Sonya Rhen's Blog, page 9
April 22, 2014
Tell Me Direction – National Poetry Month day 23 with Jessica Lindly
Welcome to National Poetry Month day twenty-three. Today I have fellow Meetup member and poet Jessica Lindly. Below is her thoughtful poem. Enjoy!
First off, I’d like to thank Sonya for this wonderful opportunity to contribute to an amazing month of blogging.
Poetry is kind of like tearing yourself open and seeing all that you have inside, and then taking that and being able to communicate it.
Tell Me Direction
Please tell me that there is something better than bitter
That I can take bitter
And kill it
That’s all I need to hear
Please tell me that the sun knows why it shines
That it gives its rays direction
And that it’s possible
That I could get some of that direction
Let me know why the mouse squeaks
Because as someone who has felt like a mouse
And barely made a sound
This is the most important question
Let me know that the moon is worth more than what the sun gives it
That it has its own light beyond the sun’s rays
Because reflection is certainly worth something
But even I must question if it is worth enough
But how could it be true
When the sun rises every day
And I still walk lost
Jessica Lindly Copyright 2014
Note: I just got on Twitter: Jessica Lindly@WrittenOn
And see my shiny new tumblr at poetryfingers.tumblr.com
April 21, 2014
Endangered Species (Sublime Planet) – National Poetry Month Day 22 with Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Welcome to National Poetry Month day twenty-two. Happy Earth Day everyone! Volunteer to clean up a park, pick up some litter, or just get outside and enjoy the outdoors.
Today I have Twitter friend, fellow author and poet, Carolyn Howard-Johnson. I met Carolyn on Twitter and if you are a writer, you must visit her website. She is very generous and has a wonderful newsletter that is filled with writerly advice. Enjoy the following poem!
I am pleased to be part of Sonya’s poetry month blitz. I took the long road to poetry–from journalism through public relations (the writing of media releases), copy writing, fiction, and finally–only recently–poetry. I hope you like this poem that won the Franklin Christoph prize of $1,000. I used it later in a book of poetry called Sublime Planet.(http://amzn.to/SublimePlanet). It was coauthored by Aussie poet Magdalena Ball and we wrote the book with Earth Day in mind, though it is good reading for anyone interested in Planet Earth or the Universe.
Sublime Planet
Endangered Species
A dragon, hiding as dragons
do, to pounce upon prey, shock
them into submission with forked
tongue, spiked tail, blue-green
scales, brimstone breath. But not
a sea dragon, this—nearly misnamed
a seahorse—dainty—
disguises herself in briny
fronds, sways with the current.
her delicate horn-shaped
snout trumpets silence.
Long like a dragon,
long as a water-lily stem,
soft, and—presumably,
slick. She flourishes
her leaf-like fins, the translucent
shade of her underwater forest
of amber seaweed pads, exactly,
matches her dance to that of the kelp,
ballet in slow motion
so the visitor to her underocean
home will not see her. She will take
them by surprise
with tenderness.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Accepted in Poets & Writers prestigious list of published poets, multi award-winning novelist and poet Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list “14 San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen”� and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts. She was an instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program for nearly a decade. In addition to Tracings, published by Finishing Line Press, she and Magdalena Ball coauthored the Celebration Series of chapbooks including Cherished Pulse (www.budurl.com/CherishedPulse) for someone you love, Imagining the Future: Ruminations on Fathers and Other Masculine Apparitions for the men in your life (www.budurl.com/Imagining), She Wore Emerald Then (www.budurl.com/MotherChapbook) for mothers and other women, Deeper in the Pond, for the feminists in your life— both men and women (www.budurl.com/DeeperPond), and Blooming Red (www.budurl.com/BloomingRed), to use as Christmas cards or incidental holiday gifts. You also will find an entry intended to please the tree-huggers in your social circle. Sublime Planet is at http://amzn.to/SublimePlanet and the selections for Sonya’s blog today is from that book.
