© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
you have to wonder
how a man without a heart
can hold the reins
May 29, 2018
Haiku Sticky #455
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
you have to wonder
how a man without a heart
can hold the reins
May 27, 2018
Happy Haiga Day!
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Woodcut by Shinsai Ryūryūkyo (circa 1804-1818), image altered by Diane Mayr.
Text:
under the willow
fish under the shadow
of a heron
May 25, 2018
Poetry Friday--Snapping Turtles
Update: My friend, Mary Doane (aka "The Turtle Lady"), told me it was probably an Eastern painted turtle. After looking online, I agree. Here's the information on the painted turtle. The teeny turtle, if lucky, will only grow to about 6 inches.
Snapping turtles in New Hampshire can grow to be 70 pounds. And, as their name suggests, they snap. People have told me stories of chunks taken out of oars by snapping turtles. Stay away from the big ones!
A few weeks ago, though, a co-worker found a baby snapping turtle on the parking lot asphalt. Not the best place to be sunning one's turtle self.
It was tiny! I didn't hesitate for a second to pick it up and move it to a safe spot. Relocation involved taking a walk through the woods behind the library. I had never been more than 10 or 20 feet into the woods in the 20+ years the library building has been occupied. I knew there was a swampy area down the hill, so I started walking. I went past two old stone walls, over a well-walked, but unmarked path, and ended up at the swamp that turned out to be an active great blue heron rookery. I counted seven herons on or next to nests. Another heron flew in as I watched. I was a bit hesitant about leaving the turtle, since it might have made a snack for any one of the herons, but, I felt it was safer at the edge of a swamp than in the middle of the parking lot!
The baby snapping turtle in the parking lot was a real mystery. It was too early in the season for turtles to be hatching, so it must have been one of last year's hatchlings. How had it survived 2017-18's long, cold winter? How had it gotten such a great distance from the water?
Last year, not far behind the library, a large snapping turtle dug several holes, but we never saw it laying eggs. Why it would have chosen the dumpster area behind a library for it's nesting spot is beyond me!
Perhaps the little guy was the progeny of the library dumpster turtle?
A lot of background for one little poem!
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Visit Margaret at Reflections of the Teche where you'll find this week's Round-Up.
Snapping turtles in New Hampshire can grow to be 70 pounds. And, as their name suggests, they snap. People have told me stories of chunks taken out of oars by snapping turtles. Stay away from the big ones!
A few weeks ago, though, a co-worker found a baby snapping turtle on the parking lot asphalt. Not the best place to be sunning one's turtle self.
It was tiny! I didn't hesitate for a second to pick it up and move it to a safe spot. Relocation involved taking a walk through the woods behind the library. I had never been more than 10 or 20 feet into the woods in the 20+ years the library building has been occupied. I knew there was a swampy area down the hill, so I started walking. I went past two old stone walls, over a well-walked, but unmarked path, and ended up at the swamp that turned out to be an active great blue heron rookery. I counted seven herons on or next to nests. Another heron flew in as I watched. I was a bit hesitant about leaving the turtle, since it might have made a snack for any one of the herons, but, I felt it was safer at the edge of a swamp than in the middle of the parking lot!
The baby snapping turtle in the parking lot was a real mystery. It was too early in the season for turtles to be hatching, so it must have been one of last year's hatchlings. How had it survived 2017-18's long, cold winter? How had it gotten such a great distance from the water?
Last year, not far behind the library, a large snapping turtle dug several holes, but we never saw it laying eggs. Why it would have chosen the dumpster area behind a library for it's nesting spot is beyond me!
Perhaps the little guy was the progeny of the library dumpster turtle?
A lot of background for one little poem!
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Visit Margaret at Reflections of the Teche where you'll find this week's Round-Up.
May 20, 2018
May 18, 2018
Poetry Friday--A Year or Two or Three Ago
I'm having a bit of a dry spell as a writer. It could be the state of the nation (depressing), or it could be that the spring weather is making writing seem like a winter-only activity. It could just mean that I need a break. Whatever the reason, I have nothing new. I'd feel guilty about not have a Poetry Friday offering, so I'm looking back to May last year, the year before, and a few years before that to see what I was writing.
May 16, 2017
golden bright
the new green lit
by sunlight
songbirds vocalize
with a spring breeze
May 17, 2016
an absence
of poetry today
--colonoscopy
May 17, 2015
mid-December
Halloween's butterfly wings
now on an angel
[Obviously, I was working on my Angels project at the time.]
May 17, 2014
Family Vacation, Circa 1961
We never went on cruises
or stayed at vacation resorts.
Our vacation spots were
cheaply rented or borrowed
bungalows, often shared
with aunts, uncles, and cousins.
One night we all went to dinner.
Nothing fancy, not expensive,
but the food must have been
good, because two men of
some renown came in to eat--
Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.
