Forums

A collaboration with poet Lia Brooks. 

https://feversofthemind.com/2022/07/07/poetry-art-not-walking-by-phil-wood-lia-brooks/

All the best.

Phil

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have one appearing here...

https://www.kleksograph.be/

 

Best

 

Phil

 

Killin’ time sippin’ whiskey

At a bar on the boardwalk by the sea

the jukebox keeps on playin’ visions of love

and it takes me back to when I first saw you

swayin' to the rhythm of the waves

eyes as blue as the sea

the wind in your hair

pink ribbons everywhere

 

I stopped to stare

you did your best to make a boy aware

your swayin’ arms reached out letting me in

the touch of your hand calmed the storm within

your shinning light touched my mind, body, and soul

I saw it in your eyes

I felt it from your heart

Love was all around me

 

You made it so easy

the way you loved me

made it so easy with every little thing you did

Unconditional, unconditionally

You loved me unconditionally

 

We set sail upon the waters

you were the wind in my sails

drifting onto the sea of love

tides rolled by, waves of love

swept into my heart

The smile on your face, your laughter

brought me back from the depths of heartache and pain

I felt alive for the first time in my life

 

Anchored on the vessel of embodiment

cherishing the freedom from within

A rainbow appeared in the far horizon

and that girl

 

You made it so easy

the way you loved me

made it so easy with every little thing you did

Unconditional, unconditionally

You loved me unconditionally

 

 

 

 

 

 

illustrated by Robert g. Jerore

 

The Violin

    It was an average size theater, capable of seating two hundred persons. Tonight it was filled to capacity. The variety of entertainment presented during this evenings program was very enjoyable. There had been two vocal solos; a small singing group; an orchestral presentation; twin pianos duet, and a flautist. The twenty minute intermission which allowed a comfort break was over, and the second half of the evenings program was near completion, except for a female violinist who was last on the program.

    Auditorium lights overhead dimmed.; muffled sounds emanating from the audience diminished except for an occasional cough. Dark red, velvet curtains slowly opened accompanied with faint clicking of a few worn rollers as they moved along the rail, from which the curtains were suspended. The crowd hushed...another cough.

    From the left wing of the stage a lone figure emerged, illuminated by a small spot light beaming down from overhead. He strode toward a Grand piano stationed at left-center of the stage. Placing sheets of music against the upright rest on the piano, he seated himself on a frail looking bench, raising slightly to adjust his tuxedo tails. Not satisfied, he raised and seated himself twice more, before looking beneath the key board. There he tapped lightly with his foot, on the pedals of the piano. Adjusting a small lamp above the music rest, he fingered through the sheet music assuring himself everything was in readiness. Finally, he nodded slightly toward the right side of the stage. 

    Behind the opened curtain at the right wing, a young woman appeared, carrying a violin and bow. Clapping of the audience began the moment she appeared. She was wearing a light blue, strapless gown that flowed like water around her lithe body as she moved. Another spotlight followed her; its beam causing tresses of her long blonde hair to gleam like spun gold; clapping continued. At center stage she turned toward the audience...bowing slightly, acknowledging their enthusiastic greeting. Slowly, the applause faded, there was quiet except from somewhere in the audience again a light cough.

    Turning toward the pianist she nodded. At first his fingers touched the ivory keys lightly, then grew more intense as he played the lead to her chosen song. Raising the violin, she placed it beneath her chin, nestling it against her slender neck. It felt cool there. Drawing the bow across its strings lightly; she persuaded the violin to speak, as only a violin knows how. Sweet strains poured forth from the instrument filling the auditorium with a near human-like quality. Crying softly at first...resembling a plea of pure loneliness. It moaned as though deeply wrought in sorrow, calling out to a lost lover, yet knowing there would be no response to its cries. Softly, its soulful anguish began to fade...

AS ONE FROM THE SNOWFIELDS

 

 

Route to Navajo Mountain,

skitter of tumbleweed - land

and sky merge

like the face of Black God,

shadowy arms

canted to a common side.

 

Sounds of the ceremony

seal over distance

threading pop and hiss

of the engine with

stars ascending

paths the yeh-bi-chai took,

footfalls mute litany

along the galaxy’s ledges.

