Shark Adventure

 

Some sharks move to suburbia.

They are mutant land sharks, able to breath and speak in their

strange, halting pidgin. 

Their spawn, er, kids sign up for Little League

and eat burgers at picnic tables after the games--

A lot of burgers.

Okay all the burgers.

At little Maria's birthday party, there is a pinata. 

One of the shark kids bursts up from the lawn,

opens its gaping maw,

and consumes it whole, along with much of a maple tree. 

Version 1) Maria runs inside, crying.

Version 2) Maria starts writing "Mrs, Maria Shark" over and over

in her school notebook.

Some customs elude the sharks.

Someone brings over a bundt cake as a welcome gesture.

Mrs. Shark tries for an air kiss on the cheek but sends the woman to the hospital. 

It is awkward for everyone and permanent for the neighbor.

The sharks notice that PTA mothers' and golfing dads' smiles

have turned to scowls. 

Country Club sponsorships dry up. 

The sharks make a holiday visit to the community pool and everyone runs away screaming. 

The sharks start wearing disguises in the grocery store and at the bank.

"I am a harmless minnow," says one shark

from a few rows of dagger-like teeth.

During a visit to a local gallery, all the sharks wear berets

and funny eyeglass masks.

No one is fooled.

Realizing that things have gone too far for remedy,

the sharks shrug, as sharks will, 

and solve everything by eating the school principal, 

the HOA president, and the local chief of police, 

all in a single afternoon.

They pack up all their stuff and return to the sea

where people are not so judgy and unforgiving.

They playfully sink a fishing boat and eat all the occupants, fish, tackle, and the mast. 

They are home. Their stomachs are full. All is well.

Brody and Hooper may kiss their fantastic finned butts.

________

for Word Garden Word List--Shakespeare Bats Cleanup 

Music: Baby Shark (You're welcome!)

Word Garden Word List--Shakespeare Bats Cleanup

 

Happy Monday, my little seamheads! It is almost the end of winter, and down in Florida and out in Arizona, the baseball teams have gathered once again. Can spring be far away? In honor of the return of my first and truest love, your word list this week is taken from a fun little book called Shakespeare Bats Cleanup by Ron Koertge. 

The book is the poetic (?) musings of a young first baseman who finds himself felled by a case of mono, and with time on his hands, he starts writing. He may not have known a ballad from fruit salad when he began, but somehow a certain knack starts to appear. 

Says Koertge: One night my wife and I drove to Lake Elsinore to see a game. It was 10-zip in the fifth, so I started working on a poem. Not far away, while his father dunned him about batting stance and gumption, a boy of ten or eleven was writing something too. We exchanged a conspiratorial glance. On the way home, I told my wife I had an idea for a new book. 

Whether you've got chalk dust on the brain from baseball or blackboards, I hope you'll enjoy this List. What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. Then just link up, visit others, and root, root, root, for the home team! This List is active through Sunday. 

Your List:

bamboo

baseball

beret

burgers

disguises

fable

fracas

gallery

garage

holiday

hospital

mutant

pinata

pine

radio

salute

scowls

sharks

Spanish

whiffy

Gray Area

 

Impossible things--when I was little

there weren't very many of them. 

I thought--I might be like a girl I read

about, who woke up speaking Italian

though she never had before.

I thought I might discover a talent for

playing the piano

or hitting a softball

or performing feats of memory.

As time went on--well, you know.

Good at this, not so much at that.

Lucky at neither cards nor love. 

You have--oh, where should I start?

(should I start?) 

gray eyes like my father's,

amused and kind, but in a woman's face. 

I like--how you look in that flannel shirt

of gray, blue, and white, with the maroon henley

underneath, and old blue jeans. 

I like--your bedroom with the pastel

gray walls and cream trim. Yes, I looked

on my way to wash my hands

with your milk & honey soap. 

I'm nervous--but in such a delicious way.

Should I tell you what I'm feeling? I could

ruin this bright beginning, I know...

