In The Scheme Of Things

Paint Chip Poetry

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No one’s really a blank canvas

In the grand plan and scheme of things

We tend to carry with us – 

All the stuff that life’s journey brings

Our childhoods – which like the Spring

Are merely a green flash

Then adolescent romance hits 

With tongue-tied attempts – that tend to crash

Then school is finished 

We seek out higher things

Opportunities fresh-squeezed

Life as yet to bear its sting

Some pass through the next few years

A tumbleweed without purpose

Your parents disapprovingly

Acting like you had runaway to join the circus

For some life brings rainstorms

Torrents of savage woe

Under the sea of troubles

Not sure of where to go

But our canvas is not blank

All those experiences to life you bring

Your easel adorned with a collage 

A big picture of the scheme of things

Padre

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Paint Chip Poetry Prompt #38: Although, I suppose, you are limited by these odd paint chip words and phrases: fresh-squeezed, tongue-tied, green flash, rainstorm, blank canvas, tumbleweed, and under the sea. Because they are a weird conglomeration of words, I’m only going to ask you to use three. But bonus points if your plan is to use them all and you succeed.

Breast

Pixabay

New and full of potential

Ill-defined of what it shall become

Infantile – the word’s true meaning

But full of so much promise – life just begun

 

Blooming – coming of age

Self-consciousness of the swell

Uneasy transformation

Puberty’s unlocked secret – now to tell

 

Ample – alluring

Lover’s attentions to titillate

Femininity manifest

Enhanced by lace uplifted – ultimate bait

 

Nourishing – life giving

New generation to sustain

Painful at times, and leaking

But she’d do it all again

 

Comforting – familiar

Soul-mate’s harbour secure

To snuggle into safely

Helping life’s pressures to endure

 

Declining- drawn by gravity

Or by cruel illness – cut away

But the heart beneath still beating

She – as loving, as nurturing in every way

 

Padre

Nocturnal Bridges

photo by Lerone Pieters via Unsplash

What adventures await us in our dreams?

As in nocturnal slumbers we bridge our way

From past yesterdays to the new today

 

Padre

 

Three Line Tales, Week 231

Falls

Pixabay

 

Falls

They stood before the cascading waters and spray of the majestic waterfall.  The world was theirs, full of beauty and promise.  Hand-in-hand they gazed into their future.

Beautiful – Plunging
Uncontrolled by man’s power
Calming – Turbulence

She stood before the cascading waters and spray of the majestic waterfall.  Her world like the waters themselves, careening. Widowed, she walked away alone.

 

Padre

 

This week Colleen has challenged us to write a poem in the haibun form.  A haibun, she explains follows this format:

• Begin the haibun with a title. The title should hint at something barely noticeable in the beginning which comes together by the ending.
• Your haibun prose can be written in present or past tense including, first person (I), third person (he/she), or first-person plural (we).
• Subject matter: autobiographical prose, travel journal, a slice of life, memory, dream, character sketch, place, event, or object. Focus on one or two elements.
• Keep your prose simple, all excessive words should be pared down or deleted. Nothing should be overstated.
• The length can be brief with one or two sentences with a haiku, or longer prose with a haiku sandwiched between, to longer memoir works including many haiku.
• There are different Haibun styles: Idyll: (One prose paragraph and one haiku) haiku/prose, or prose/haiku; Verse Envelope: haiku/prose/haiku; Prose Envelope: prose/haiku/prose, including alternating prose and verse elements of your choice.

I have chosen to write in the prose envelope form.

In the challenge, Colleen asked that we try to incorporate Frank J. Tassone’s photo (below).  I had first thought to write using it and having it as the scene of a “fall,” but that seemed too dark when I delved into it.  I then took the licence of making the scene “a little bit further along the cliff at a waterfall,”  and setting the narrative on two separate dates spaced years apart.

© 2020 Frank J. Tassone

 

Happily Ever After

Pixabay

 

Happily ever after,

So the story books do say

White horses, handsome princes

Fair maidens swept away

But living for the future

Is an error – many have made

Not cherishing each passing moment

And making the most of today

 

Padre

dVerse

Looking Back

Pixabay

It is amazing how quickly we can forget from where we have come from.  If we allow ourselves to be always forwards looking to greener fields, which many people teach is the right was to proceed in life, we can loose contact with how we got to this point anyway.  Who were the people, and what were the circumstances that have given us our outlook on life?  Do you recall that teacher who showed confidence in your abilities, and encouraged you to look beyond your self-imposed horizons?  Do we remember the loves found, and loves lost that taught us how to love, or sadly how not to?  Are we thankful for those rough times, when it just seemed that life was going nowhere, or worse still spiraling out of control?  Yet, you are still here, how did those moments make it that you are?

We are the sum of every person we have ever met.  We are the legacy of the events that framed us.  Let’s take a few moments to day to reflect and recall, and then move onwards into the unknown.
From whence have you came?

And to what place do you now go?

What were those fertile fields –

That nurtured and helped you grow?

You are but one person,

But yet a multifaceted being

You have been moulded and shaped

Everyday by life’s everythings.

 

Padre

 

Portals

Pixabay

Milestones

Stepping Stones

Portal gates through which we tread

Birth to first steps

And onward we go

Life ever changing

Adolescence – the springs of youth

Families we make and break

Every portal brings situations new

Until we face that one last gate

 

Padre

 

dVerse Poetics

 

Indiscretions: A Photo Themed Conquain

Image Credit: Balaji Malliswamy

Lurking
Lying in wait 
Life’s small indiscretions
Devour you – repent before it’s
Too late

Padre

A Cinquain is a short, usually unrhymed poem consisting of twenty-two syllables distributed as 2, 4, 6, 8, 2, in five lines.

 

Colleen’s 2020 Weekly #Tanka Tuesday #Poetry Challenge No. 178 #PhotoPrompt

 

 

Normal

Pixabay

Normal is tied to Mum’s apron strings

Until school days beckon

Normal is graduation robes and things

Until upon pay cheques you reckon

Normal is a life of wedding rings

Until that loved one passes on

Normal is but what the moment brings

What more can we ever count on?

 

Padre

Tuesday Writing Prompt Challenge: What does a return to “normal” look like for you?

Nomad?

Welcoming Committee Welsh Valleys

The merchant calls me a nomad.  I had to ask what the word meant.  He said it means that my sheep and I have no “regular” home.  That is so untrue.  During the snows we were in the valley.  It is spring, and we are in his fields for the lambing.   We will return for shearing. The same moon, is over us each night.  All is quite “regular.”

Padre

Weekend Writing Prompt #152 – Nomad in 68 words

FOWC with Fandango — Moon