Archive for the ‘ poem ’ Category

Day 23: Hurricanes

Cacophony of
light, dark, and dissonant sounds
hurricanes rage wild.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

Day 23 prompt: Write a ‘form or anti-form poem that follows a poetic form’; details here from 2010 November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Stones into Schools

We enter schools,
stones to be chiseled
from the rock that
holds us: the history
that is our parents’
and theirs before them.
The habits we learn
from the way
we interpret things.

Schools, planned to
bring out the best,
obliterate the rock
leave us stones,
purple, yellow
ruby red, black,
shimmering, brimming
with knowledge, skills
and open minds,
the ability to
think through things.

We emerge
precious stones
outside our
hidden state.
Set to light the world
in our own right,
paving the way
for new stones
for successive
generations.

School is
anywhere we learn
so location
is relative.
Take care to
build them the best.
Since,
for better and worse,

We continue.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

Select a title from the New York Times Bestseller List. Let the title inspire a poem. I chose: STONES INTO SCHOOLS, by Greg Mortenson, as of 11.10.2010.

This poem was written to a prompt from Big Tent Poetry. Get the prompt details here.
All links and poems submitted are posted here.

I can’t Say

3WW words for today: gesture, immediate, treasure. This poem just popped into my head from a true life experience with a less-that-patient, overburdened waiter.

I know that gesture.
You want to pressure
me for my immediate
response.

Prod as you will.
But I’m likely still
even at my age
to give an answer
to accommodate,
only to have to
come back to you
to change it.

It’s not that I treasure having
this thing you want most hastily.
Truly I can’t decide
if I want
the ranch or blue cheese dressing.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

WWP #27: Sustaining Whispers

WWP prompt #27: Write a Healing poem

In my Spirit I hear Your whispers.
They are the memories I cherish
the friends who stand by me
the magnificence in nature around me
and myriad daily random acts of grace.

The voices of my parents
guiding, teaching me
raising me through childhood joys
and times that threatened
to bow my back permanently.
The mother who taught me to read
and read everything I wrote.
The father who defended me and taught
me the psychology of diffusing bullies.

Your whispers I hear in the rustle of
countless flocking cedar waxwings;
the flitting of hummingbirds
to the honeysuckle tree;
the butterflies and bees that
pollinate the flowers in between;
when my four-year-old niece decides
to whisper an important message to me.

I hear Your whispers in my sad hours
letting me know You’ve not
left me alone there.
I know it when I can find
a smile from my soul
in the midst of my abject sorrow.
When I say “Thank you, God!”
and You say, “You’re welcome, Shari!”
in an audible tone.

I cannot misunderstand
what is evidenced throughout my life;
I find my joy alone
and in communion with the world
that is around and moves through me.
And in my times of strife, Your whispers
awaken these graces,
these memories that sustain me,
and whatever is my difficulty I trust
that it too will, in its time,
move on away from me.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

Small Moments

Mom and her granddaughter talking3 Word Wednesday: Abrupt, Kernel, Wield
In the photo: my mom and my youngest niece, when she was very new. I’m sure they were discussing big plans.

Babies wield
a magical power
to abruptly, gently
captivate us
in the small moments.

A sudden, small smile
beneath knowing, new eyes
expressing more
than a kernel of insight
of ages
not theirs, that
they get you.

I sit mesmerized for
long moments after
the scene’s played out.
And humbled
beyond measure
when I catch one
in a picture.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

Birthday Wishes

Body
drafted in the
images of
parents,
raised
in the shadows of
forefathers,
suffering
the lineage of
all his ilk
before them,
from time and when
parts better and worse.

It all comes
down to one
every one
each new life.
Infused with
the hopes and dreams
that it will grow
into a person
sloughing off sins
holding to better parts
proffered it,
hopefully,
to one day
save us from ourselves.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is inspired by the We Write Poems prompt #26: Collections.