Suzanne Lummis, UCLA poetry instructor and LA’s unique contribution to the poetry world says, “Sublime Planet begins with Carolyn Howard Johnson’s love poems to the living world, rapturous poems, expansive in spirit yet precise in detail: ‘An impossible moth,/dark eye at its center, opaque//helicopter blades buzz and blur… .’ In Magdalena Ball’s darker meditations, hurt and thirst have entered the world facilitated, in part, by the machinations of civilization. While Howard-Johnson’s poems praise, Ball’s seem to sound a low warning. I recommend Sublime Planet particularly to those individuals who reside on the planet.”
April 20, 2014
Caged | And Then I Let Him Go (Broken Pieces) – National Poetry Month day 21 with Rachel Thompson
Welcome to National Poetry Month day twenty-0ne. Today I have fellow author, Twitter friend, and poet Rachel Thompson for her second poetry post. Join her #MondayBlogs on Twitter or find some of her great advice for indie authors. Read her open and honest poems below and then check out more of her writing on a variety of social media platforms. Enjoy!
Broken Pieces
Excerpt from Broken Pieces by Rachel Thompson which is free as an Amazon eBook today and tomorrow.
Caged
The right answer is to turn and walk away. But his arms are so strong and his words caress her soul. In his heat she abandons her resolve.
She’s unsure how it started, moving from found to lost. One day she watches birds fly on apathetic wings, the next he stands behind her—his hands inside her heart.
He damages her new home, where she now lays her head, the place where guilt and lust meet.
But she cannot leave. His eyes hold her captive.
“You are mine,” he tells her. “I own you now.” She doesn’t disagree.
Her breath quickens, her skin burns from the real and imagined hold he has on her. He whispers promises of life together, as long as all the pieces of her are his.
Pieces of her—
all he needs.
And Then I Let Him Go
It hits me at the strangest times.
The fact that someone who was a part of my life is gone. Here today, gone tomorrow. A concept so hard to grasp when it happens to –
To whom? He’s the one who took his own life. Nothing happened to me, his ex-love from many years ago.
We spoke earlier that day. The day he decided would be his last.
We never will again. Impossible.
But he visits me, in my dreams, conjured by my disbelieving subconscious.
Or is he conjured by my heart?
I wake up from the dreams confused and—somehow—relieved. In some, he tells me he’s OK. In others he doesn’t speak, but he shows me he’s fine.
But there’s still too much I don’t know or understand about the man he became—this man I once shared my heart and body with. So I go about my days now, my full life bursting with my own family, and when he visits me in my dreams, I let him in.
And then I let him go.
Bio:
Rachel Thompson is the author of the award-winning Broken Pieces, as well as two additional humor books, A Walk In The Snark and Mancode: Exposed. She also owns BadRedhead Media, creating effective social media and book marketing campaigns for authors. Her articles appear regularly in The Huffington Post, The San Francisco Book Review (BadRedhead Says…), 12Most.com, bitrebels.com, BookPromotion.com, and Self Publishing Monthly. She hates walks in the rain, running out of coffee, and coconut. She lives in California with her family.
Links:
Author Site: rachelintheoc.com
Twitter: @RachelintheOC
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRachelThompson
Facebook Broken Pieces Fan Page:https://www.facebook.com/BrokenPiecesByRachelThompson
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/rachelintheoc/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rachel-thompson/24/784/b95
Goodreads:http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4619475.Rachel_Thompson
April 19, 2014
Spring – National Poetry Month day 20 with Jodey Mann
Welcome to National Poetry Month day twenty. Happy Easter! I hope your basket is filled with chocolate bunnies, marshmallow peeps, jelly beans and colorful eggs! Featured poets for week number three include Jodey Mann, Rachel Thompson, Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Kristy Lloyd, Michael O’Connor, and others.
Today I have my good friend and fellow poet, Jodey Mann with her second poetry post. Below is her poem extolling the wonders of Spring. Enjoy!
