*****
Poetry Monday And My Mentors
Throughout my life
There's always been
A place for rhyme and verse
And some of what
I scribbled out
Was good (and some was worse)
But then came blogs
And bloggy friends
Including those who pome *
And suddenly
My poetry
And I felt we were Home
Then came the day
Diane said, Hey!
On Mondays I will rhyme!
And all who wish
Can join me here
We'll have an awesome time!
Delores spoke up
She wanted in
And I - well, I made three
And that is how
Our Mondays came
To be for Poetry
Diane can rhyme
Most anything
Words jump to her command
Delores too
Finds words with ease
The right ones all at hand
Both ladies write
So naturally
Their poems rich and true
And I was glad
To join their ranks
And learn a trick or two
Some weeks, I feel
I struggle so
But work's good for the brain!
At least that's what
I tell myself
While circling round the drain
I'd like to thank
Diane, Delores
And all who've shared a verse
If you're inclined
Please join us here
You really could do worse
Remember, there's
No right or wrong
Each poem is a gem
A story plucked
From someone's mind
We welcome all of them!
* sorry, I needed something to set up the rhyme for "home"!
* * * * *
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I hear you, puppy. (photo: icanhas.cheezburger.com) |
Wishing you an excellent week, friends :)
Smiling broadly. I love the rhythm and cadence of ALL of your poems (including the pomes).
ReplyDeleteThank you for those very kind words, EC!
DeleteWhat a gorgeous little puppy. Can I take him home?
ReplyDeleteI love your "pome" and just FYI, that is a perfectly acceptable word. you have my admiration too, I couldn't write a poem no matter how hard I try.
Ah, but you write fiction (and write it well, I might add) and I can't do that :)
DeleteLol. Loved this poem Jenny. Great to find like minds to share an interest.
ReplyDeleteAnd now you three write poems for us
Out in the blogging sphere.
So every Monday you will find
Many of us here.
Thank you, Marie - and well done on your poem!
DeleteI applaud your poem this week Jenny - skilfully put together in spite of the home/pome dilemma. As we are invited to post on any topic this week, I am going right back to the beginning of my blog in 2005 - just after we had had a family holiday in the western USA. We even visited Las Vegas where I saw a man sweeping the "sidewalk" near a humble concrete building that advertised palmistry and tarot reading etcetera...
ReplyDeleteLas Vegas
By “Psychic World”
Between Downtown and The Strip
That psychic swept his sidewalk
Under a royal blue sky
While a mile away
In audacious, marbled and illumined gambling halls
Hidden in the bellies of monstrous hotel walls
High rollers and fools sought satisfaction
In the lurid exchange of greenbacks.
He stopped for a moment
To light a Camel
Watching the traffic haemorrhaging
From Interstate 15
Wishing he could predict
When the desert would turn green
And if the spirit of Elvis
Might still be seen
Or felt
Somewhere between
The Sahara
And the light bulb extravaganza at Circus Circus
And as he swept, he hummed “Viva…Viva Las Vegas”
Alex Leon Koplensky – formerly of Dayton Ohio
Lost briefly in his own
Psychic world…
Sweeping sand in a desert.
As always, your talent blows me away, YP. The last line is excellent and "haemorrhaging traffic" is a vivid image.
DeleteWhat is the reference to Alex Leon Koplensky? I thought it might be a real person but Google does not recognize the name (although it does bring up your 2005 blogpost). Is there a story behind it?
Thank you for contributing.
People in the mid-west and inland states like Ohio or Kentucky often have dreams that will take them either west or east. What could be better than Las Vegas? The lights, the razzmatazz, a place where dreams come true - as in New York New York. He's just an average American. I plucked his name randomly from a phone book.
DeleteOkay - I just didn't want to be missing a fruitful reference :) And it appears that Mr. Koplensky either shuffled off this mortal coil or doesn't "do" social media because I got zilch on the Google search. In fact, when I searched for that surname, all I got was Kopensky, Koplensky and Kaplansky. Is it possible you mangled it a bit after you plucked it? ha ha
DeleteThere was a time that I dabbled in writing poetry, but that sklll has been lost forever. I think it might have to do with AAD or LAZY. I do, though, enjoy reading your’s, Diane’s and Delores’ posts on Mondays.
ReplyDeleteIf you ever get the urge to write again, you're welcome to join us. I find the discipline of writing each week has been such a help for me.
DeleteI have LAZY myself; what a coincidence! :)
Please join us, SOAC-M! We'd love it so much!
DeleteThat was lovely. Hopefully I'll soon be back to normal and writing 'pomes' again. I miss it.
ReplyDeleteI hope you'll be back soon, too. You are missed.
DeleteCan't wait, Delores! Things aren't the same without you!
DeleteI admire people who write poetry for fun. Keep on writing poetry. Poetry takes your mind to new places.
