Making Demands - 3 Word Wednesday

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To join this week's 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*
This week's words:

Agile; Flaccid; Phantom.

Making Demands

An agile flaccid phantom
has been dogging me
these halcyon days,
whispering in my left ear
mostly that I must
avoid becoming
dust too soon or flaming out
and plunging to earth
in the midst of flight.
This is not easy for me.
I wish a hot shot
berth in pilot lore
and my rain forested life.

June 19, 2013 10:40 AM

The Icy Road

Frost as a young man, left...and a little older, right

Thinking of Robert Frost and the road less taken. Thinking of his Fire and Ice too.

Wiki says: Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. One of the most popular and critically respected American poets of his generation, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.

The Icy Road

I have seen the ghost
that haunts your choice slouching past
the intersection
in the winter woods,
that same ghost who tickled Frost
when he stood there too.

It's a tough old row to hoe,
this writing of a tangled verse.
It goes bad, and then will go
much much strangely worse.

June 17, 2013 10:17 AM

I Shall Dare To Pray - A Magpie Tale

The Promenade, 1918, by Marc Chagall
Image offered by Tess for this week's writing prompt on Mag 173.

I Shall Dare To Pray

I would pray you to
come back to earth if I thought
it would do any
good - if you ever
listened to me anyhow.

There you are floating
along sideways just
barely touching my outstretched
uncertainty, just
about to depart
forever into lala
voh deeoh doh dum.

I'm in the green sea
of my old hesitation
and suggest you doubt
my wide post war grin.

June 16, 2013 10:16 AM

To join this week's The Mag creative writing group *click here*

Cape Perpetua Giant Spruce Trail

Giant Spruce Trail, Cape Perpetua

Another Life

My toes sprouted roots
Also my soles, callused heels
As I stood between
The stars and on the gravel
Of my arid old home world.

Those roots sank deep, found
The ancient cool ground water,
Drew it up to me.

My arms sprouted feathery
Green fronds waving to far friends
Among the shining stars
Who came and settled on me
Bringing news and hope.

Written October 28, 2008
First Posted January 17, 2009

Moon Madness - 3 Word Wednesday

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To join this week's 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*
This week's words:

Chuckle; Evil; Serrated.

Black And White

Moon madness reaping
shocked grain leaving chaff behind
chuckle head evil
calling the dancers
into the pale light, knife blade
serrated top side
breaking the glad beams
that flash from the razor edge
I worked on for hours
as if I could earn
my way through heaven's pearly
gates just so, like that.

June 12, 2013 1:44 PM

Mouse Hole

There are the big things in my life. Even at this point, I really don't know what to make of them. I know the illusions I followed. I know what I wanted but that was never possible. Three times I tried. Instead I have the life of the possible. That is all right with me. I am all right.

Why Do I Do This?

You tell me to check
so I look in all the back
rooms, in the boxes
I stashed there, looking
for motives, hidden behind
the obvious ones.

Out of the corner
of my eye something scurries
along the wall, dives
into that small hole
and refuses to come out,
not even for you.

That is, you say, the main motive.

February 2, 2009 2:42 PM

Summer's Weeds

I walked back to where
you pointed me and found them
at the place you said,
poking up, new growth,
new blooms, fire jewels, satin,
pictures of yearning,
one for another.
I feel that for you, as if
I am a new bloom
hoping you will touch
me, hoping I will respond,
hoping we can heal.

August 8, 2010 7:18 AM

How Did We End Up Here? - A Magpie Tale

A door and antique latch found in Charleston, I presume in South Carolina - Image offered by Tess Kincaid as a writing prompt on Mag 172.

How Did We End Up Here?

Whatever you do
do not open that old farm
door, do not go up
to it even...do
not step on that splintered porch.
The dog on guard ran
off after rabid
coons and the cow's got a bloat
as you can very
well hear from the yard.
Where are the chickens, I ask.
There are no chickens.
The moss is killing the trees
down this muddy lane.

Am I ever glad
I just dream this strange shit up.
It's true. My mind is
a terrible thing.

June 9, 2013 9:47 AM

To join this week's The Mag creative writing group *click here*

In A Spring Fever

It does indeed seem
odd that you would agree with
my take on the sky.
You went all the way,
shot the moon while I stayed home
sure I should avoid
such a thing over
cows and forks and spoons running
while I got out of
the way still to build
some opinion as if I
had something real
to add anyhow.

Your garden is fine,
special this spring and fully
dusted by wee folk.