I'm sure you've heard of them.
They were gods--baseball gods!
We got their autographs on
the greasy spoon's cheap paper
napkins. If only someone had
had a camera to take a family shot.
May 19, 2013
Mother's Day...
on the soles of her shoes
pink petals
May 17, 2012
spring rain...
the lean in the sapling
the lean in me
May 11, 2011
late afternoon...
today would have been
her birthday
May 18, 2010
GRAY
Two months before he and Mrs. Lincoln
went to Ford's Theater, the president
had a portrait taken at Mr. Gardner's
Gallery. The photographer caught
the shadow of Mr. Lincoln. He was
by then, merely a body without its soul.
Little did John Wilkes Booth know,
his bullet would only be the coups de grace.
I was going to go back to 2010, but the above is so depressing, I'll go back another year!
May 17, 2009
three new songs
their singers unknown
--Sunday morning
All poems © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Rebecca is hosting the Round-Up this week at Sloth Reads!
May 16, 2017
golden bright
the new green lit
by sunlight
songbirds vocalize
with a spring breeze
May 17, 2016
an absence
of poetry today
--colonoscopy
May 17, 2015
mid-December
Halloween's butterfly wings
now on an angel
[Obviously, I was working on my Angels project at the time.]
May 17, 2014
Family Vacation, Circa 1961
We never went on cruises
or stayed at vacation resorts.
Our vacation spots were
cheaply rented or borrowed
bungalows, often shared
with aunts, uncles, and cousins.
One night we all went to dinner.
Nothing fancy, not expensive,
but the food must have been
good, because two men of
some renown came in to eat--
Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.
I'm sure you've heard of them.
They were gods--baseball gods!
We got their autographs on
the greasy spoon's cheap paper
napkins. If only someone had
had a camera to take a family shot.
May 19, 2013
Mother's Day...
on the soles of her shoes
pink petals
May 17, 2012
spring rain...
the lean in the sapling
the lean in me
May 11, 2011
late afternoon...
today would have been
her birthday
May 18, 2010
GRAY
Two months before he and Mrs. Lincoln
went to Ford's Theater, the president
had a portrait taken at Mr. Gardner's
Gallery. The photographer caught
the shadow of Mr. Lincoln. He was
by then, merely a body without its soul.
Little did John Wilkes Booth know,
his bullet would only be the coups de grace.
I was going to go back to 2010, but the above is so depressing, I'll go back another year!
May 17, 2009
three new songs
their singers unknown
--Sunday morning
All poems © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Rebecca is hosting the Round-Up this week at Sloth Reads!
May 15, 2018
Haiku Sticky #454
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
interstices
tree frogs know when
the gap needs filling
May 13, 2018
May 11, 2018
Poetry Friday--Dance!
About thirty years ago I took up contra-dancing. Contra-dancing is an American form that developed from English country dance (the partnered lines of dancers that you see in Jane Austen movies). It was great exercise, the live music was exhilarating, the community was welcoming, it was an all-around great way to spend an evening. After a while, though, life intervened, the community became a little gossipy, and the exercise became a bit too much for someone with asthmatic tendencies. I drifted away. Still, I miss dancing.
So today, I want to celebrate dancing, even if it's someone else doing it! And I'll do it through poetry.
It took me a long, long, time to actually complete a golden shovel. If you follow the Poetry Friday blogs, you've found that the golden shovel seems to have become "The Form" of 2017-2018. Everybody's been writing marvelous ones and I'm coming up with uninspired, pedestrian, poems. I tried too hard to write one using a line that was too long. I'm a short form writer, so why was I beating myself up trying to write something using a dozen or more words? Duh! I found this quote by Charles Baudelaire that was short and spoke to me.
[Note: if you've read the adult novel The Alice Network by Kate Quinn (a hot title with book groups), the mention of Baudelaire may make you queasy.]
What follows are a few non-golden-shovel, dancing poems from my files.
The first is from January 2011.
An ekphrastic tanka from November 2012 inspired by "The Peasant Dance" (1568) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
The last one was written for Laura Shovan's Sound Poem Project in 2015.
Jama's Alphabet Soup will be hosting the Poetry Friday Round-Up for this week. Enjoy the feast!
So today, I want to celebrate dancing, even if it's someone else doing it! And I'll do it through poetry.
It took me a long, long, time to actually complete a golden shovel. If you follow the Poetry Friday blogs, you've found that the golden shovel seems to have become "The Form" of 2017-2018. Everybody's been writing marvelous ones and I'm coming up with uninspired, pedestrian, poems. I tried too hard to write one using a line that was too long. I'm a short form writer, so why was I beating myself up trying to write something using a dozen or more words? Duh! I found this quote by Charles Baudelaire that was short and spoke to me.
Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.I am a big Facebook user and a viewer of innumerable videos of cats and dancing babies. So, is it any wonder that my golden shovel turned out like this?
With the Music
Before anything else comes dancing.
Before talking, before walking, is
a diapered baby jiving. There's poetry
in that wiggling tush with
a rhythm in her bobbing noggin. Her arms
gesticulating. Work it, baby! And,
oh, how she kicks those chubby legs!
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
[Note: if you've read the adult novel The Alice Network by Kate Quinn (a hot title with book groups), the mention of Baudelaire may make you queasy.]
What follows are a few non-golden-shovel, dancing poems from my files.
The first is from January 2011.
Dancing
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. ~ William James
With the music we lift our
feet. Our arms float. Our hands
take on a life of their own. As
the tempo picks up we laugh
for we know what Common
Sense said is true, "You can't
dance with a broken heart."
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
An ekphrastic tanka from November 2012 inspired by "The Peasant Dance" (1568) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Text:
outdoor dance party
the musician plays through
the drunk's rendition--
no party is without
its red-nosed souse
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
The last one was written for Laura Shovan's Sound Poem Project in 2015.
enkele sprongen van een danser
(A Few Jumps a Dancer)
A few whistles a bird.
A few licks a puppy.
Too many whistles a penalty.
Too many licks an assault.
A few jumps a dancer.
A few words a poem.
Too many jumps a diagnosis.
Too many words a rejection.
A few flowers a nosegay.
A few tears a reunion.
Too many flowers a funeral bier.
Too many tears a broken heart.
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Jama's Alphabet Soup will be hosting the Poetry Friday Round-Up for this week. Enjoy the feast!
May 8, 2018
Haiku Sticky #453
Haiku or senryu? The political scene is already heating up. Why, why, why must we spoil the delights of a long-awaited spring?
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
May birdsong
drowned out by news
of primary races
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
May birdsong
drowned out by news
of primary races
May 6, 2018
Happy Haiga Day!
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
we sit in silence...
a cool breeze hastens
the end
May 4, 2018
Poetry Friday--Spark Postcard Exchange
Four times a year I participate in a postcard exchange organized by Amy Souza of Spark. The latest exchange took place during the month of April. Each participant signs on to create an original piece of art on a postcard. Since I'm primarily a writer, I put together original short poems with illustrations.
There is never a theme assigned, however, I like working from a theme and generally assign one to myself. This past exchange I used "daisy" as my theme since the daisy, a universally recognized flower, is the official flower for April. I suppose I could have used the official gemstone, but that would be "diamond" and diamond is actually a turn-off as far as I'm concerned!
I did a minimum amount of research on daisies (not much more than Wikipedia and this article), but it was enough to get me started. The things that resonated with me I incorporated into the work, for instance, daisy is a symbol of innocence and purity.
I decided to write cherita since I believe I have finally found my true form. All the illustrations/photos are in the public domain and I altered and combined them.
Here are the three I sent out:
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
warmth of the sun
the day's eye
opens wide and bright
her innocence
merely a show
to seduce the bees
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
field of daisies
memories grow
less sharp with time
we forget that
the daisy was also known
as bone flower
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
Bellis perennis
we always look forward
to her return
each day of April
two or three minutes longer
but, so is the wait
Brenda at Friendly Fairy Tales is hosting the Poetry Friday Round-Up today. As for me, I'm taking off to attend the first day of the Mass Poetry Festival in Salem! Yay!
There is never a theme assigned, however, I like working from a theme and generally assign one to myself. This past exchange I used "daisy" as my theme since the daisy, a universally recognized flower, is the official flower for April. I suppose I could have used the official gemstone, but that would be "diamond" and diamond is actually a turn-off as far as I'm concerned!
I did a minimum amount of research on daisies (not much more than Wikipedia and this article), but it was enough to get me started. The things that resonated with me I incorporated into the work, for instance, daisy is a symbol of innocence and purity.
I decided to write cherita since I believe I have finally found my true form. All the illustrations/photos are in the public domain and I altered and combined them.
Here are the three I sent out:
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
warmth of the sun
the day's eye
opens wide and bright
her innocence
merely a show
to seduce the bees
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
field of daisies
memories grow
less sharp with time
we forget that
the daisy was also known
as bone flower
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
Bellis perennis
we always look forward
to her return
each day of April
two or three minutes longer
but, so is the wait
Brenda at Friendly Fairy Tales is hosting the Poetry Friday Round-Up today. As for me, I'm taking off to attend the first day of the Mass Poetry Festival in Salem! Yay!
May 1, 2018
Haiku Sticky #452
Now that National Poetry Month has concluded, it's back to our regular schedule of Haiku Stickies on Tuesdays.
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
May 1--
looking for the flowers
April's rain promised
© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
Text:
May 1--
looking for the flowers
April's rain promised
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