ReplyDeleteI think I've found my preferred brain-exerciser, Red. Some people do crosswords, some do Sudoku, but I don't enjoy those much. Poetry, now - that IS fun :)
DeleteI don't seem to have much verse in me these days, but it wasn't always that way. What I have is stories, and this is a story of how my stories made it to the internet with the help of bloggers.
ReplyDeleteIt started with Lisa Rein, in those confused and confusing days after Bush was re-elected. I actually knew her a little, so that kind of anchored her political writing to something human for me. I wasn't very political back then, but something was wrong and I knew it. "On Lisa Rein's Radar" a mostly political blog when blogs were a new thing, also contained cultural stuff, and I learned of Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow there. It hasn't been updated since 2010, and like many of the blogs I have enjoyed, has fallen by the wayside.
Then there were the mass of political blogs I found, many with the help of Digg.com, some of which I still read after all of these years.
In no particular order, still posting currently, Blue Gal, Driftglass, the Rude Pundit, Field Negro, Just an Earth Bound Misfit I, Crooks and Liars (which has become more of a news site than a blog), and others. Many have dropped out of the blogosphere also, but this is long enough already without listing them.
Then in 2008 I had a stroke and couldn't work any more. That gave me a lot of time for blogs, and I became a fixture in the comment sections of many.
Then, in 2013, I lost access to the internet for a few months, and my friend Sara rescued me with her MiFi hotspot, which had the drawback of a 6GB/mo data cap, which in turn caused me to seek out less data intensive activity online, like reading.
One reliably long read was the Bloggess' comment section, where I suddenly discovered that many commenters had their own blogs, and I began reading those also. One of those was The Chicken's Consigliere, from whose comment section I found you and this blog, but some of the other ones were Michelle's "Rubber Shoes in Hell" and Aussa Lorens' "Hacker, Ninja, Hooker, Spy".
Aussa, in particular, encouraged me to tell my stories in her comment section, and it was while writing one of those comments and wondering whether to change the story around a little to make it read better that I had a sort of epiphany: The stories from the life I have led don't need embellishment, they're wild enough all on their own, what they need is editing, and the occasional redaction to protect the guilty.
I like your poem, and as far as I'm concerned, you can say pome whenever you feel like it.
-Doug in Oakland
Well, I can tell you that I always look forward to your comments because they are full of rich detail. It nearly makes up for you not having your own blog for us to read. (Nearly!) Making any progress on that, by the way? (Yeah, I AM kind of a nag ...)
DeleteReading the comments is how I found all of the blogs I follow. It's like following a network of forest trails - some peter out and some bring you to really wonderful vistas.
Anyway, what I started out to say is to feel free to tell your stories in the comments here. I like having good conversations.
Perfect! Absolutely perfect! You inspire me!!!
ReplyDeleteOh, thank you! That means a lot to me. But I don't think I could possibly inspire you the way you do me -- you are a poetry ninja! (that's a good thing, by the way)
DeleteLovely poem! I can relate to the struggling as I struggle too on certain themes.
ReplyDeleteI came across your blog through a comment you made on John Grey's. I had a few spare minutes and decided to find your blog. Funnily enough it was on a Monday and Poetry Monday was well under way and I thought to myself 'why not?', so included the shortest poem I had and that, as they say, is history. I've enjoyed taking part and haven't regretted it for a moment.
I haven't done one for this week as a) I thought it was a personal theme for the three of you and b) I have already sent a poem I wrote called 'Blogland' which I left in a comment on 6th June, 2017 and don't want to bore anyone with a repeat.
I can't promise anything for next week as I'm unable to think of anything for the theme.
Have a good week, take care.
There's no pressure to write every week; this is meant to be a positive experience. I'm glad you've joined in as often as you have! Your poetry has added a great deal to our Mondays. Remember, too, that you can post any poem on any topic, regardless of the theme. And you can take the theme in any direction, no matter how tenuously connected. We just encourage people to exercise their poetry brains :)
DeleteWhat do you do in your free time, Joan? Does any of what you do ignite a poetic thought? (And now that reminds me, I have to update with next week's theme!)
Aye, I know there aren't any rules to Poetry Monday, but I do like to follow the theme if I can, makes the grey cells work.
DeleteI've thought of something, so I'll see you on Monday.
I agree, Joan :) Glad you thought of an angle!
DeleteOh, that was fun! You are sooooo good at these. And I laughed out loud with that photo. According to my husband, my head overheats when I think too much! LOL
ReplyDeleteThanks, Martha! And, well, your husband oughta know, right? :D
DeleteWhat a lovely tribute to your mentors; and you deserve some tribute, too! You made me laugh out loud with "And some of what | I scribbled out | Was good (and some was worse)".
ReplyDeleteI used to write poetry many long years ago, and your lines describe my efforts perfectly. :-)
But it's all part of the leaning curve, right? :D
DeleteRight! :-D
Delete