Poetry Friday--A Whole Lotta Nothin'

It's 2019 and I'm looking forward to some kind of change. The last year basically rung me out and left me in a heap. I even missed two weeks of Poetry Friday in December--something I don't think I've done since I started this blog nearly ten years ago. As far as writing is concerned--I've been going through the paces, but I don't have much of anything from the last three months of the year. I wasn't even tempted to participate in #haikuforhope. I thank those who had enough hope stored away to share.

So, what about going forward? I'm seriously considering bowing out of Poetry Fridays since I contribute little to all those who take the time to read and comment. I'll probably make a decision in the near future. I'm also planning on retiring within the next six months, so I've got a lot of chaos to look forward to.

For today I had a whole lotta nothin'. So, I hit the files to see what I wrote over the past decade during the first week of January. It will have to do...

A small poem written January 1, 2010:

How Lovely

Cat sleeps
and sleeps and sleeps
and sleeps, not knowing,
or caring, that time
is passing.

Cat wakes
to str-e-t-c-hhh,
drink, eat, excrete
play, groom, prowl.
Then back

she goes
to circle round and round
until finally tucking
her head into her
chest, she closes

her eyes.
Cat sleeps and sleeps
and sleeps. How
lovely to be
a cat.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

In January 2, 2011 I wrote this senryu:

online calendar
gone is the satisfaction
of discarding a year

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Just so you know, I was never able to adjust to online calendars. Paper's fine for me. (I may have gone a bit overboard though, next to my computer, in 2018, I had three small calendars! I discarded 2018 three times!)

This next one was puzzle to me when I found it, because I had no idea what inspired it. Then I came across a post about the The OEDILF. My limerick was written January 1, 2012:

A charta, also known as a patch,
is paper to which drugs are attached.
Then attached to you
And kept out of view
Your ailment is simply dispatched.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

On January 3, 2013, I wrote a tanka:

cat on the sill
nuthatch upside down
through the glass
that separates their
simultaneous complaints

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

For many years I participated in the 15 Words of Less challenges on Laura Salas' page and this one came on January 2, 2014. I have no idea what the photo was that we used that day to inspire this poem:

With God on Their Side

They embraced the myth,
approached the native
species sword in hand
and declared themselves
dragon-slayers.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

January 4, 2015, Margaret Simon posted on Facebook about resurrection ferns. I was totally unfamiliar with the fern, so I looked it up and then wrote this:

Text:

Resurrection Fern

The live oak
living up to
its name
provides
resurrection
& life--
through air
not bread,
water
not wine,
and it does
it in less
than a day.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

It must have rained on January 6, 2016:

pop-up storm
the gurgle of rain
through a rusted grate

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

And on January 1, 2017, the sun was shining brightly:

Text:

January 1
a songbird hedge alive
in the sun

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

And yet another weather-related haiku for January 4, 2018:

quick moving storm
chicken barley soup
fogs the panes

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Actually, my mood has improved considerably after reading through some of my older stuff. I hope your mood has been improved, too!

Sylvia is hosting the first Round-Up of 2019! Stop by Poetry for Children where the New Year's party continues.

Haiku Sticky #468

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

morning walk:
orange butterfly
against a blue sky
no summer jewel
unaccounted for

Haiku Sticky #456

How many of you grew up with bags of red pistachios? Nowadays, our pistachios come from California and the processing is done so efficiently the shells don't get splotchy. In the olden days, pistachios were imported and in order to make them more appealing, the splotchy shells were dyed a more uniform red. We all considered the dye, and the subsequent pink lips and pink fingers to be half the fun!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

salty pink lips
stained fingertips
piles of shells
summer hours spent with
a bag of pistachios

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!

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.

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!

Poetry Friday--Spark Postcards

Four times a year I take part in an original postcard exchange that has been organized by Amy Souza, the founder of Spark Art from Writing: Writing from Art. I had the month of January to create four postcards to send to people in Florida, New York, Oregon, and Virginia. To say that the winter here in New England has been a challenge is an understatement, so all my postcards had winter as their unifying theme.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Illustration from More about the Squirrels by Eleanor Tyrrell (1915).

