Telling Stories

Lines versified
cut to take shape of
lips of a last kiss good-bye.
Words record the song
played as I drove away
to my separate destiny.
Rhythms played the hurt
of my heartache
as I fought to continue on
not undo my journey.

Old poems
hold the bitter sweet marrow
until I return to them
remembering experiences wholly
and can smile anyway.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #30, free day (and farewell). Visit the post to see the details of this prompt.

Since we could choose anything to write about, I thought I’d extol the virtues of old poems with another one about my daddy.

Many years ago, I learned of a man
under mental care.
Among other things,
he believed people should be able
to talk through the air
like Star Trek characters
through their nifty com links.

I wonder now, if he’s still on this earth,
what he must think
of his indictment for thinking
of what is now considered
fairly old news since
we’ve talked using
blue tooth ear pieces for years.
We write with our fingers
on many smart phones,
and most recently on iPads
that remind me a great deal of
Yeoman Janice’s device
to deliver her reports to Captain Kirk
if memory serves me correctly.

And I do wonder, too,
when I look at the companies
and finances in play and
the frenzied welcome
of anything thought innovation,
what would this man be
working on by now
having had our earlier ideas
decades before
even cell phones were accepted.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #29, front page news Visit the post to see the details of this prompt.

Turn left at the first phrase
that taps my curiosity.
On the side are the ropes to grab
so I can scale up it
stepping sliding over
the bumps bumping up it.

On top I can see the sea
of all the extending tangents
and extraneous asides
that might be of interest.

What must be written then
are the lines that glow
with the knowing
shimmer of connectedness.
And so, when I see them
at their brightest I simply
reel them in with my trusty ink pen
to splay them open on paper.

And on occasion I allow me
the delightfully twisting query:
Do they glow because they know
to shimmer
or on some level from my high perch
do I in some way ignite them?

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #28, intuition Visit the post to see the details of this prompt.

Sometimes it’s fun to have it.
Hammering out the messages
all come to have their say. Heavy too.
Regarding me as only a conduit, sleep’s irrelevant.
Inspiration is my relentless driver.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #27, let someone else take the lead Visit the post to see the details of this prompt.

For this acrostic, I used S-H-A-R-I, my first name. I tried several other words, including purple cows—don’t ask—but I returned to this one and I’ve chosen to live with it.

Relationships and occupations
death in the family
and other amputations
weddings and grocery shopping.
Life offers up bumps and twists
at every stage we travel through.
Racism, sexism,
just I-don’t-want-to-know-you.
Chest pain, stomach ache, swine flu,
and better and worse are the
land mines we negotiate trying
to keep our souls in tact.

Endings, standings,
delivering come-uppings,
births and christenings.
Finding acceptance.
Hugging a bigot or keeping your distance.
Successful surgeries, bed rest
meditation and medications
that pull us from the edge
bringing us back for more of this.

It’s all part of the journey.
To each of us our portions of
crazy and volatile with
a measure of calm mixed in.
Plain sailing then is
a matter of perception
and depends on
what gumption we bring
to each situation.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #24, find a phrase Visit the post to see the details of this prompt. “Plain sailing” caught and kept my attention.

The coral honeysuckle
cut down late this year
sprouts new tendrils
showing fierce resistance
to death.
Bare brown twigs
will grow to green. Soon
rust red flowers,
just a touch of saffron on edges,
bloom to beckon the hummingbirds
who will come darting in
at dizzying speeds
to drink the sweet nectar,
giving delight just to watch them
about their important mission
in ecology.

One of the lovelier events
nature does offer.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #22, a wordle Visit the post to see the details of this prompt. The words I used are: saffron, rust, tendril, fierce, dizzy.

I was hoping someone would step up and say it isn’t so. But it didn’t happen. Read Write Poem soon will be nothing more than a fine repository of fine writing and writer links. You see it’s closing after April 30, 2010.

The forum was started on Read Write Poem’s site to discuss the closing, the sentiment, the next steps.

What comes after Read Write Poem closes was anyone’s guess. In this information post at his blog, Bearly Audible, Neil Reid has links that really need to be explored.

And he’s gone much further! Neil has done this awesome thing of opening a new community site, We Write Poems, as an option for Read Write Poem members to join. If you’re familiar with the writers at Read Write Poem, or become familiar by reading the postings there, you’ll be happy to know that several of the talents from RWP are participating in Neil’s new site. That is pretty cool!

So are many others stepping up with ways to continue doing what brings them joy. Among them, Rob Kistner returning to his Writer’s Island for regular weekly prompts. And, he presents links to other prompt sites for our participation.

No Longer Active, Still Vital

This is all quite new to me. Once I decided to post more of my writing and engage poetry more fully, it quickly became clear that it wasn’t something I wanted to do alone. I may have mentioned how thrilled I was to have finally gotten up the nerve to tap into some great poetry communities.

When I went for it, Read Write Poem was one of the first ones I found that I braved. I will always be glad I started there. Having the opportunity to continue with this community of poem writers is just a big ol’ gift I eagerly accept.

I’m keeping the Read Write Poem badge in my sidebar as long as it remains online for exploration. And I’ll add other badges for sites I participate in, first up We Write Poems, coming soon.

Everything related to RWP’s NaPoWriMo event is in place. You can visit this link to read about the plans for the online anthology of some poems from this month’s submissions.

Perfection is nature
bereft of nothing.

Animals plants insects
break die live kill grow
sprout new life
thrive without deliberateness
of choosing
eventually dying out
making room for new ones.
No more is the woolly mammoth.
Today we have
it’s current Asian relative
the elephant.

In the midst of the majesty
that breathes all around
is man
clumsy, crafty,
seemingly the only creature
not instinctively aware
of the course
uniquely his to follow.
He searches.

In a relative frenzy
of awkward ignorant insistence
he makes his way
disrupting the natural
flow of life,
by choices he trusts are best.
Still, some move just slow enough
to see and appreciate
the magic inherent in
the existence of everything,
before it’s time to leave
that others may come.

And the circles continue
expand and constrict.
And even
things judged flaws
are seen and
understood to have
their unique places of worth.

For, perfection is
nature bereft of nothing.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #21, perfectly flawed Visit the post to see the details of this prompt.