Distortion of space

VERSLIBRE (a "v" dictionary page poem) by Kelly Wantuch

 

A bright red                                                   wavy worm

       thin like                                                 spaghetti

         quarrels                                             its  native

             tongue                                        moving

                freely                                    fleeing the                 

             vermiculite                            between the   

                 paint and                         the concrete   

                   far enough                   up the toe        

                      of a fickle               owl versifying        

                          the bible           during  the        

                             priest’s        services         

                                   in Verona like

                                         Jules

                                        Verne              

POET (A dictionary page poem) by Kelly Wantuch

 

Writes poetry of

Poignant passion

On the wings of language

Like an orchestra’s floating battleship

That carries the war’s accented gun

Of deep expressive aim.

Shakespeare holds the noble handle-of-verse

While Poe raises the platform of an

 Imaginational pocket tale.

At boiling point a

Scarlet poinsettia

Flowers.

THANATOPSIS by William Cullent Bryant *** Eraser by Kelly Wantuch

Nature holds her language
And a smile. Beauty
Glides into dark gentle
Sympathy that steals
Thy spirit. Agony
Breathes darkness
Under the earth's depths.
A still voice     laid with tears
Enhance that last trace of 
Quietness poured. The sun
Still slumbers and hears no sound.
The solitudes laid down
In their sleep. Breathe thy destiny
Of life's green spring and strength
Shall follow that mysterious
Realm where at night
Trust approaches
Like one who lies
Down to dream.

WINTER PROMISES by Marge Piercy

Tomatoes rosy as perfect baby's buttocks,
eggplants glossy as waxed fenders,
purple neon flawless glistening
peppers, pole beans fecund and fast
growing as Jack's Viagra-sped stalk,
big as truck tire zinnias that mildew
will never wilt, roses weighing down
a bush never touched by black spot,
brave little fruit trees shouldering up
their spotless ornaments of glass fruit:

I lie on the couch under a blanket
of seed catalogs ordering far
too much. Sleet slides down
the windows, a wind edged
with ice knifes through every crack.
Lie to me, sweet garden-mongers:
I want to believe every promise,
to trust in five pound tomatoes
and dahlias brighter than the sun
that was eaten by frost last week.

The IDEA by Mark Strand

For us, too, there was a wish to possess

Something beyond the world we knew, beyond ourselves,

Beyond our power to imagine, something nevertheless

In which we might see ourselves; and this desire

Came always in passing, in waning light, and in such cold

That ice on the valley’s lakes cracked and rolled,

And blowing snow covered what earth we saw,

And scenes from the past, when they surfaced again,

Looked not as they had, but ghostly and white

Among false curves and hidden erasures;

And never once did we feel we were close

Until the night wind said, “Why do this,

Especially now? Go back to the place you belong;”

And there appeared , with its windows glowing, small,

In the distance, in the frozen reaches, a cabin;

And we stood before it, amazed at its being there,

And would have gone forward and opened the door,

And stepped into the glow and warmed ourselves there,

But that it was ours by not being ours,

And should remain empty. That was the idea.

Experiment in oil pastel -not really sure how to use them-but I guessed

First Photos from Photography 101 class

SUMMER by Lucien Stryk

My neighbor frets about his lawn,
and he has reasons--
dandelions, crabgrass, a passing dog.

He scowls up at my maple, rake
clogged and trembling,
as its seeds spin down--

not angels, moths, but paratroopers
carried by the wind,

planting barricades along his eaves.

He's on the ladder now, scaring
the nibbling squirrels,
scattering starlings with his water hose.

Thank God his aim is bad
or he'd have drowned
or B-B gunned the lot. Now he

shakes a fist of seeds at me
where I sit poeming
my dandelions, crabgrass and passing dog.

I like my neighbor, in his way
he cares for me. Look what
I've given him-- something to feel superior to.

THE TONGUE IS by Yusef Komunyakaa

xeroxed on brainmatter.
Grid-squares of words spread
like dirty oil over a lake.
The tongue even lies to itself,
gathering wildfire for songs of gibe.
Malcontented clamor, swish of reeds.
Slow, erratic, memory's loose
grain goes deep as water
in the savage green of oleander.
The tongue skips a beat, link of truth...
a chain running off a blue bicycle.
It starts like the slow knocking
in a radiator's rusty belly.
I enter my guilty plea
dry as the tongue of a beggar's
unlaced show.  The tongue labors,
a victrola in the mad mouth-hole
of 3 A.M. sorrow.

RIP my friend,Carolyn McKnight Tarwacki and her husband

http://www.wsbt.com/news/local/83663992.html