Text:

January
squirrel--branch to branch
--tree to tree
creating snow flurries to
bring attention to the sun

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

record lows
the cat draped around
my neck

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

winter again
knitted scarf with the scent
of last year

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Illustration from Children of Winter by Maud Humphrey (1888) was altered by me.

Text:

winter lingers...
her mother gives up trying
to match mittens

Viait our friend, Sally Murphy, for this week's Poetry Friday Round-Up coming to us from the other side of the world.

Happy Haiga Day!

Many thanks to Norah Fallat who allowed me to use her photo of Quigley and Shiloh for today's haiga.

Click on the image to enlarge for easier reading. © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

winter sun
"dashing through the snow"
will not be sung
today the warmth on our backs
provides us laughter enough

Poetry Friday--Chickens on the Loose!

Children's writer, and my dear friend, Andrea Murphy, is the teaching director at Hogarth Country Day School (preschool). On the 6th of November she posted a photo of her little students gazing out the front door of the school, enthralled by two beautiful Wyandotte chickens. She assumed their owner would notice they were missing and attempt to locate them. Two weeks later they were still hanging out at the school eating the last of bugs and seeds in the garden. No one had come forward to claim them, and so, with the help of students' parents, the two fowl were finally captured and taken off to a new home before winter snows arrived.

I asked Andrea to share her photos with me and I've written a tanka and a little ditty to go with them.

Photo © Andrea Murphy, used with permission. Tanka © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

2017
the welcome mat still
at our door
despite the ever shifting
direction of country winds

Photo, © Andrea Murphy, used with permission. Poem, © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

Welcome

How many borders
did Gallus gallus cross
before he was welcomed
as domesticus?

Gallus gallus is accepted as the progenitor of today's domesticated chickens, Gallus gallus domesticus.

Mary Lee will be hosting the Round-Up this week at A Year of Reading. Be sure to stop by and have a day filled with poetry.

Poetry Friday--Goodbye October

In a flash, October has come and gone. Before we move on into November, I wanted to share the postcards I sent to four people in Amy Souza's October Spark postcard challenge. (To learn more about Spark, click here.)

We were free to create an art postcard of our choosing. No topics were assigned, but, I like to work around a theme. I think I'd have to say that the results are all about ORANGE, although they began as an exploration of the topic of "pumpkins."

A tanka:

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

autumn...
at first light
a breakfast table
laid with a cloth of
orange polka dots

A haiku:

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

November 1
neighbor's compost heap
now with grins

A tanka:

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

grown to fulfil
its holiday destiny
pumpkin
alive tonight with the aid
of an artificial heart

This next haiku was inspired by a favorite old picture book, Mousekin's Golden House, by Edna Miller:

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

November 1
the field mouse's treat
a day late

I hope I haven't hurt anyone's eyes or sensibilities with all the orange! I can guarantee I will never use orange in quantities such as this ever again!

Head over to Teacher Dance where Linda is hosting the Round-Up this week. Linda had posted a photo on Facebook last week of a squirrel nibbling on a jack-o-lantern. Old pumpkins can provide a treat for many little creatures.

Poetry Friday--I Can't Get No Satisfaction!

Last Friday's post was a poem titled, "Early October." I had written and illustrated it the weekend prior. By the time Friday came along, I had grown to dislike the poem. This seems to be a pattern with me of late.

Here is a short poem flower poem I made into a haiku sticky in late September:

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

Goldenrod, cinquefoil,
beggerticks, buttercups,
hawkweed, goatsbeard.
It's as if autumn seized
the summer sun to parcel
out to delirious bees.

Although I liked the poem, it didn't relay the sense of urgency I felt coming from the bees now that fall has arrived. So, I approached the topic of autumn again and recycled the delirious bees to come up with "Early October" for last Friday.

