OF SABLE BRUSHES AND VISIONS

Fine strokes, evoking beauty upon life's canvas.
The Grand Master painting with steady hand
"scapes" of forest trees or sand on teeming seas.
Each dip into the palette He chooses
will not lose its vibrancy or vitality. Scenes
of greens and golds and untold wondrous
hues fills the skies and the beholder's eyes
with life's true majesty. With great Mastery he
fills his brush of fine Sable; in each careful stroke
He is able to capture all that His eye envisions.  

© JPW - 2014

Misted Mindset

it was a quiet hillside; he considered it
a place of worship where ghosts gathered
to swarm the edges of the bog like a hasty fog
the exact consistency of a pea green slurry.
patches of  clarity would spill unbidden
into sharp and defined visions. he saw what
he wanted to see. nothing more
© JPW – 2013

The SUNDAY WHIRL – Wordle #128

Fate and Destiny Do Lunch

“Glad you could meet me,

it always works out just how I’ve planned!”

“Oh really? What makes you think

my wish is your command?”

“Why do you think they call me Fate?

I knew you’d be here… and you wouldn’t be late!”

“You don’t control me, no how, no way –

I’ve a mind of my own! I still have a say!”

“I’m not so sure, if I must sound defeatist!”

“Go to hell, you overbearing elitist!”

They sit and stew, as that’s my hunch,

the way it goes when these two meet for lunch!

The waiter arrives, with menus he stands,

but Fate waves him off with a sweep of his hand.

“I’ve already ordered and I know what she’ll have.

She’ll eat the veal (she loves baby calves)”

“You see”, he explains, “I’m planned by divinity,

don’t question my motives, they’re from my mythology!”

Destiny smiled. “Excuse me, nature calls”

and she headed off for one of the stalls.

Fate sat there sipping his drink and awaiting his friend,

a relationship that was a dead end!

They weren’t really connected as far as he knew,

as through the front window a transit bus flew.

There lays the late Fate, now in celestial unity,

since Destiny influenced a great opportunity.

Fate met his fate, his appointment with Destiny,

cards fall into place through a deal of humanity

Now a table for one, but what the heck,

she didn’t even mind kiting the check!

© JPW - 2013

 Poetic Asides - Prompt #236 - Appointment poem

Encrusted

Heavy metal oxidant
sometimes happens without accident.
Lost of mobility and function;
fused at the junction where freedom
once rested. Oiled and tested
and yet you remain rusted.

© JPW 2013

Poetry Jam - The Thing About Rust...

Beach Front Property

Along the pier, planked and weathered,
boats tethered to the slips with twisted lines.
Spattered bow with gull souvenirs;
airborne psychopaths swooping
like kamikaze canaries on steroids.
And the noise in constant barrage
is a din that's never done.

But in the distance and on all sides,
the vignettes are very telling.
To the right the congregant gulls
continue their cackle, a drone.
Before wandering eyes, a horizon calls
sun speckled and bright, a light
of enormous clarity bringing this day

to a promising start. It is good
for your heart to be blessed by the beauty
inherent in this shore's edge.
Behind you are all the journeys
that have brought you away from a past
tattered and trampled, over-sampled
and weary. You can't go back again

no matter what your friends say.
For today, you take what's left.
Or to your left. Up the shore a way,
she stands in mirrored contemplation,
a situation you've encountered a myriad
of times; written in prose and rhymes
of every new view. Oblivious to you

she is lost in thoughts all her own.
A seminal glance; a chance look
that crosses paths and distance
to plant the seeds of curiosity
at trepidation's feet. She, 
with her sweet smile (when
she gets around to it) and tender wave. 

New "neighbors" sharing the open waters
along this knowing shore. Memories 
of former lives play in repetition;
new players in this ongoing game.
The outcome isn't always the same,
but this pier brings you back to start;
to beach front property and exploring hearts. 

© JPW 2013

Poetic Asides by Robert Lee Brewer - Prompt # 235 - "Front" poem

Poets United: Verse First - The Places You Love

Front Porch

Swinging, gently undulating
in the rhythm of a summer daze.
Peace bleeds through the open
fields of thought bringing a calm
that envelops. Ice melts in cool
rivulet condensation from tumbler
to side table. Flags in rapid flutter
seem to whisper in patriotic tones;
loyalty traverses every breath.
Birds in audition, warble and twit,
congruous and unpretentious.
Butterflies pursued by wide-eyed
children of wonder. And under
the overhang, hornets gang enmass
protection to a point. On the front porch,
wiling away the day in uninterrupted thought.

