At Five

Marina Shemesh

At Five 

she had left on bare feet

reaching up for the single

key above the door meant

to keep her in and walking

out in the weak light across

the dry weed strewn grass

Phase One complete -

scratches on soft ankles

all the way to the cracked

board in back of the barn,

wiggling through,

breath catching,

almost stuck,

then through

Phase Two complete -

inhaling each soft velvet scent

of manure, grain, horse breath

in the stall of Player, slipping

in as he shook his heavy drops

of him wetting her cheeks his

eyes meeting hers – his level,

calm, with just a sparkle of

glint of open green fields and

their ride away from that gray

house to a golden horizon arc -

for now, she sat in the corner

of the stall below where the

feedbag would attach and he

would with gentle snuffling

eat, and she would be found

and dragged by an arm or a

leg back to that house smiling

on this five year old birthday

Phase Three Complete the

scent of hay and him and the

future clinging to her

like her future babies
no matter what

In the dancing dark

scary-doll-2-110661299086666YjG.jpg

In  the dancing dark

In  the dancing dark - 

holding whispered praying

tight as a tarot blessed gun

to seduce the Creature 

the child on carpet creeps

clutching a bright copper penny

to toss into wishing well blood 

pounding against the pulsing plague 

that reaches through the dancing dark

to levitate all that is dreadful, gathered

into a single salivating lascivious kiss - coming fast 

~

The Sunday Whirl « weekly wordles

Happy Forever Father's Day

...and so the little girl walked on porcelain soled edges

straight up to the split of the fog soft cliff - her breath

a wavering whistle in the wind blowing through the

chimney where once he had been  – with a gentle smile

and strong knuckled hands he had deftly drilled six secret

forever fortunes filled always with the elixir of his wisdom

from which she could drink - and drink she did –

swallowing the ambrosia of him –

healing the rendered rip he left when he had flown –

filling the pit of emptiness with the fortunes he left for her

to find – again and again – forever –

She watched the others watch her – seeing only

an aging woman drinking from a small cracked tea-cup

smiling patiently at her time-worn habits – and she smiled a

secret smile filled with father forever love –

born and continuing

to ride of the whisper of

a wish

~

Happy Father’s Day

June 9th - Welcome to 2014 Virtual Blog Tour - This stop Lido Beach, NY.

WELCOME TO  "IMAGINE" MY SMALL PIECE OF THIS SPINNING BLUE MARBLE WE ALL SHARE

I'm delighted to see that you've all landed here safely from your different points in our collective connected global cyber-community. Welcome (!)  one and all to this tour "Imagine" - made possible through a most kind invitation by a "kindred writing spirit"- none other than Walt Wojtanik, whom many of us already know very well from this wonderful cyber-world in which we all write, share, commiserate and congratulate.  Incidentally, anyone who has not made the acquaintance of the mult-talented Mr. W.W.   I would suggest that they leave here immediately and go to one of the following sites provided below and get to know Walt ASAP.

Several weeks ago Walt asked if I would consent to present my blog for a "tour," and so here we are.  Throw your coat over a chair or on the railing and follow me.  You'll see that although there are hundreds and hundreds of poems here and pictures which I've mainly found through Public Domain Images and the ocassional personal photo, - there really isn't much else - unless you'd like to stroll over and take a peek at some things I've had published, and some limericks which I've enjoyed writing to prompts supplied by Madeline Begun Kane, who is an enormously talented writer.
I believe the idea of this virtual tour was begun by Laurie Kolp, (if I am incorrect I shall correct) with whom I shared a wonderful mutual cheerleading session several NaNoWriMo Challenges ago which I shall never forget - as we both pulled each other over the finish line.  But, I am beginning to ramble.  I'd like to echo the sentiments of Walt, as he spoke to the fact that we as a writing community give life and audience and support to continue creating.  I believe that this cyber community is very far from virtual - it is real, and powerful and actual and, in my case, has resulted in taking my poetry from a pass-time and venue for personal communication to traveling on my way to becoming a 'real' poet with a good number of poems now published in online and print journals, a couple of anthologies I had the pleasure of participating in and editing,  and a live reading coming up this summer at a poetry festival.  This would not have happened without the online community we all enjoy - but I am continuing to ramble, so I'd like to ask you all to come back for a moment, I see some of you wandering around looking out the window, trying to pet Oliver, the cat, no he won't scratch, but he is not all the fond of being fondled ...

