Sonnet Challenge #38

I decided to spent some of my new free time to call people I haven’t seen in a while, or have stopped seeing in the course of life because of the social distancing.  I also decided to use the time for some more poetry.  On Sunday afternoon I sat down to write a poem but didn’t find any inspiration, so I decided to call someone.  I got voicemail.  So I called someone else.  Ditto.  Eight voicemails later, I had my inspiration.

Voicemail

A quiet day with little going on,
in Covid times the schedule is quite bare.
I miss my friends, hope they have not become
statistics with what’s going on out there.
I guess they also won’t have much to do
so thought I’d be the one that would reach out,
pick up the phone and say “Hey, how are you?”
not leave our friendship’s worth to me in doubt.
But all I got was voicemails! Every one!
Had I missed out on something? Checked the news…
there’s really nothing different going on!
I guess just me that’s sat here with the blues.
They’ll all call back at once, that’s what they’ll do
And get my outgoing voicemail message too!

Not a sonnet

I haven’t posted any sonnets for a while.  I also write non-sonnets!  Here’s a fun one to make a Monday morning a bit lighter.

I’d rather be with someone.

I’d rather be with someone who’s a laugh a minute than a dollar a second.
I’d rather be with someone who’s good in bed than god at the bank.
I’d rather be with someone who’d prefer to watch the sun go down than the dollar rise.
I’d rather be with someone who tries to make me happy than who’d try to buy me happiness.
I’d rather be with someone who’s a good kisser than a good spender.
I’d rather be with someone who’d prefer to keep me warm at night than buy me a mansion in the sun.
I’d rather be with someone who’ll dance with me than bring me diamonds.
I’d rather be with someone who’s good company than who’d buy me a company.
I’d rather be with someone who’s got a good heart than a good portfolio.
I’d rather be with someone who’s my honey pie than my sugar daddy.
I’d rather be with someone who’s an equal than an equals.
I’d rather be with someone who’s well read than wealthy.
I’d rather be with someone who’s likable than loaded.
I’d rather be with someone who’s intelligent than in clover.
I’d rather be with someone who’ll say I need a face-lift because he wants to make me smile.
I’d rather be with someone who’ll take me to the ball game than buy the team.
I’d rather be with someone who’ll rent us a row boat than buy a yacht.
I’d rather be with someone who’s still values our relationship when we’re broke.
I’d rather be with someone who’s real than rich.
I don’t want to be with someone who’s valued in millions, I want to be with someone who’s priceless.

Sonnet Challenge #27

I realized that I had not posted this sonnet, despite the fact that it was inspired by the experience of a fellow blogger.  Rhi had gone for a very important interview and had asked for some accommodations to help with the difficulties with environment unfamiliarity due to autism.  They guessed at how they needed to overcome her difficulties and did not succeed too much.  Perhaps as a consequence, neither did she at securing the job.  I recommend you read her blog entry before you read the sonnet.

A day in your moccasins

We able-bodied try to understand
the difficulties of the body bent
into a chair, or missing foot or hand
by hobbling ourselves, with the intent
of walking in your shoes – or wheels – or world
of silence. We can don masks, hold a cane,
experience the perspective of hands curled
to uselessnes by age’s creeping pain.
This path we walked can help us build a bridge
across the chasms that hold back those not whole;
and yet one group we still leave on the edge
unable to feel how you’re untypical.
We can’t take steps inside a spectrum mind.
Only see footprints in the sand you left behind.

Sonnet Challenge #26

Sometimes I think poets go through all the circumstances themselves so they can write about things from a personal perspective.

Inside Prejudice

Outside of prejudice, a place that’s learned
like old wives’ tales, absorbed at parent’s knee
to recognize the ones that should be spurned,
no why, just that’s the way that it should be.
Inside of prejudice, that face is turned,
for reasons I can’t fathom, away from me,
til whispers, giggles stop when I get near
and conversation turns to other things.
I know I am the joke I cannot hear
and my imagination then takes wings
and rises on the heat of latent fear,
the wind that is despair, and all it brings.
Outside of prejudice can see no wrong.
Inside of prejudice I don’t belong.

Sonnet Challenge #17

I seem to have spent so much time recently on travelling and teaching, there’s been little time to paint (except commissions) or write, though the most recent trip to the Phoenix area produced another eight sonnets which I have yet to even type up.  Nevertheless, even without prompting from something or someone, occasionally a poem will fall out of the end of the pen.

Happiness is a gray stick
A thick, gray, gnarly four-foot stick to hold

and lean on, when you have Atlas’s day;

warm wood to grip, not metal, when you’re cold;

a friend to prod dark paths and find your way

between elations clouds, chasm’s dark eyes.

Such is the stick of happiness, who prods

you on from gray dawn to a bright sunrise

with steadiness solider than carrot gods

that promise futures.  Happiness is now,

it takes tomorrow when it becomes today;

yesterday’s a less, not a furrowed brow –

or just a tale that we can laugh a way.

When you walk with the stick of happiness

you’ll go through life with more, and never less.

All I want for Christmas….

….is some little hats like these for my cactus.  These are at one of Doug’s neighbors, in the city (Brea, CA).  Of course I have waay more cacti than this that I could make Santa hats for.

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Frohe Weinachten, Feliz Navidad!

Paint Pink

 

 

Last night I went to Calexico to the Paint Pink show reception.  This is a breast-cancer awareness themed show – and the requirements were anything to do with breast-cancer or anything pink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reception was quite well attended – I got there a little late so some had already left.  One thing that I did notice was that most of the work was very small!

 

It was wonderful though to see that there were quite a few sales.

 

 

 

My work was definitely the largest there – and I didn’t even photo most of it. You can just see the two smallest ones on the right here.  The ones I chose to take were my most pink work, I don’t have anything specifically to do with breast cancer.

Sonnet Challenge #8

Another one from San Diego fan’s amazing imagination.  “Response to someone who wants to have their body cryogenically frozen after death”.  By the way, I’ve now gotten past half way to writing more sonnets than the Bard.  If anyone reading these has some more challenge subjects they’d like to suggest, I’m open to options.

Stone Cold.

Do you anticipate you’ll go to hell

and think your soul might just get frozen in

your body? Did you have a life of sin

that makes you feel you really might as well

just stay here?  You won’t bet on where you’ll be

upstairs or down?  Or do you disbelieve

in afterlife or relife – no reprieve

from non-existence? No eternity

for you.  You want to stay here in this flesh,

a jail whose rotting walls are stuck in time

by coldness, ’til the statute of your crime

has run and you can start your life afresh.

How little faith that you would want to stay

When heaven’s just a last heartbeat away.

Sonnet Challenge #3

This one was from a San Diego fan’s challenge:  “The advantages and hidden disadvantages of hot showers”.  As you can see, I’ve used poetic license in the interpretation.  Please try though, to imagine yourself in the shower, and not me.

Hot Water
I turn the motel shower faucet on –

a test!  It’s up and down, or left and right?

At last, a stream, then, leaving it to warm

for a quick shower, I tie my braids up tight.

I step in, barely warm for a quick sluice.

I’d like some heat to help tired muscles unfold.

So left a notch, soap up, sweet scented juice

but suddenly this rainfall starts to scald

my skin.  I wince and dodge and nudge it right,

but now it’s ice!  I shudder, try to turn

it back to middle, but I lose this fight,

rinse, alternating between freeze and burn.

So maybe next time I will be more bold,

Decide to simply have the shower cold.

Creative Minds

Once you read this article – whether or not you’re not one of the creatives – it makes some interesting observations on why we stand out from the crowd.