Words that sing

So they were true,
the words you said!
I knew, deep down -
yet still found it
astounding we
could stop grieving
so easily -
once more free, to
just be in love.
Like a dove wings
above the wood
to her good home,
we could nest too,
me and you, with
our wounds now healed.

>>>
This is my first attempt at a Burmese climbing rhyme, an intriguing form that I came across thanks to Michelle at Poefusion, who came across it at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Each line is of four syllables, and uses end and internal rhymes in the following pattern: 

x x x a
x x a x
x a x b
x x b x
x b x c
x x c x
x c x x

(Edit - I’ve just realised it’s possible to go on indefinitely with this form, so have expanded the poem beyond its original seven lines!)

Through a gate of words
My heart escapes its fear. Rests
In other minds’ dreams.

Do I spend too long,
Safe but lonely, inside my
Paper-walled fortress?

Life’s music may set our arms mourning or our feet dancing
And yet whatever its melody, we are always dancing

A bright lightning flashes between the minds and hearts
Of a man and the desirable woman he espies dancing

Some may baulk, finding dancing too spontaneous or sensuous
Yet who can live freely who is hesitant when he tries dancing?

Revelling in compatibility and caressed with compliments,
Lovers smile at each other, their bright eyes dancing.

Some spin webs to trap their lovers and bind them close
Yet love is starved by conversations that are merely lies dancing.

Love has a power to give our fleeting lives
The brilliant beauty of butterflies dancing

Some walk the journey of their life, others run or crawl.
Happiest those whose words sing, who spend their lives dancing.

This is my first attempt at a ghazal, prompted by totallyoptionalprompts, on whose site you can find links to guidance on this form, and will soon be able to find examples by other poets. It’s a challenging form and I’ve not quite got the hang of it yet!

Edit - I’ve just been reading more about the Ghazal (HT to Brad) and have changed the last line, which used to be: “But the wise and happy travel through their lives, dancing”.

Someone, somewhere is playing a tune
his fingers strumming in the gloom
on the trembling strings. And my heart
echoes the pulse of his subtle art.
Someone, somewhere is playing a tune,
calling to me through the rainswept dark.
In the unknown distance, under the moon
someone, somewhere is playing a tune
on the trembling strings of my heart.

This is a response to the picture above, by newjack at photobucket, the Monday mural at poefusion.  My response came to me as a very complete visual and aural image, though it’s nothing I’ve ever experienced! It started as a triolet but I modified it because I didn’t want the refrain lines to appear together until the final couplet, and because the repetition just seemed to work better this way.

In the supermarket
I turn to pick up some tomatoes
and find my feet
pivoting in a dance step.

Later on, choosing a bag of sugar, I notice
they’re doing it again - one foot
skimming the outline of the other,
rhythmically crossing
in front
behind.

And I realise that, this weekend
I have danced further than I have walked
and my feet are enjoying
their new,
less pedestrian,
vocation.

Indeed my feet feel alive -
tingling softly with a happiness
that seems to have very little to do
with what my mind is thinking. So
wherever I go, I arrive on a cushion
of happiness
(like a hovercraft on air)
which makes it hard to be sad, or daunted.

A strange feeling -
to walk around on happy feet
and feel cheerfulness spread up my body
as if every tiny cell is dancing
to some unheard music.

The door is always open, and visitors are welcome.

The picture in the hall that you see as you enter
is a flying pelican that I saw one bright day,
walking hot and happy along a pure white beach
in the Galapagos islands.
May you find the happiness and peace
that I felt on that day beside the pacific surf.
(But ssh… don’t tell the pelican that
thanks to photoshop he’s now
flying in the opposite direction!)

As you explore, you’ll find
That there are pictures everywhere.
Glimpses of the beautiful places
I have been privileged to see.

And some photos I have been happy to
borrow from the generous collections of others
- each carefully chosen
because it means something to me
and I hope it will mean something to you, too.

Come and riffle through the papers on my desk.
You’ll see the quill still shiny with fresh ink
freshly used to arrange words
in pleasing patterns around
the ideas and emotions
that mean most to me.

You won’t see my face,
But you’ll hear my story.
My heartbreak and recovery.
My silence and my self-expression.
My scepticism and my spirituality
Serious musings and cheerful humour.
Words to a lover who refused to hear them.
Words to a lover I have not yet met.

Oh, and sometimes you’ll hear
drifting down from upstairs
(sweet, but surprisingly loud)
the sound of my voice
singing songs to heal a broken heart.

(I have to admit, my favourite
of the many useful things in the corridor
is the map of the world, full of red drawing pins.
I love to look at it. For I feel full of wonder that
my words are being read
in Mongolia and Mauritius, Iceland and Iran, Alaska and Australia.)

So come in
Sit down. Kick off your shoes.
Be comfortable.

I hope you find this
a harmonious space.
One where you can come to feel renewed,
as well as entertained and philosophised-at.

A place where you can feel
that your pains are understood
but also believe they can be transformed.
That no tunnel is endless, however dark it seems.

A place of peace and gentleness
where I share the wisdom I have gleaned -
a modest but sincere offering.

And please, leave a comment
In the visitor’s book
Before you leave!

You’ll see, if you look
the inspiration and comments
of the wonderful visitors
who have enriched my writing, my blog and my life
through their generous sharing of words, images and thoughts.

So please, join the conversation.
For the door is always open, and visitors are welcome.

This responds to a prompt at Rockin’ Chair Writers to show readers around your blog as if it is your home. I saw it and immediately realised that this was just what I had been wanting to do!