Your hair--it looks good gray

I want to touch it, touch you,

but chances have gone wrong before.

It's a gray area--how you might react,

how these things are done 

when nothing is familiar or sure. 

Impossible things--Alice's Queen believed

in at least six of them before breakfast

I'm wondering, could you?

Would you--take a chance on Wonderland with me?

________

for What's Going On? Colors Passing Through

Music: Denise King Stuck On You

launch code

 

soul is constant

a bell whose rope is already pulled

ringing in my ears all day long.

my body is its dog

sticking close, loyal as hell,

but short-lived. 

stars are soul

that couldn't be contained

kissing the dark with intention.

one day my body

past all nursing past all curing

will open like an underground silo

and everything

will expand in an instant BOOM

wow, hi, i'm not

an ant, i'm

a piece o' god on fire across the sky--

icarus eat your heart out.

_________

for Word Garden Word List--Gerard Manley Hopkins 

Music: Shay Torrent Flying Fiddles

Word Garden Word List--Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

Good afternoon, my frolicsome flock! It's time for another Word Garden Word List, and this week the words in our list are taken from the poems of English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Hopkins was a Jesuit priest as well as a poet, though his verse did not achieve popularity until after his death. 

Turning to the religious life in his early twenties, his calling was hard on him, as were his issues with his physical and mental health. Life was a struggle for the poet whose work is often filled with bright, dazzling imagery and an awe before nature and God. 

Here is a quote from Wikipedia that reveals some of what Hopkins struggled with:

According to John Bayley, "All his life Hopkins was haunted by the sense of personal bankruptcy and impotence, the straining of 'time's eunuch' with no more to 'spend'... " a sense of inadequacy, graphically expressed in his last sonnets.^[19] Toward the end of his life, Hopkins suffered several long bouts of depression. His "terrible sonnets" struggle with problems of religious doubt. He described them to Bridges as "[t]he thin gleanings of a long weary while"

I had some difficulty in creating this list. Hopkins uses a lot of what is now antiquated language, and also loves to combine two words into one of his own invention. I skipped all of both of those types in order to provide a List that lends itself to modern sensibilities. 

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. Then just link, and visit others. Easy! This prompt remains active through Sunday. 

Your List:

angels

artist

candle

comb

dappled

disorders

eggs

fetched

ghost

grandeur

havoc

jar

lamps

nursing

remembering

root

soul

stars

topsyturvy

waste

And this week, a bonus word: "adamantine" so as to include at least one of Hopkins' rather flowery choices. 

Aubade II

 

All those songs about waking up in a lover's arms--

I don't know what they're talking about.

Oh, I've known the happy wedding night mattress on the floor

amid the stacks of packing boxes

and the delicious view when the world narrows

to a single cherished face.

The bee, though, doesn't live inside the bloom,

and goes still inside a jar.

Touched on every side by an adoring indigo night,

there is still just one Moon. 

Allow me morning alone in my garden

with just my mug and dog.

It doesn't mean I never loved you, or loved you less.

There is only one dawn--this one

and it only waits so long. 

_______

For What's Going On? "Aubade"

Don't forget, the WORD GARDEN WORD LIST is active through Sunday. 

Music: George Harrison All Things Must Pass

Tricks

 I was playing cards against my own poem, penny a trick

and  

      had

            lost

                  thousands. 

"I brought you into this world," I began,

but she turned into a fog of lemon-fresh Glade,

then to a tiger wearing a bell,

and sat there smiling at me like a dime store Buddha.

She had the keys to me, that's the trouble,

and took them with her when she went. 

Strangers know me backward and forward

and I can only stammer at them, clueless and dizzy. 

She turns me to a gawky bird standing in the sawdust on one leg

while she builds her house around me. 

I am password protected, listed on the National Registry

and greenies stick spikes in me so she can't cut me down. 

I lay an ace and she

spreads out a peacock fan of kings and queens,

Russians and Persians,

lilacs and shade-loving violets.

