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Poetry Postcard Fest Follow Up Post 2024 #3

September 10, 2024September 10, 2024humanist55

Dear Jill
The couple on this postcard
were supposed to be a long-haired poet
and a commodity trader
with over their heads, their thoughts floating
but which is which I wonder
this AI offering did not get my vote.

You live close to a great lake
but also near a windy city
and I wonder which
dominates your sense of place
are you a suburb of Chicago
or a separate town in Gurnee?
Does the place you live
influence your poetry
perhaps I’ll get to see
when you reply to me
I would say ‘if’ but I
have my fingers crossed…

P.S. Your card was my second arrival Jill!

The Poetry Postcard Fest is a challenge which encourages poets to write an unedited poem on a postcard and send it to a stranger. Organised by the Cascadia Poetics Lab, who organise the participants into lists of 31 + yourself for you to address your offerings to. This was my second year and I was on List 10. The lists are sent out in early July and you have until the end of August to send out your missives – to date I have received 16 of 31 possibles and now that we are into September, it is allowable to share the cards and poems you sent.
Although the original poem is to be sent as written – crossings out, blots and all, I have typed them out for people who can’t read my writing and I am allowing myself to edit if I feel like it…

The Witches of Washington…

September 9, 2024September 9, 2024humanist55

The image above is from the **Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection**.

The greatest feat of the Washington Witches Coven was to remain in plain sight as this rare photograph from the 1960’s reveals. Gathered together outside the premises of their leader, a veterinarian by trade, the members of the coven are each accompanied by their witches’ familiars – black cats each and every one of them. In any other age, such an unprecedented number of black cats in one place would undoubtedly have rung alarm bells and resulted in a witch-hunt, but this group of fashionably dressed (for middle-aged women) were merely perceived as slaves to the growing trend of pets as fashionable accessories and their predilection for felines of a noir colouring, merely a fashionable affectation.

Under the election and presidentship of renowned misogynist Donald Trump, the words “witch-hunt” found renewed currency, though not, ironically, in connection with actual witches! By now a little more discreet in their public gatherings, the Washington Coven played their part in fighting the menace of arse-trumpeting but just as all right minded people had been staggered by the election of the great, orange baby, so too, the matrons and even the younger members of the coven had found themselves wrong-footed and at a loss as to how best to combat the orange menace. The audacity of Trump madness fuelling false news such as baby-eating, paedophile rings operating behind Pizza restaurant fronts, beggared belief! By the time the coven were getting their ducks in a row, lining up the most potent spells to use on His Orangeness, he failed to be re-elected and a huge celebration ensued under full moon in the Washington Woods and much debate was had about the extent to which the power of the coven’s spells had contributed to the orange downfall.

But Trump is back, once again riling up his base with the same tired tropes about “draining the Washington swamp” – if only he knew the real powers ranged against him… Go! Black Cats!

This was written for Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction #FFFC

Poetry Postcard Fest Follow Up Post 2024 #2

September 8, 2024September 10, 2024humanist55

Dear Colette
Amidst the city reduced to heaps of rubble
revenge for one innocent peoples’
centuries of persecution and trouble
now enacted and exacted on another
a child learns resilience from new life
and wonder turns to hope…

I’m sorry this is such a heavy subject to start the season with but sadly it is the world we live in. I appreciated all your comments on my posts last year and was delighted to find you on my list, Colette – Lots of Love, Andrew

Tableau of the Fallen

September 6, 2024September 6, 2024humanist55

From my writing seat
the window frames the
tableau of yellow leaves
the wisteria
has met with Autumn
too early this year

Did I not water
one crucial day when
wind plucked the water
as surely as sun
drying out the leaves
killing them too soon

Today that same wind
plucks them from the vine
to lie in yellow
drifts upon the ground
the devastation
plucks at my heart too

Do those leaves accuse
me for lack of care
plants grown in a pot
need more vigilance
did I then fail them
like Gaza’s children

Plucked from life too soon
all because Zion
“is mowing the grass”
arms makers making
money from the war
leaders not leading

Have we the people
seeing the tableau
of all the fallen
done enough for those
unlucky to be born
trapped in a pot

They did not choose to
be born in a land
others had decided
they could not share with
had to have it all
to be safe from death

Children of Gaza
lie countless as my
wisteria leaves
accusing me of
not raising my voice
sufficiently yet…

https://how-would-you-know.com/2024/03/six-questions-from-pablo-neruda.html

https://how-would-you-know.com/2024/08/breaking-news-and-hearts.html

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, marks the birthday of American poet Sam Hamill (1943-2018) of whom she says “Hamill’s poetry is absent on rhyme and heavy on unadulterated lyricism. He talks his poetry to the page as here in “After Morning Rain” which switches between his personal loci and wider, world issues […] Hamill was a poet both in the world and of the world, being the leading light for ‘Poets Against the War’ and still his poetry does not stray far from what he sees, feels and knows directly”.