SPRING
Winter chills now warmer days
Morning sky is all a blaze
Showers sunbreaks blowing breeze
Green returning to the trees
Windows open fresh air in
Time for cleaning to begin
Weeding gardens trimming shrubs
Birds are happy finding grubs
Crocus tulips daffodils
Blooming flowers oh what thrills
New grass growing mow it down
Spring has sprung all over town
by Jodey Mann
April 18, 2014
Trigger – National Poetry Month day 19 with Eric Ian Huffman
Welcome to National Poetry Month day nineteen. Happy Record Store Day! Read some poetry, then head out to your nearest record store and buy some musical poetry!
Today I have fellow WordPress blogger and poet Eric Ian Huffman. Read his expressive poem below and then click on the link to find more of his imagery filled poems. Enjoy!
Trigger
We’ve each our unspoken trigger
The thing which brings us to remember
All the hurt, and churning uncertainty
Recalling The blind-mole, murmuring madness of the womb
Bravery, belonging only to the shining knights of fable
No, we are all frightened, shivering children
Never quite grown, wearing clothing decades too-large
Quivering in wait, anticipating the dark hammer’s fall
Though we smile, exchanging banter, the fear stalks
Black terror crawling up our throats, choking us
Coating our tongues with thick coagulate, as we speak
Seeping through the narrow gaps in our teeth
Collecting in the corners of our mouths, smelling foul
Look to the right, to the left, you will see, it’s there
It is for this, that smiles are so rare, and so seldom dared
April 17, 2014
Light (Broken Pieces) – National Poetry Month day 18 with Rachel Thompson
Welcome to National Poetry Month day eighteen. Happy Good Friday!
Today I have fellow author, Twitter friend, and poet Rachel Thompson. She is instigator of #MondayBlogs and a great advocate of indie authors. Check back later this month for another post from Rachel. Read her emotion filled poem below and then click on the links following to check out her other writing. Enjoy!
Broken Pieces
Excerpt from Broken Pieces by Rachel Thompson which is free as an Amazon eBook April 20-22.
Light
Allow me to drape my limbs over you; my secret murmurs soothing fears that keep you awake as the rays of the day fade on borrowed rest.
Grasping your hand to keep you from losing your way back to me, you meet my eyes with a rush of desire that slams me in a hard, brilliant flash.
Do you hear me? I whisper along your skin, cooled by the night air. Crossing this wide river to you, I pray you’ll reach for me as I pass by, drowning in your depths.
You, my only salvation.
Will you save me?
Waiting for the sun, I barely breathe so as not to wake you, unable to turn away from the glare of what we’ve wrought.
I bathe in our entangled gleam, where love lives inside the knowledge that tomorrow fades again.
Illumination only lasts until darkness decides to fall.
Bio:
Rachel Thompson is the author of the award-winning Broken Pieces, as well as two additional humor books, A Walk In The Snark and Mancode: Exposed. She also owns BadRedhead Media, creating effective social media and book marketing campaigns for authors. Her articles appear regularly in The Huffington Post, The San Francisco Book Review (BadRedhead Says…), 12Most.com, bitrebels.com, BookPromotion.com, and Self Publishing Monthly. She hates walks in the rain, running out of coffee, and coconut. She lives in California with her family.
Links:
Author Site: rachelintheoc.com
Twitter: @RachelintheOC
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRachelThompson
Facebook Broken Pieces Fan Page:https://www.facebook.com/BrokenPiecesByRachelThompson
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/rachelintheoc/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rachel-thompson/24/784/b95
Goodreads:http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4619475.Rachel_Thompson
April 16, 2014
Spider and Human| Winter – National Poetry Month day 17 with Ice
Welcome to National Poetry Month day seventeen. Today I have fellow poet, my daughter, who goes by the nickname Ice. Here are poems she wrote last year in the third grade. You may recognize these as a Diamante and a Haiku. Enjoy!