Here's the text:

Early October

An underlying hum
from the delirium
of a hundred honeybees.

A brief period when
golden light portends
chilly changes on the breeze.

White and muted pastel
wildflowers foretell
fashions for winter fairies.

Early ends to the days
find diligence gives way
to woollies, poems, and teas.


It struck me as less than satisfactory. I began to feel I had unnecessarily attached three stanzas to my bees stanza. So, on Sunday I reposted "Early October" as a one stanza mini-poem.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. If you have a full-size screen, click on the image to enlarge it and see how many bees you find.

Text:

Early October

An underlying hum
from the delirium
of a hundred honeybees.

Going back to the original "Early October" poem I found the last stanza was awkward and cliched. It had to go! But, I liked the idea of the third stanza with it's winter fairy fashions. I rewrote it as a cherita. [A cherita is an untitled poem of three stanzas. The first stanza is one line and sets a scene. The second stanza is two lines and the third stanza is three lines. The cherita tells a little story.]

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

October wildflowers

white and muted pastels
less garish than summer's blooms

their color palette
will be borrowed for winter's
fairy fashions

I was left with the second stanza. I didn't hate it, so I tried to rewrite it as a simple haiku. I got hung up on using metaphor. Haiku doesn't use simile and metaphor. If I wanted to use a poetic device, I could write it as a tanka:

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

shadows lengthen
while days grow short
October light
through its golden warp
are woven threads of silver

I ended up revisiting that last stanza, which I thought wasn't worth salvaging, but, you can always find a haiku if you look close enough.

October...
with my cup of tea
a poem

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Thanks for reading this far. I think I'm finally finished! I hope you'll visit Live Your Poem where Irene is hosting the Poetry Friday Round-Up.

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

autumn sun
barely enough to sustain
the asters
yet more than enough to set
the afternoon on fire

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved

Text:

a whistle buoy's
constant reminder
of peril
the sunniest days are when
we are taken unawares

Happy Haiga Day!

On Friday Irene Latham posted a swap poem she had received from Margaret Simon. Irene explained, "Margaret's poem was from a prompt in THE PRACTICE OF POETRY by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell to use a Greek Philosopher's quote as an epigraph."

You should definitely read Margaret's poem, which in turn inspired a poem by Irene. Irene concluded her post with this, "Anyone else want to write a poem inspired by a Greek philosopher?"

How could I resist the invitation?

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

Outdoor Café

The things you really need are few and easy to come by; but the things you can imagine you need are infinite, and you will never be satisfied.
~ Epicurus

outdoor café
nectar sipped from
a flute

though the air
is clear, warm, and perfumed
notes are taken
--would we also bother
to record number of sips?

bees and daisies
printed on the tablecloth
...no one looks up

Happy Haiga Day!

I have two phone apps that purport to be able to identify photos of unknown (to the photographer) plants. Neither could ID this striking range of green to raisin-colored leaves! I'd love it if you can tell me what they are.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Haiku Sticky #409

After days and days and days of rain and dreariness, the sun is out! So, you'll have to excuse this sappy tanka!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

golden bright
the new green lit
by sunlight
songbirds vocalize
with a spring breeze

Poetry Friday--Woodcut Project

This week I've been working on some woodcut project poems. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Here are two. The first is not quite successful visually, but I like the poem.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

her schedule filled
she always manages
a daydream


This next one actually depresses the hell out of me. In the background I have forest facts from Save America's Forests. But all aspects of the environment are in danger. Enough said.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

when greed
has overcome need
how to survive
if our only pathway
ends in annihilation


Look for a brighter batch of poems at the Poetry Friday Round-Up being held at Today's Little Ditty.

Haiku Sticky #399

I completely forgot last week's Haiku Sticky! For today I have a tanka instead of a haiku--a few extra words to make up for last week's deficit.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Happy Haiga Day!