I am playing cards with my own poem, stanza a hand,

and

       I

        am

             broke

but a newer poem brings me coffee, licks my ear

winds his slender self around me like a climbing vine as I

sweetly purr, "and I can take you out of it." 

_______

For Word Garden Word List -- T S Eliot.

Music: Josiah Bell Change In The Weather

Word Garden Word List--T S Eliot

 Hello friends! Please pardon the brevity of this week's blurb. I woke up today with a sore and pretty useless right arm, so typing and moving the mouse around is difficult, but the List must go on!

This time, our list is taken from "The Waste Land and Other Poems" by T S Eliot. I encourage you to look him up, and please forgive me for not including more background this once. 

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of our own. You may include an echo or homage to do with Eliot, but it isn't necessary. The only requirement is the 3 or more words from the List. Then link, visit others, and sit back with a smug sense of self-satisfaction! Me, I'm off to give my arm a good talking-to.

Your List, which remains active through Sunday:

bell

borrow

broke

cards

coffee

eyes

fog

keys

lemon

lilacs

penny

Russian

sawdust

shrubbery

singing

smallpox

spider

tiger

violet

worried

Safe House

 

Welcome to the safe house.

No one will find you here.

The ambulance is like a big rolling cotton ball, isn't it?

The siren has been modified to sound like a waterfall.

Please do not share this location with spouses or children--yours or not.   

Their tread on the white front steps would jar the keyboard of your recovery.

Meet helpers Jenny and George in their clean gray smocks. 

Yes, it's hard to tell which is which!

Many guests forget them even as they stand there smiling. 

In the parlor we have an electric fireplace

and framed Kincades on the eggshell walls.

We ask that you leave your red hats and rainbows with Susie at the door.

A few teensy tiny rules:

no weapons

no newspapers

no Facebook

no over-exertion

no stimulants

no sex

no drama

no poetry.

In a week or two, the nightmares should stop,

along with any disquieting longings or regrets. 

Non-attachment is our way.

You may even levitate, like a balloon.

If you get confused, just follow the white tape on the beige tile.

It can be difficult--even for staff! --to tell the bedrooms from the morgue.

_________

for What's Going On? "Safe". 

Music: the Pretenders Every Day Is Like Sunday

The Word Garden Word List is still HERE through Sunday! 

 

Shay's Word Garden List Prompt Returns! ---Yusef Komunyakka

 Hello friends, and welcome to the revival of the Word Garden Word List poetry prompt! February, as you know, is Black History Month, and so I thought we'd feature Yusef Komunyakka.

Born in Louisiana, a carpenter's son, the cadences of the black church and the bible were his first introduction to poetry, His poems weave together personal narrative, jazz rhythms, and vernacular language to create complex images of life in peace and war. 

THE DEVIL'S WORKSHOP (link to this poem will open in a new window.)

Komunyakka is a recipient of the Wallace Stevens Award, the Ruth Lilly Prize, the William Faulkner Prize, and numerous others. He currently serves as Distinguished Senior Poet in New York University's graduate creative writing program.

LUST (link will open in a new window,)

What we do here, my lambs, is to use at least three of the twenty words in the following list in a new poem of our own. Then simply link so we can visit, and visit others yourself. This prompt stays active through Sunday. That's it! Enjoy. 

art

blues

coyote

engines

experimenting

fox

lilies

lucky

oranges

pieties

poet

rhythms

scent

sober

soup

taboos

weeds

wildflowers

wish

zeroes

Three Views of a Singularity

 

There were

     a fox 

     in the wildflowers,

a coyote

     in the weeds,

and me

     lying in the lilies, waiting.

The fox offered

     certain pieties

that the red-necked chicken

     spoke tacitly against.

The coyote carried

     a lucky amulet

that the rabbit might be missing

     could she rise from his belly.

There was

      a soup

     strained from April,

a blues

     blown from 

     scents of oranges

and me

     lying in the lilies

     waiting.

_______

For Word Garden Word List--Yusef Komunyakka 

Music: Anouar Brahem The Astounding Eyes of Rita