Laura also asks us to write in the poetry form ‘The Tableau’ created by Emily Romano in 2008:

Poetry Style:

1 or more verses
6 lines per verse
5 beats/syllables per line

Poetry Rules:

no rhyme scheme
title should contain the word ‘tableau’
poem should aim to be pictorial

Revolutionary Laughing

September 5, 2024September 5, 2024humanist55

I read a book by
a Serbian revolutionary
sharing his experience
of nonviolent action
to bring down dictators
and even military juntas
his greatest tool – laughter
poking fun utterly defeats them
imagine trumpety-Trump
the big, inflated, orange baby
wouldn’t he just hate it…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Mish in Poetics invites us to write about laughter and since I have little time before work, and as I am getting into the whole Quadrille thing, I have written something in just 44 words.
As a child, one of our favourite records to come on the radio, because it inexorably activated our audio mirror brain cells and had us giddily joining in – I give you “The Laughing Policeman” by Charles Jolly/Penrose…

Oh, and the book – Blueprint for Revolution, by Srdja Popovic

Spin Cycle

September 4, 2024September 4, 2024humanist55

Separate whites from coloureds
wisdom has it
but my clothes are so old
there’s no possibility of
dye displacement
I am a keeper
I have T-shirts
forty years old
faded a little
but not turned pink
I use conventional wisdom
when washing something new…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, whimsygizmo in Quadrille invites us to write a Quadrille – a poem in exactly 44 words – a regular feature at the pub and although we may use “spin” in any sense of the word, I immediately thought of a recent poem I wrote on the subject of washing clothes. The last stanza was 46 words long and might have made a standalone poem with just a two-word edit but I decided to practise the art of distillation and go for editing the whole poem down to 44 words to see if it caught the gist of it. I include the original below so you may be the judge of whether it works or is an edit too far…

Colourfast?

Always separate whites from coloureds
in your weekly wash
conventional wisdom has it
as passed down from
mothers to daughters
and even to sons
given the reluctant recognition
there will be a lacuna
between a mother’s ministrations
and another’s

But my clothes
are for the most part
so old and washed
so many times
there’s no possibility
of errant dye displacement
polluting one colour with another
so I sort according
to type – trousers and pants
socks and shirts
one wash destined for
the drying rack
one on coat hangers
hung up to dry

I am a keeper you see
I have T-shirts and
hand me downs
from my late father which I calculate
must be forty years
since newly purchased
on a trip to Australia
did my mother hope
to see some resurrection
in my wearing them?

Those T-shirts have
I grant you
faded a little
the fabric at least
if not the poster extolling Australia
or the intricate dots
of aboriginal art
but they haven’t turned pink
in some laundry accident
I do, after all
use conventional wisdom
when washing something new…

Alone Is the Star I Follow

August 30, 2024August 30, 2024humanist55

“alone is the star I follow. In love & in solitude”
– from February & my love is in another state – by José Olivarez

to live with the one you love
Is to immerse one’s self
in the illusion of not being alone

but alone we truly are
Coming into, leaving &
passing through the life of this world

so when illness, short of death
physical or mental, intrudes
we are shocked by our solitude

reminded we are alone even
in the presence of the other
and all the constructed togetherness

house, history and family
are all props in the play
& all of us but strolling players

not to disrespect the construct
which is our way of fighting entropy
creating meaning amongst disorder

we weave our fabric and let our flags
flutter in the winds of vicissitude
for friends and family to rally round

but in. the end, we are all
fallen soldiers in a battle
that nobody can win

Take the timely reminders
of essential solitude
to wrap your flag more tightly

around you & your loves
and Reaffirm the meanings
you choose to fight for…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Punam – paeansunplugged in OpenLinkNight offers us the chance to post a poem of our choice. This is one from my writing group after discussing and writing in the shadow of “February & my love is in another state” – by José Olivarez

Stormy Weather

August 27, 2024August 27, 2024humanist55

“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

”From “Ozymandias” – Percy Bysshe Shelley

Like the banks
we deemed ourselves
too big to fail
but when the rains came
mudslides and hurricanes
and all of them stronger
and more frequently
we discovered then
there was no-one
to bail us out…