Spider and Human
spider
small crawly
jumping biting scaring
web legs – bed chair
big talented
human
♥
Winter
Soft snow lands in cracks
Coats as big as bowling balls
Red fox in fox den
April 15, 2014
Transference – National Poetry Month day 16 with Eric Ian Huffman
Welcome to National Poetry Month day sixteen. Today I have fellow WordPress blogger and poet, Eric Ian Huffman. Check back later in the month for another post with Eric. After reading the poem about what makes a great poem click on the link to his website for his varied and prolific poems. Enjoy!
Transference
A great poem, a poem which stays
A poem, which becomes a part of us
After having tasted and eaten its beating heart
Seeps into us deeply, burrowing, seeding
Coating our bones in its own thick blood
Making us drunk of crimson-truth’s philanthropy
Raping resistant minds with its fierce epiphany
A great poem, a poem which stays
Carried forth, assimilated in one’s marrow
Has within its sentience, a life sacrificed
And, consequently, a martyr’s departure
If you look closely into its gaze
If you dare watch it bleed out
You will see its dark pupils open wide
As it surrenders itself in death
As it acquiesces its last breath
Its entirety borne within the vapor
You will see its soul, passing
And feel its transference
These poems exist
Just to die for us
Changing our sight, forever
This, is the work of poets
These poems, mercifully rare
Though still, we hunger
Still, we quake
April 14, 2014
Ode to April – National Poetry Month day 15 with Jodey Mann
Welcome to National Poetry Month day fifteen. Happy Tax day. I hope you all filed! ;)
Today I have my good friend since jr. high, accomplice in untold deeds, beta reader and fellow poet, Jodey Mann. I had trouble picking a date in April for this. Hard to believe there are so many things to celebrate and remember in April. Enjoy!
Ode to April
April first the day of fools
Be on your guard and bend the rules
Prank your kin, your friend, your mate
But keep your pranking to this date
Awareness month with no regret
For Autism let’s not forget
Poetry is honored here
In our hearts hold poets dear
Arbor Day for planting trees
And plant some flowers if you please
A pretty garden around the trunk
To offset smells like angry skunk
Taxes owed and taxes paid
The government takes what we’ve made
If you’re lucky, when you sign your name
You’ll get a refund with your claim
Hopping bunnies Peeps and chicks
Chocolate eggs are in the mix
Baskets full of treats and toys
Easter fun for girls and boys
by Jodey Mann
April 13, 2014
The Twilight Blue – National Poetry Month day 14 with Michael O’Connor
Welcome to National Poetry Month day fourteen. Today I have fellow blogger, and poet Michael O’Connor. Michael will be back for a second post on April 24th. Check out his website for an interesting collaboration in creativity. Enjoy the rhythm of his poem below!
Introduction:
I started writing poetry quite by accident, and it almost always rhymes. I usually set out to write song lyrics and see what I’m left with. I’m most influenced by songwriters, who I consider to be today’s most inspiring poets. My poems tend to be somewhat obscure and vague, by design. I like people to have their own interpretations. Today, I’ve selected to share what I consider to be my signature poem, newly (and hastily) re-edited. Thank you, Sonya for organizing, and letting me participate in, such a wonderful month long event.
Selection:
The Twilight Blue
The calm settles in and peace takes hold
As day winds down and night unfolds
You can feel the enveloping hue
Of the Twilight Blue
As blue leaks out and black seeps in
The day surrenders and night starts to win
You can hear whispers calling to you
From the Twilight Blue
The exchange evokes a strange lament
Black consumes as blue relents
And serenity slips away
With the Twilight Blue
© 2014 Michael P. O’Connor. All rights reserved.
Bio:
Michael O’Connor is the founder of OCEnterprises Inc., an incubator for creative development. Publisher of several blogs on Blogger, including The Twilight Blue and The Reason 87, he expects to self-publish The Twilight Blue: Volume I and Live Life On Purpose: A Handbook for Achievement in 2014. Connect with Michael on social media through his website www.ocenterprises.weebly.com
