Who would think that one day I would be marching to Rule, Britannia with other wazungu, one Indian and a Kenyan. We sweat together, smile and laugh in a cheerful atmosphere of aerobic exercise.
Outside the matatus and tuk tuks drive on, delivering workers and school children under the tropical sky and half-moon.
on a veranda
wait for the rainy season
to fall on us all
________________
dVerse prompt to write a haibun and use of the word half-moon
It was obvious
I was never there
accusations
were that I was
since I was not lost
found my way around
knew the depth
of a verse
______________
Italics are titles of podcasts in this prompt from dVerse
(When life is a question does anybody have an answer?)
What am I going to do with my life? he asks
Can you really answer that? she responds
Why can’t I just get on with my life?
What kind of a life do you want to get on with?
Can we take this in another direction?
What direction do you want to go?
Can I consider space?
Is space what you want to do with your life?
Can I be buried in space?
To be jettisoned into the universe?
Why not?
Do you want your body to expand twice its size?
That’s what would happen?
Can you see yourself frozen in space for millions of years?
What if I’m close to a star?
Do you want to burn to a crisp?
Why are you asking all these questions?
Do you really want an answer?
_________________
NaPoWriMo Day 28 prompt to write a poem of questions.
I followed my family name
to Yorkshire cemetery
where those old family headstones
held the dates of birth and death
those old Anglo Saxon names
etched upright in native stone
surrounded old Roman church
//////////////////////////////////////////////////
bell tolled to gather us in
stone baptismal at the door
I drank from silver chalice
the vicar offered me
in the rite of communion
aware of ancestral lips
that had taken worship there
////////////////////////////////////////////////
I search Proctor family name
Old English word proketour
occupational surname
for those who worked as steward
from the Latin procurare
to manage spiritu cors
keeper of the key— that’s me
_____________
NaPoWriMo prompt to delve into your name
All mismatched socks go in a bag
(evidence that I have given up the task)
I wear the individuals until there are holes
then throw them away
occasionally
buried in the bag
is a pair
long departed from each other
and I rejoice
they are together again
_______________________
dVerse prompt on laundry. Here’s to the missing socks that went down the drain and didn’t get in this poem.
Facebook knows more about me
than I know about myself
it wants to embrace me
within its algorithms
show me my next vacation
what I should buy
based on my last search
who my friends really are
in a bombardment
of information and disinformation
___________________
dVerse quadrille prompt using the word embrace
honing down on my love/hate relationship with Facebook
In Anchorage there were lots of ravens but I did not see eagles. An osprey flew over Gazzam Lake with talons holding a fish. It looked cartoonish, its nest perched high. In southeastern Texas, a bird of prey circled and settled in a towering pine. “What is that bird?” I asked. It’s an eagle they said. Pretty sure that’s an eagle.
I have seen bald eagles, juveniles, goldens. This was no eagle. This was a smaller bird, darker, sleek and slender. There are still those who thought they saw an eagle. It was a Mississippi kite. It came again the next day and waited awhile on a wire.
now at Autumn Lake
this flock of cedar waxwings
flying north to Spring
_______________________
dVerse prompt to write a haibun concerning the eagle.
“The clear vowels rise like balloons.” Sylvia Plath
Deeper are the diphthongs
So bound
Neither the o or the u can rise
In their own sound
———————-
dVerse prompt taking the end of a poem (in this case Plath’s last line of her poem Morning Song) and using it to make a beginning. My mind went to diphthongs and how the vowels no longer make their own sound. Sylvia Plath was such a great writer but so bound. This poem makes me want to cry.
Today
facial ID
doesn’t know me
I
even forgot
who
I
am
was this a fugue state
police state
or dream state
I
didn’t
even
want
to
know
____________
dVerse prompt choosing the “line” end and putting in more ends. Bringing out frustration when facial id won’t recognize me. Started with
Today facial ID doesn’t know me
I even forgot who I was
Was this a fugue state
Police state
Or a dream state
I
I came out of the canal listening
for my own voice
with my first breath
I heard it as a cry
I found darkness in my eyes
til opened to the light
I was that baby you wanted to be boy
I was made girl
all parts of me to receive touch
to open
to flower
II
Listening for my own voice
it navigated out of my thoughts
my mind spoke a product of time
of culture of possibilities
of bouquets gathered in spring
it was good to be who I am
III
Now the voice knows its own cry
weeps into the light and dark
listens with belladonna ears
what hallucinations will arise
wordshophop 