                                                                      Oliver 

Please visit Walt at one or all of his blogs and get ready to pre-order the collection that he is now busily organizing - it is sure to be a wonderful read!  

THANK YOU AGAIN WALT FOR THE HONOR OF THIS INVITATION :) 

Bio: Walt Wojtanik 

Walter Wojtanik has been a writer since age 13. Starting out with lyrics penned for melodies he composed on keyboards, he realized that his words sang on their own. He can claim the title “playwright” thanks to three of his plays being performed by local theater groups around his native Buffalo. He was named the 2010 Poet Laureate for the Writer’s Digest.com/ Poetic Asides April Poem-A-Day Challenge. Walt’s Memoir Project Chapbooks : YOLO and WOODWalt’s Blogs:Through the Eyes of a Poet’s Heart http://wojisme.wordpress.comI AM SANTA CLAUS http://iamsantaclaus.wordpress.com

I'll now properly give a final thank you to Walt Wojtanik for inviting me to share in this virtual blog tour and I'll now get around to answering the four questions which I was asked:  Follow me....

1.         What am I currently working on?

I am currently working on trying to think about how to organize 1,000 poems into a collection of books that will have some sort of hook that will peak the interest of readers to actually buy and read them. I have a potential title for a first collection (Wonderland) continuing my ongoing fascination with Alice and walking through the looking glass in my mind.  I have two novels completed during the past three years, one inspired by the Kaitlin series of poems about a raped and murdered four-year-old that some of you might remember (with more or less distaste) from a past PAD challenge, the other is based on another character Josie who "appeared" to me - Now perhaps I am simply being visited by the spirits of little girls and there really are no stories to be told - mhmmmm.   Well, putting the disturbing possibility on the side for the moment, I abashedly admit that I showed each novel ONCE to a major house where they were (kindly) passed over and never worked on them again!  I am currently seriously working on working on them or finally giving them a proper burial.

2.         How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I am not precisely certain where my genre lies and so I suppose that is where the difference lies. Okay, that was a flippant non-answer:  Hmmm my poetry differs in that it seems to dance a great deal with the concepts of death and rebirth - dark and light, innocence and loss, both literally and metaphorically. I think that these are fairly simplistic and obvious concepts inherent in being a human being who is currently alive and perhaps harbors some hope of some sort of rebirth or continuance in order to forestall a major event of chronic existential angst, never mind the tremendous narcissistic injury in contemplating my own eventual non-being.  

3.         Why do I write/create what I do?

I write because I must write.  I know this sounds trite, so I'll elaborate just a bit - I think that for me, writing is an organizing envelope where the flotsam and flickerings of falling shimmering thoughts fall into some sort of order rather than simply whirling. 

4.         How does my writing/creating process work?

Writing nonfiction is a matter of having an idea, researching and then being able to tolerate a sense of nothing making sense and waiting while gazillions of pieces of glittering shards of bright stuff float about and then the incredibly wonderful feeling when suddenly they fall together, as though magnetized into a framework and an order which then needs to simply be transcribed.  Writing novels has been a dream since early childhood, and I have been able to FINALLY in the past few years to be graced with two separate characters that "came" to me along with their "story." - ... but I do not find it as simple a process as other writing - in fact the harder I work the less I enjoy what I have written.  In the interim between publishing nonfiction and the life-long struggle to write "that" novel ... I have always written poetry.  When I say always I mean from very early childhood. Yet, oddly I never considered myself a poet (or in fact poetry 'writing').  Rather, I used poetry as a way of communicating or commemorating important events and/or feelings for myself and mostly as gifts to, or about, others.  I claim no credit for the ease with which poetry comes to me, most often I have no real idea where these poems come from, I write and as I'm writing I tweak here and there.  Over the past few years of venturing out and sharing poetry publicly - and having a good deal of good fortune in being published in more than a few literary journals - I am beginning to suspect that I have been a poet all along - back to the process... I look at a prompt, or have a thought, stop still for a moment, feel a rush, and then go to the keyboard or paper or whatever and then write quickly without stopping.  I do believe that poetry is an alternate language for me (and others) - meaning that whereas traditional language is linear - poetry more closely approximates (at least for me) the way thoughts appear before they must be edited into linear understandable language - poetry on the other hand allows for multi-level communication involving images and fragments of images that taken in totality lend a richer sense of experience.  Practically speaking,  I usually write on an IMAC in a room which is dedicated to writing - my desk is a caddy-cornered affair and faces the corner of the the intersections of the wall with a window to my left.  