 

Small beneath the long ruin

of peaks

the road finds

the horizon’s shadow and follows.

Beneath those bodies

a man could walk

to the cliffs’ forgetful darkness,

that omnipotent mask.

 

A car goes by, headlights

soft probes on the highway.

Exhaust spreads

brief invisible fire in its wake.

Killdeer’s voice

starts from sleep at arroyo’s edge

and finds me from far away –

I am here! Here!

 

 

 

 

previously unpublished
© 2015 David W. Parsley
Parsley Poetry Collection

I know some of you occasionally scroll down to the reference section but naturally the primary focus here is the Member's Poetry which is as it should be.
 
However, with the recent change of format at PMO, the reference section went through extensive "clean up" and a little reorganization. I am really pleased with how it has turned out. There is certainly more out there to research and I will add it when I find it (I am searching all of the time.) but I think most of whatever is out there about the craft of writing poetry has now been documented here.
 
So if you have some time and are so inclined, scroll down the page check it out.. Or if you have writer's block and need some ideas to jump start your muse the world of poetry is a treasure box of ideas, maybe a new approach to an old idea is just what you need. See how the cultures of the world approach writing.....Explore the Craft of Writing From Around the World ...
 
Pick a genre, pick a culture, pick a structure, pick a technique or meter, explore! You might find it fun … [click on the title to continue reading]

The most common metric line in English poetry is iambic pentameter. A poem written in pure iambic pentameter (da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum) can create a sing songy effect yet a skilled writer can deliver the metric pattern without the poem sounding like a nursery rhyme. Here are some guidelines for composing iambic pentameters. The guidelines are generally accepted standards that I try to follow.
 
Many people have the misconception that a line of iambic pentameter must contain exactly five iambs. While five iambs in a row certainly does make an iambic pentameter, iambic pentameters are not limited to this configuration. Various substitutions (of other metrical feet) may be used within lines of iambic pentameter, and the lines will still be considered iambic pentameters … [click on the title to continue reading]

Hi to any who stop by here.  I haven't been very active in the blog forum, not really sure what I should share here.  I am a student of poetry and what I have posted in the Reference Forum is simply me trying to make sense of it all. In future blogs I will be using parts of that Forum but If you want to know something from the reference section, all you need do is go there.  You don't need a blog to direct you. 

Lately I've been reading blogs at different poetry sites and I'm taking on a new perspective.  I am going to try a weekly post to Tinker's Blog and I've chosen Thursdays.  So here I am.  Thursday, the day of the week when everyone who wanted to get something done took care of it on Monday through Wednesday and the procrastinators are waiting for Friday afternoon to take care of their business … [Click the title to continue reading]

Recently our own badger posted a poem in which he used the term "packet of crisps".   Badger is a Welshman living halfway across the world from me here in Northern California.   We are both English speakers.  But no one here in Cali would ever think of using the term "packet of crisps".  I got it, even though I would have written "bag of chips".   My granddaughter would have written "Tacquis", a type of chips. (The only type of chips in her world, peppered with Jalapenos, hot and spicy.}  My grandkids have their own "English" language, don't get me started on that.  And texting, ik i♥️u2 translates, "I know, I love you too."  Did you know there are poems written in emojis?

I just finished binge watching 8 seasons of an Australian TV show.  I loved it; it takes place … (click on the title to read the rest)

I'm reading a book by Stephen King called "On Writing -- A Memoir of the Craft." In one part, King says he is in "another place." He calls it a "far-seeing place" and describes it as a place with "lots of bright lights and clear images." King goes on to say that his is a "basement place" despite the seeming contradiction with bright lights and clear images. He suggests that an aspiring writer might construct a far-seeing place of his own and supposes it could be on a treetop, on the rooftop of the Empire State Building, or on the edge of the Grand Canyon.

I thought about my own place, the place I always knew I had since I started to write (though I hadn't, till now, realized it even was a place or considered that others might have such places, too). Mine is at the ends of the earth, of the universe even. Antarctica, the Arctic Ocean, the southern pole star, that "space between the stars" to which Frost alludes in Desert Places, the realm of the aurora -- I usually come to you from one of these places. (I have other places, too, but this is my primary far-seeing place.)

Do you have your own far-seeing place? Where is it? Do tell ...

Tony