For Valentine's Day, a tanka. Asters symbolize love.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

in the garden or
among a graveyard's stones
asters
overwinter, germinate
unfalteringly present

This is also part of my woodcut project. Here's the original, from a chapbook of riddles:

Don't you love the title: A Whetstone for Dull Wits?

Poetry Friday--Brussels Sprouts

Last Friday, Michelle Barnes announced the publication of her The Best of Today's Little Ditty anthology. Think Christmas, or any holiday or gift-giving occasion--it would make a great stocking stuffer!

Also with her announcement, Michelle held a "Five for Friday" ditty writing exercise. We were instructed to write a five word poem (plus title) about "the best thing that happened to you this week."

Being that the assignment came so soon after the election, it took a bit of thought to come up with something that I considered a "best thing." (I'd been stewing in doom and gloom.)

Illustration from Mother Earth's Children: The Frolics of the Fruits and Vegetables by Elizabeth Gordon [1914].
After a little thought, I came up with Brussels sprouts. I figured people would think I'm weird, so I did a bit more pondering and remembered my doctor visit where I found I hadn't gained any weight. That was pretty good until I also remembered I hadn't lost any weight either. Still, I thought it was a reasonable thing to write about, and so I did. (Read my twin ditties here.)

You may be thinking, "But what about the Brussels sprouts?" The best thing that happened to me early last week was that I roasted a pan of Brussels sprouts. I had marinated them in olive oil vinaigrette and roasted them at 375 degrees until nicely browned. They were delicious. I thought about them for days after.

I grew up never having been exposed to Brussels sprouts, and when, as a young adult, I was served them, they had been boiled. They were, quite frankly, awful. About eight years ago, a co-worker told me that Brussels sprouts were tasty roasted and I should try them again. I did, and I've been a Brussels sprouts fan ever since. Here's my five word ditty on the subject:

Brussels Sprouts

Lingering smell
belies tongue's delight.
©Diane Mayr.

I checked through my files and found that I've written about Brussels sprouts before!

fifty-nine years old
she cooks brussels sprouts
for the first time
tomorrow perhaps
there'll be roast beef
©Diane Mayr.

The tanka came about as a result of my first success with roasting sprouts. I never did make roast beef. Spending big bucks on a roast beef and then risking overcooking it didn't appeal to me. I no longer have an appetite for roast beef, so I will probably finish my life without ever making one!

Can you write a five word poem about Brussels sprouts? If you're up to the challenge, leave your entry in the comments below. If you're not up for a challenge, do you have a favorite Brussels sprouts poem? Do you know of any Brussels sprouts poem? I'm curious as to how many we can come up with!

Quite a few, as it turns out! There seems to be a Brussels sprouts affinity among Poetry Friday participants!

Brussels Sprouts

curiosity invites wee cabbage crunch
© Linda Baie

BRUSSELS SPROUTS

best
bought fresh
from farmers
© Mary Lee Hahn

Brussels Sprouts

approached cautiously
tiny tartness
veggie bonbons
micro cabbages
like dollhouse food
© Brenda Harsham

Brussel Sprouts

fabulous
finger food
for vegetarians
© Carol

Cut
Toss
Spice
Broil
Eat
--deliciousness sprouts!
© Margaret Simon

Visit Carol's Corner for the day-after-Thanksgiving (also known as Gluttony Remorse Day) Poetry Friday Round-Up.

Poetry Friday--Random Thoughts

The significance of this presidential election occupies my thoughts much too much. Writing poems doesn't seem to be an option at this time. One month to go before the anxiety either subsides completely or begins to grow exponentially. Until then, I'm digging through old poems to fill the void. This tanka was written on October 3, 2010 and I used it for today with a photo I had taken back in 2009. My blueberry bush was particularly colorful that year.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

The photo, uncropped, was also in this haiga from 2010:

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

For the Poetry Friday Round-Up you must visit Violet Nesdoly / poems, she's waiting for you! Have a great weekend!