June 8, 2013 3:03 PM

The Dancing Girl - Reprise

This is a memory. I once had a woman dance for me in my living room in a full costume including a long flowing black-haired wig. What a gift. This moment was one of many with her that changed my life.

The Dancing Girl

You told me secrets
about dancing, it's costume
that makes it real,
that's what you said, then
you twirled your full skirts so high
I saw your full shape,
the shine of your shoes,
and the grace notes in my heart
all from the rhythmic
swirl of your sweet world.

February 25, 2009 7:40 PM

She worked a magic. They say magic cannot happen unless you believe, but I say that's not quite right. We say falling in love. We also say one falls for a thing. This is a heart action. I fell for the dance. I fell for the offer. I fell for the promise. I fell for the girl. This is a movement.

It is also an expression of the duality involved when an artist, actor, musician creates a fan who falls in love. I would not have fallen for the dance had she not been the dancer. I might not have fallen for the dancer had the dance been awkward. And it is true. Even as the dancer fell for me as well, why she danced for me, she retained the power to step away later and I did not have that power. I believe that imbalance can only feel profoundly unfair. "All is fair in love and war." Maybe. But it is the way of the world. That imbalance is nearly always present, is it not? One of the lovers will nearly always retain the power to violate the affair somehow. The other will cry, "Unfair!" while falling to their knees in the pain.

She couldn't be alone. When she left, she left me for another, a lover timed so he could appear in her life openly where we were clandestine, but also he was a brighter, shinier thing. For me one unsuccessful love affair and for her, two failed affairs in succession, and the second much worse because she fell for even less possibility along with the shinier surface. In a way she was in a descent and still descending as she left me.

One reader commented: A private dance (is) more intimate than sex. That dance for me certainly was.

*Post, poem and commentary exerpts from November 10-12, 2009*

Field Theory - Reprise

I fall in love like this poem expresses it from time to time. It is not only a person. It might be an art form, or a musical piece, or the way the sky looks tonight. When I fall all the way it seems to come out the same way every time. I guess I am okay with that.

Field Theory

I took you from fields,
brought you into my home state,
expected your blooms
and the scent of you
to change my life forever.
That is what happened
but in a surprise
move, you pried my hands free
of their hold on you.
Sailing off on winds
that I could not understand,
you gave me myself.

Written February 27, 2009 2:24 PM
First Posted November 19, 2009

I highly recommend the first posting. There was a pretty good intro essay. Also there was a great discussion of things that took place among friends in the comments after. Just click on the "First Posted" line to go there.

The Six Dimensions of Time

This is real

Sweeping The Middle - A Magpie Tale and 3WW

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To join this week's 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*
This week's words:

Damaging; Ego; Legitimate.






From Tess Kincaid's Mag 171, image of Morris Grave's Walking, Walking, Singing In The Next Dimension, a triptych image from 1979. To join the Mag creative writing group *click here*

Sweeping The Middle

I'm not damaging
the rimshot sound of the snare
nor the ego shape
of the middle sweep
when I declare this snooker
a legitimate
marriage - Sunday's
queen to Wednesday's longtime
three word publisher -

Herr Doctor Freud moans
his complaints in the background
mist of this headland.

June 5, 2013 3:03 PM

Preparations

Preparations

Berserker force leaves
outside my shaggy garden
hesitate to fall
directly on my path.
The arctic autumn is poised
behind the current
front lines of summer,
the coming campaign building
like storm clouds often
do.

August 7, 2010 7:03 AM

It Happened Again

He gets to say it
because he wrote his whole thing
down from first to last -
and next, his sunrise
on the highest point diving
down the spire. Always
in the distance new shade
freshly drawn where night
fades in one fine day and he
calls our young to work,
to rise and grow wings,
to reach cruising shape and speed,
to say yes to it
while elders grin, sigh,
blow breathy notes on worn reeds
and then shuffle on.

June 2, 2013 9:49 PM

The Sniper

A nine line story. We know how these things go because the media and entertainment industries give us accurate infotainment. I received US Army basic training and I too could be a government trained sniper. I rated sharpshooter but just missed expert rating on the M-14. A little practice with the right long range and short range weapons and I could be the shooter. I am confident of it. To be on the other end of the shot of course requires no training at all.



The Sniper

All the points you made
fall away like over cooked
leaves of artichoke.
They're the same drab green
too as the shot rings out close
and the glass explodes.

Then I, smashed back past
my breath, feel the red flower
grow on my torn breast.