Our leaders
many of them
thought that wealth
concentrated upwards
would rain gently
down upon the
huddled masses
or at least as far as
the middle classes
but the one percent
were so elevated
they couldn’t see
our plight
so far below

They thought
complexities of
climate change
too gnarly to
change course
and set their sights on
settling another planet
spaffing their pointless
bucks to fire off rockets
some of which
increased their wealth
seeding satellites
in an unholy net
across the heavens
to offer others
the dream of making it
to the top
or charged other
aspirants to admire
the blighted but
still beautiful Earth
from brief
sub-orbital sojourns

Will their legacy be
any more than Ozymandias
half buried in a desert
of their own making?

And what of us
the little people
are we to throw up
our hands in helplessness
and blame it on
those above us
for failing to
curb or even
feeding our appetites
for cars, fresh fruit
flown out of season
and batteries for our
mobiles – phones and cars

We may not leave
individual
broken statues
as our testaments
yet we are not islands
but part of the main…

Tonight, I am guest editing the prompt at dVerse Poets Pub for the Tueday Poetics spot. I have suggested an activist poem on any subject that gets your goat and as an optional challenge, poets can choose to begin with a Glose or quote, from another poem as I have done here…

Shelved

August 23, 2024August 23, 2024humanist55

I sit beside
a bookcase
laden with my life

The Charm of Birds
is the only gift from
my grandfather

I early read my
father’s G.B.S. complete
plays and prefaces

The camel teapot
contains half
my sister’s ashes

The group of geese is
my memento mori
to my mother

Books of hobbies
work and music
fill my shelves and brain…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, merrildsmith in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft challenges us to write to the Triversen form.

*Three-line stanzas (Tercets). Each tercet is a sentence.
The tercets are grammatical, and they are broken by breaths,
the accents and rhythms of normal speech—two to four beats per line.
*Unrhymed
The ideal length is 18 lines or 6 stanzas, but even Williams did not always follow that rule.
Ideally, each line is two to four beats, or stressed syllable (not total syllables). Williams disliked iambic pentameter, but others have written Triversen poems with more beats.
Here are some additional points that are often mentioned.
*Alliteration—it contributes to the stress syllables
*Imagist

As Ain commented on my last poem, I seem to be going through a phase of poetry memoir…

A Lifetime Love

August 21, 2024August 22, 2024humanist55

My father loved to cook a little but
gender roles made him the breadwinner
and not the bread baker.
My mother was a pre-feminist gal
refusing to teach her son to cook
unlike his sisters with someday
husbands and families to feed
I watched secretly –
absorbed the gist anyway.

On going to university
and facing the inevitability
of student self-sufficiency
they gave me a carbon steel Sabatier
a knife that sharpens beautifully
but must be cleaned immediately
else it soon goes rusty
I have worn it down every day of fifty-one years
– two food businesses and cooking daily
– now so thin it pares perfectly.

They also gave two books of recipes
The Paupers Cookbook and Catherine Whitehorn’s
classic Cooking in a Bedsit
sectioned One Ring, Two Rings and slimly
a Cooker for the very lucky…
I read and dutifully cooked a few
but though a lifelong love was born
yet who with a world of food to explore
would base their style on paucity

I added a book on Chinese cookery
whole, diced, steamed and stir fried
bought a wok and never looked back
spiced it up with the Penguin Indian cookery
And last but by no means least
found Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David

Seduced by the sensual celebratory
rather than precisely noted quantities
Elizabeth David liberated me
as well as, I later learned
the married man she ran off with
travelling Europe and living on a boat
My mother would not have approved

To these three parents chosen
Chinese, Indian and Mediterranean
I must mention the American professor
of studies West African
she taught my roomie and I
Palaver Sauce and Jollof Rice
suffered our inept experiments with nicety
so when I moved near Brixton Market
I fell into a world of ingredients
from bitter, Cypriot, taste-acquired
lemon and coriander brined olives.
to stinky, dried, West African fish in baskets
– I never came up for air

My culinary philosophy –
read recipes with a pinch of salt
absorb, ferment, reuse, infuse
resist encouragement to cull your larder
treat every meal as an adventure
feed strangers, friends and family
and you will never lose.

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, sanaarizvi in Poetics invites us to explore the senses in Food Poetry.
I should add, to contextualise the above poem, that my Mother’s maiden name was Cook and my partner’s Mother’s maiden name was Larder – go figure…