~where~
I number my questions, detail
the longings between words–
what if?
and why? Who Are You? Can you tell
me how air flies birds–
spindrifts?
I’ve written a double memeuente for the Thursday Doors Writing Challenge, using an image submitted by Teresa. Serendipitously, I found an image on Erik Johansson’s website that gave me a direction for my poetic narrative. Johanson’s work was introduced to us by Mish at dVerse as inspiration for a surrealistic poem.
I’ve also used some of this week’s words from the Random Word Generator.
I’ve always thought there was a connection between fish and birds.
You can see many doors (and their stories) every week at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
And take a journey through alternate worlds at Erik Johansson’s website here.
The Green Door (Thursday Doors)
It’s not black and white. But is it whimsical, or serious? Is that a lock? Is there a key? Magic words? Please? Somehow that doesn’t seem like enough
I want to form those intersecting lines into a map. Surely it was drawn deliberately, that triangular pattern. The power of threes. Animal vegetable mineral? Past present future? Mind body spirit?
What do the strange messages graffitied on the surface of the glass mean? Can anyone enlighten me? The numbers lack clarity–nebulous, impossible to calculate.
And what is that hum that seems to be taking over my mind?
lost continents lost
languages—are they portals?
Where is my third eye?
Thursday Doors holds a writing challenge in May. Doors from the last year’s posts are submitted, and we are invited to write a story, poem, or hybrid of some sort based on one of the photos. For my first one, I’ve chosen Manja’s mysterious green door, above.
I also used some of the Oracle 2 words from this week’s Random Word Generator list.
And here’s a bonus collage appropriately called “The Power of Three”. Perhaps that’s what is on the other side of the Green Door.
Dan Antion is the host of Thursday Doors.
May 2023
each moment full
of growing—the spaces
in your mind once occupied
by words transformed
into pockets of color–
a chorus spiraling
between the layers
of inner and outer life–
weaving you
into your surroundings,
branching like rivers
rippling in the elemental current
that always seeks to return
to the sea—your senses
float you, a particle
in the molecular dance
of ebb and flow, rising and falling
in time with the luminescent tides
that follow the singing
of the flower moon
It’s May! After 3 days of gloomy grey and pouring rain there’s a blue sky. Maybe I’ll even get to see the full Flower Moon on Friday.
affinities 2 and 3
2
let time decide–
the far stars
listen as if wings
would harvest belief, receive
music, singing the sea
that dreams within
begin each part
between always
and the single beat
of a heart
outside of what
can be seen—here–
and now–
take my open hand–
release your fear
3
let time forget
the thoughts of planets
listen to wind
opening round to receive
the gift of sky rivers
dreaming inside your heart
let each song wend
its way between always
and the present, arriving
here–
take my hand,
you have been found
For the W3 Prompt this week, David asked us to write a poem heavy on consonance, assonance, or both. As it turned out, I had done an exercise (suggested by Gregory Orr) where I took a poem I had written and rewrote it in 8 different ways. Number two, the first poem above, emphasized similar vowel sounds, and number three, the second poem, emphasized similar consonants.
You can see the original poem, from the Oracle, here.
Out of all the 9 versions, I still like the first one best. One thing I realized is that a lot of these poetic devices occur naturally when you write–that’s what makes them sound “right”. But it’s best not to rely too heavily on one thing.
I’ve been absent here because I’ve been doing NaPoWriMo on Kblog. But May begins next week, so I’ll be back. Dan has lots of interesting doors waiting for poems on Thursday Doors. And Draw a Bird Day is just around the corner…
March 2023 (Mad as a March Hare)
Time sinks into quicksand,
manipulated and migrated
by determined legislation–
spring ahead—reset your clocks!
Manipulated and migrated,
Sun surveys Earth with amusement
and continues to keep its own hours.
The determined legislation
impels no change to Sun’s path,
the space it occupies, or how it is viewed.
Spring ahead—reset your clocks!
(The birds will not forget to tell you
when it’s time to rise and shine.)
The Wombwell Rainbow has been posting a weekly poetic form challenge which I always mean to do. This week Paul is asking for poetry that uses idioms. Although it’s the autumn time change that really irritates me, as I dislike the day ending at 3pm, I noted on my March calendar that we will lose an hour of sleep when we “spring ahead” this month. I used the trimeric form which was from a challenge weeks ago, but as you know, I like repetitive forms.
I also used words from the Random Word List.
I did do my usual monthly grid, but using one of the Year of the Rabbits seemed more appropriate to both the month and the poem. And somehow a bird always fits.
February 2023 Imbolc
wearing light–
wind-startled, weightless,
wave-weaving
messengers
ablaze in opposition
to monochrome days
breath held in
the beating heart, veins
threaded with
shimmering
roots, marking the season with
anticipation
gates open
and skies expand, meet,
intersect,
cross between, entwining
elements seeded into
manifestation
the path shifts–
shadowed and cast out
ward, burning
the before
into a now that transforms,
emerged, as after
One of the recent Kick-About prompts was Christo and Jeanne-Claude. This reminded me of their Gates installation in Central Park in February 2005, and I pulled out some of the photos I had taken then, printed them, and cut them into squares to make grids. I did not think of it at the time, as my daughter and I delighted in following the winding paths, as a ritual experience for the mid-point between winter and spring–yet it felt magical, like a journey into a different world. A transformation of a familiar landscape, a stilling of time.
A gate, like a threshold, is a symbol of crossing between paths of light and darkness. The fabric of the gates was constantly in motion, holding inside them the play of light with water, sky, ground, and bare trees. A fortuitous snowfall added to the magic. I don’t know if Christo and Jeanne-Claude had Imbolc in mind at all when they planned The Gates (they were supposedly inspired by Japanese temple gates), but in both time and place it contained a strong resonance with the return of color and the anticipation of spring.
For earthweal, where Brendan has asked us to think about Imbolc, and how it shows up in our lives.
Year of the Rabbit
time to
slow down—focus
on healing, connections–
become the current, flow
deep into e
motion
This year is supposed to be a calm respite after the 2022 Tiger Year. A year when our seeds will bear their karmic fruit.
Red is always an auspicious color for Chinese New Year, and Rabbit is associated with the moon. But it’s also the Year of the Water Rabbit, highlighting emotions, instincts, and flexibility
I drew a number of rabbits with brush and ink on rice paper, and then copied and collaged them with flowers, putting some on moon backgrounds. The other ones will show up from time to time.
The Year of the Rabbit is supposed to be lucky. One website I visited said that “Life will get better soon.” Fingers crossed.
Happy Lunar New Year!
method two madness 
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