The dusty attic of the human mind
is choked with a sprawling, cobwebby pile
of junk accumulated over the years.

A cramped glass stiletto
(with a mouse
trapped in its toe)
and a pair of red shoes with an evil leer.

A frog croaking wistfully,
lost in the gilded circle
of a princess’ heavy crown.

An overflowing porridge pot and
a golden apple, marked with a
bite gone brown.

A donkey skin which is stained with blood,
and a pair of
- amputated -
silver hands.

A few pomegranate seeds scattered like red tears
on the lid of an empty box with a bleeding key
A broken laurel branch carelessly jammed
Into a dusty jar of magic wands.

From under the heap, a woman emerges
brushes poppy seeds and salt grains from her body,
revealing its (non-symbolic) naked glory.

She stretches cramped limbs,
ties back her flowing hair,
and heads off to create a more original story.

This post responds to One Single Impression’s prompt of “myth”. It picks up on a theme in an earlier post - that some myths imprison rather than inspire, particularly the myths about women.

The myths or fairy tales referenced here are all about women in some way or other, and have often been used to suggest that women’s domestic or passive sexual qualities are the only ones that matter, and that curiosity, desire and independence have no place. Some are less familar or oblique references, so I’ve provided links below.

Some of these stories feature in Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women who Run with the Wolves, which digs into the heart of these stories to find a much more affirming message for women. (For example, many of the interpretations of Bluebeard are judgemental about the woman’s curiosity and lack of self restraint in opening the door, rather than applauding her courageous determination to find out the truth.) I really enjoyed that book and found a lot of resonances in her interpretations. Here I’m thinking of the surface meanings which are much more apparent in our societies.

Photo - Junk by Carrie Always at flickr.

Links:

Cinderella
The red shoes
The frog prince
Crown - any story where the ideal is to be a princess!
The magic porridge pot
Golden apples appear all over the place e.g. Atalanta, the judgement of Paris
Donkey skin - for a heart-breaking retelling of this story, I really recommend Robin McKinley’s Deerskin
The handless maiden
Persephone
Pandora
Bluebeard (see also my earlier poem “Opening the Door“)
Daphne
Magic wands - thinking mostly of Cinderella again!
Seeds and salt - tales like Vasilissa or Rumpelstiltskin where the heroine must sort huge piles of grain.

The condor soars above the ruins where sandstone glows like fire 
And infinite blueness haloes the idols that inspired a lost empire.

And the condor soars above the ruins and rubbish on city streets
Where barefoot children play with stones and pester tourists for sweets.

The condor soars over jagged peaks caught by glaciers in a serpentine net
That shone white-bright against the sky - the continent’s proud coronet.

And the condor soars over jagged peaks, now denuded of their icy crown
Now only rocks and gravel remain to show where the glaciers once ground.

The condor soars past hills which once were made of silver and gold
The land of nobles bright with diadems, skilfully hammered and scrolled

And the condor soars past hills whose gold was shipped away to Spain
Now dusty relics in darkened museums are all that still remain

The world is changed. This is no longer the realm of Tiwanaku and Inca
Yet still the condor soars above its ancient Andean finca.

 >>>>>>>>>>>>

This poem is a response to Rick Mobbs’ inspiring picture above. As I’m currently living in South America, I was struck by the many shapes which seemed evocative of the artefacts found in Tiwanaku and Inca ruins, as well as the image of the condor that is so characteristic of the Andes.

And yet the lower part of the image seemed to suggest decay, and made me think of other sights that are sadly just as characteristic as the Andes - the consequences of poverty, climate change and past imperialism. And so I wrote this sonnet, which contrasts the past and the present.

(Finca is a Spanish word meaning the land that is someone’s property.)

Sometimes life just strips you bare
With cruel words or thoughtless actions
The barren ache of a lover’s “don’t care” 
The flaying words of heightened passions.

Sometimes life just leaves you huddling
Turning your back on life and light
Hugging to yourself the sorely troubling
Anguish of your lonely plight.

Sometimes life sends you nights spent alone
Fighting the nightmares with hands cut raw
Staring into darkness as blank as bone
As your thoughts obsessively worsen the sore.

Sometimes life, like some mystic rite
Demands that you strip yourself totally bare
And face the darkness of your inner night
To discover the limits of what you can bear.

Sometimes life, through suffering, shows you
That nude can be both strong and frail 
As, through exposure, your courage grows, you
Learn naked warriors can still prevail.

This was inspired by the monday mural at poefusion - the evocative image above uploaded to photobucket by ncajayon4.

Some days walk slowly past.

Limping,
or dawdling,
or just plain tired.

On the flat path,
yesterday’s pebbles become
daunting obstacles
(remember -
it’s much, much easier
to trip over a molehill
than a mountain.)

Nowness is diluted.
Vividness muted.

Nothing is wrong and yet
each moment is heavy
with the absence of 
the active joy 
of everything going just right.

Muscles miss the effort of climbing
as much as the easy swing of descending.

Time dawdles from day to day
wrapped around bright flashes of
things that insist on being noticed.

But these slow times
are just as much a part of life
as the roaring torrent of ecstasy and heartbreak that is love,
or the surge of adrenaline in a body facing times of stress and change.

Patience is as necessary as courage.
And the flat path is also
part of the journey.

So I walk on
through the ambling days. Certain
that interesting times are ahead.

I’d forgotten that this week’s Totally Optional Prompt was to write about tempo… but maybe it was working away in the back of my mind, because I wrote this, and only after writing it realised that this was very appropriate to the prompt!