Of course - like anyone else when an idea strike in the shower or on the porcelain throne - or in bed - I have my IPAD at hand to write it into notes or will jot something down on any writing surface that is handy.  There are too many times in my life where I have either woken or had an idea in the middle of the night or early morning and was sure that I would 1) either remember it clearly ... I didn't or 2) that it had no merit .... when I began writing down these random thoughts it often turned out that they did have some merit.  Soooo.... I try to catch what I can as it comes.  That is about it folks, if you've followed along to this point, I thank you deeply and hope I haven't wasted too much of your time boring you with these musings.

Still here?   I've now (finally) come to the end of this tour and I'm sure you now know all and quite possibly more than you could ever want to know about both my projects, person, and process.  And, so without further ado I'd like to introduce my three selections of excellent blogs that I believe you would greatly enjoy visiting and learning more about the process S.E. Ingraham, Barbara Ehrentreu, and Richard Fenwick, three very different and wonderful poetic voices.  

And now here is a visiting marching band who have kindly agreed to introduce...... 

Peter Griffin

S.E. (Sharon Ingraham, Barbara Ehrentreu and Richard Fenwick) .... 

who will be describing their works in progress and their writing process on their blogs next Monday, June 16th. 

S.E. (Sharon) Ingraham 
http://whenthepenbleeds.blogspot.ca/?zx=d36f092f50b54848

S.E. Ingraham, a retired mental health consumer, pens poems from the 53rd parallel, where she lives with the love of her life, as well as a very old wolf/border-collie.  Recently, she's had work published in a number of online and print journals:  Poetic Pinup Revue, Free Fall Literary Mag, Tic Toc, Something's Brewing, In Gilded Frame, Storm Cycle-the Best of 2013, and From Kind Of a Hurricane Press, to name a few.  She recently won the 2013 Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry contest, but her proudest achievement is a side-walk poem that will leave her words "written in stone" on a walkway near where her grandsons live. 

Bio: Barbara Ehrentreu
http://barbaraehrentreu.blogspot.com

Barbara lives with her family in Stamford, CT. She is the author of a young adult novel, If I Could Be Like Jennifer Taylor and has another novel, When My Life Changed, also young adult, coming this fall. She has contributed to Prompted: An International Collection of Poetry and Beyond the Dark Room. Several of her poems are published in various magazines online. Poetry comes to her when she needs to express what she is feeling.

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Bio:  Richard Fenwick 
http://www.ruiningsterner.com


I’m a Russian translator and work with Holocaust survivors from the former-Soviet Union. My first collection of poems is “Around the World Without a Sail,” and my second collection will be out by the end of the year. I live in Tucson, Arizona, and escape twice a year to Black Mountain, North Carolina, where I conspire with the mountains.

Thank you all for visiting, if you've left anything behind just give me a call and I'll be happy to send it back to you as soon as possible.  

Happy writing and it was wonderful to have to you visit.   

With all my appreciation and a heavy sprinkling of 
love - pearl

I'm going to get out of this hammock swim out, lift anchor and sail off for now....

Looking forward to your feedback 

:)

pkp 

For now...

For now.... 

he stands there stomping in the hallway

his small voice smeared with dark language

muffled under a small sibilant sizzle in place of

his usual hello – from the kitchen she listens

to this single demonstration of his five year old

power, there stomping in the hallway, ordering

the numbers of his hours away from her, away -

where he had found existence – 
beyond the kitchen where she listens

as he slams the door on the outside

for now