August 6, 2010 4:28 PM

Prometheus Chained - 3WW

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To join this week's 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*
This week's words:

Badge; Darken; Liability.



Prometheus Chained

The badge you gave me,
I have worn it constantly,
watched my uniform
fade around it, the cloth
beneath darken accordingly.

I must of need shed it all,
all to my last breaking bone.

Liability
hovers over me
like a vulture might, seeking
my liver before
it putrefies, swells
in alcoholic sway, becomes
dangerous to eat.

May 29, 2013 9:58 AM

The Coming Of That Good Night

Yesterday, I was gifted with a couple phrases from a poem I read. Today I am replying to a comment on yesterday's poem, but also to Dylan Thomas' poem where he exhorts us to "rage, rage against the dying of the light."

The Coming Of That Good Night

Quiet pondering
could be the thing I try thus
if only I could
shut me the hell up.

I stand in tall grassy light
at the end of my
energy, trying
to make sense or at least smile
as the sun goes down.

May 28, 2013 9:17 AM

How Some Evenings Go

The world shrugs - see ya -
and throws the sun down the slope
so surely I can't
complain about twilight
though I soon must light the lamp.
What is with the world
is what I now muse
as if the world might reason
with me in the dark.
I snuffle around
like a wild dog might, refuse
to settle - not now.

May 27, 2013 7:29 PM

Passion - A Magpie Tale

Ponytail by Last Exit
offered by Tess Kincaid as a prompt for Mag 170

Passion

Just how bad I want
to kiss you right now
could turn into a movie
starring Paul Newman
or Robert Redford,
someone like that or I reach
out my hand and stroke
your hair, gliding down
its sweep of silk, its auburn
a swirl of dream smoke,
a complete surprise,
world creation, utter truth.

May, 26, 2013 8:03 AM

To join this week's The Mag creative writing group *click here*

The Kiss Of The Fin-footed Mammal - 3WW

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To join this week's 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*
This week's words:

Clever; Finish; Silky.



The Kiss Of The Fin-footed Mammal

There's a fishy smell
and the slurp of the waves kiss
my ears - have you felt
the wash of seal's tongue?
A clever moment, that's sure.
The joy of the chase -
Remember sinking
to the finish of all things
and then with a flick
darting off after
schools of silky silver prey?

May 22, 2013 7:07 AM

An Ordinary Man

Just ordinary,
I choose to sit near the sun,
near the edge of all
the planetary
fields of force and the gas clouds
that fluoresce neon
out beyond late light.
Just ordinary, I've done
the work and I'm here
because I'm not all
there.

May 20, 2013 2:38 PM

Landscape - A Magpie Tale

Jamie Wyeth, Lighthouse Dandelions, suggested by Tess Kincaid but found *here*

Jamie Wyeth is a third generation member of a family of artists, all in the Contemporary Realism school. His grandfather: N.C. Wyeth. His father: Andrew Wyeth. He was raised to be the artist he is, basically home schooled in all things and especially in his art by his family.

Landscape

The rolling lemon
hillside of my inner peace
has a high holy
house of light and shade
erected here on the land
of my natural
legacy.

My ache
over the strange wash of light
I find in this scene
is barely matched by
the palette of squishy stuff
I now have at hand.

Gossamer weeds bend
my heart. I sway in the wind
that comes from the sea.

May 19, 2013 9:13 AM

To join this week's The Mag creative writing group *click here*

Listing To The Left

Too bad you're not what
the doctor's ordered lately.
I would have been good
to go at this time
otherwise.

You show up in
these moments driven
by the wrath of God
to roil in the weather eye
leaving me to stand
at a cant to life,
not that level anyhow
even if I do
stay dry.

Yes, I do stay dry.

May 17, 2013 2:33 PM

I would like to be at perfect peace and ease and I know already that this entails vacating my attitudes and fears, my wants and yearnings, and coming to know that all nearby is as it is because that is required to balance all the rest as it is. Since I cannot yet accomplish this balance, I make delicate love somewhere in my life, with you, on the keyboards producing music or poetry, with my cat making him crosseyed with the pleasure of a great head massage, or in service in some other small way.

But I avoid the hard stuff if I can. That's probably a shortcoming.

Who The Hell Is Joe? - 3WW

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To join this week's 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*
This week's words:

Helpless; Trample; Vigilant.



Who The Hell Is Joe?

I am not helpless,
or I don't think I am, not
like I was that day
in the elephant
herd, under the trample stomp
of big fat gray feet.
I must keep alert
though, the vigilant posture
is mine, sayeth Joe.
You never know where
the pachyderms lurk, heavy
in my scheme of things.

May 15, 2013 10:32 AM

Summer Storms

Something happened. This was back in 2010, nearly three years ago. I don't know now what it was happened and if it happened to me. I guess it mattered then. Or maybe I told a story, made the whole thing up.

Summer Storms

The impact spreads me
in a crystalline design
on the concrete strip
of my barren life.

I am willing to receive
the fat drops of rain
that are forecast soon.

I want thunder, lightning, hail,
an inundation
to drown my splintered
wooden heart in summer storms
and send it to sea.

August 6, 2010 3:55 PM

The Quiet Unmarked Path

The Quiet Unmarked Path

Here's a true silence
Drifting down like fine snowflakes
Collecting around
My tree, cooling me
As I perch on this lowest
Limb trying to see
The lines of all things.

Among things I hope I see,
Footprints may appear,
May lead me further
On this quiet unmarked path.
In the drifting snow.

Written January 18, 2009 9:23 AM
First Posted June 21, 2009

In The Station - A Magpie Tale

The old man in the photo got away briefly from his wife and told me some stories while chain smoking cigarettes. He has promised to quit smoking, he confessed to me, and it has only led him to more sneaking around. Then he led me back to where his wife was waiting and handed me his camera preset to sepia. He asked me please to take this portrait before they embarked. I do not question why a guy who looks like him is actually American. But then I don't know how to question what we were doing in an Albanian train station either. Stuff like this always happens to me.

He sent the picture to my Google Email Account the other day. I don't know how Tess got it for The Mag. Oh by the way, to the left the communication icons say, NO SMOKING and also NO CAMERAS. And why does the wife want him to quit when she smokes too? Will she quit smoking as well?

And if there is no smoking there, why do they provide an ash receptacle?

As best I remember, here is what he said at one point in his phlegm filled voice. I have taken out the coughing.

This Argument Started
In Third Grade

I can't ever see
why a self respecting place
calls itself Turkey.
Togan and Şahan
are lads from a large dumb bird
and I like roast beef
for my Thanksgiving
dinner anyway, brother.
I have not resolved
this childhood tangle
in my full grown ear and brain.
It still makes my head
rattle and wobble,
though nowadays I try to
deny it, be cool.

May 12, 2013 10:25 AM

Togan Gökbakar and his older brother Şahan Gökbakar as he told me are indeed from Turkey and are young filmmakers.

To check out and read or join this week's Mag Creative Writing Group *click here*

Absence

The via negativa...

Via negativa or Via negationis (Lat., ‘way of negation’). Realization that since God is not a universe or an object in a universe, ‘he’ is not open to observation or description. It follows that God can only be spoken of analogically or poetically; and that it is easier to say ‘what God is not’ rather than what God is. This awareness occurs, in different forms, in all theistic religions, e.g. in ein-sof, bilā kaifa, neti neti, nirguṇa-brahman. This is apophatic, as opposed to kataphatic theology.

Absence

Today, I'm absent.
I do not sit in this seat.
I deny presence.
I have no purpose
For being gone, but gone I am.
I would be here now
If I was but, no,
I am not here, not waiting
And not writing this.

Written, January 18, 2009 9:08 AM
First Posted, June 21, 2009

To introduce this poem and one other in the original post, I wrote in part:

A man I love gave a talk one time and he pointed out that when my distress is mainly mental, or even when it is physical at least the mental component can be dealt with by focusing the time frame. He said that there is really nothing wrong right now. He said whenever there is mental distress it is either coming from the future or the past and if I narrow my time frame to right now my pain will be already over or not yet here. In other words it is so often true that there is nothing wrong right now.

Gutter Games

The cosmic nature
of a slip of cut paper
cut to fit the word
and laid down neatly
in a leafy pose, two leaves
and this otherwise
clean gutter, the thumb
sticking out, the word almost
like a severed thumb
pointing to something -
we probably need to take
this as just for us.
Tell no one! she said.

August 5, 2010 4:38 PM

A Hard Moment - 3WW

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To join this week's 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*
This week's words:

Destruction; Lanky; Ultimatum.



A Hard Moment

Destruction derby:
because I need it, oh God
help me, oh lanky
God screeching "No, no!"-
your ultimatum my last
stand among ruin
I richly deserve.
I've so earned my destiny
at the gun tables
(tea dregs on the floor)
while you douse me with urine
to hunt the king's deer.

May 8, 2013 6:16 AM