© JPW 2013

Poetic Asides by Robert Lee Brewer - Prompt # 235 - "Front" poem

Storm Front

Embattled and laid to waste.
Clouds glower and engulf.
It is enough that the winds
change, as winds of change do.
White flags torn and tattered,
no surrender ever ends
the conflict once it sidesteps resolution.
In love's revolution bastard dictators fail.
Rumbles and electric crashes,
flashes of destruction; incendiary bombs
begun as a storm front.
Batten down the hatches;
there’s no end in sight.

© JPW 2013

Poetic Asides by Robert Lee Brewer - Prompt # 235 - "Front" poem

POETIC FORM - GWAWDODYN

Robert Lee Brewer of Poetic Asides writes:

The gwawdodyn is a Welsh poetic form with a couple variations. However, both versions are comprised of quatrains (4-line stanzas) that have a 9/9/10/9 syllable pattern and matching end rhymes on lines 1, 2, and 4. The variations are made in that third line:

• One version has an internal rhyme within the third line. So there’s a rhyme somewhere within the third line with the end rhyme on the third line.
• The other version has an internal rhyme within the third line that rhymes with an internal rhyme in the fourth line.

In both cases, the rhyme starts somewhere in the middle of the third line and it is a unique rhyme to the end rhyme in lines 1, 2, and 4.

Here’s a possible diagram for the first version (with the x’s symbolizing syllables):
1-xxxxxxxxa
2-xxxxxxxxa
3-xxxxbxxxxb
4-xxxxxxxxa

Note: The “b” rhyme in the middle of line 3 could slide to the left or right as needed by the poet.

These are gwawdodyn poems I have entered in his August form challenge featuring the gwawdodyn:

SPACE

 There’s never a dull moment in space

Flotsam and jetsam about the place,

There’s no solution for this pollution,

In my mind, it’s a downright disgrace!

 © JPW 2013

POETRY

 And such is the life of a poet,

when he writes a good rhyme you know it.

Words with passion are always in fashion,

You think you’re a poet?  Then show it!

 © JPW 2013

REVERIE

 It’s a peaceful repast to your day,

Which fulfills you in every way.

It always seems we spend time in daydreams,

And not enough on living, I’d say!

© JPW 2013

MIRROR, MIRROR

 There on the wall it becomes your call

as per who’s the fairest of them all?

You’re up all night; all you’ve got is Snow White?

That’s why you were put back in the hall!

 © JPW 2013

TAKE THE “A” TRAIN

 I’m sick of this downtown construction,

and driving amidst this destruction.

Had I half a brain, I’d take me a train

with nary an ounce of compunction.

 © JPW 2013

MOVEABLE FEAST

 I tell the tale of the Great White Whale

for upon the Pequot I did sail.

Getting seasick chasing this “Moby Dick”,

Ahab’s obsession. Call me Ishmael.

© JPW 2013

TO THE SEA IN SHIPS

It’s said, “Lemmings must go to the sea”,

just as sailors must too, don’t you see?

Sailors go boating, they end up floating,

while lemmings just drown there in the sea!

© JPW 2013

JUDITH CAUGHT A FISH

At the harbor by Judith Clay

 To the harbor Judith went,
her umbrella in hand.
Departure time had come;
had went and she was wet
for it rained cats, and dogs,
and wombats, and ocelots,
and toucans, and hedgehogs
and a couple pear tree partridges.
The steamer churned and in it’s wake,
it kicked up the creatures of the deep:
Squids and eels, whales and seals,
Catfish and halibut. To her credit
Judith caught a fish!

© JPW 2013


 http://dversepoets.com/2013/08/24/poetics-judith-clay/

BEYOND THE SANDBAR

Swimming, an exercise from here
to there. Choppy waters wish
to take a soul floating onward
to a place where her footing is found.
Arms paddle and legs churn,
aches and fatigue become
the lead that muscles despise.
No bottom and endless water
ahead. Being awash upon
the sands that time has numbered.
Shallow returns and toes drag.
Standing on the sandbar you ponder.
Does the journey continue, 
after the promise of home calls you?

© JPW 2013

GRANA AD INFINITUM

Granular silica reaching
fully across the beach,
allowing the lake to leach
through every niche
and crevice, it teaches
us that infinity is within reach
in every step we take, each
in silent prayer, we beseech.

© JPW 2013

STARLIT SHORE

Warm breezes waft,
a windward caress on this
night of endless stars.
Flickering pokes into
the shrouded black night,
leaving blurbs of light
to illuminate the sand
and star-crossed lovers,
finding their passion's kiss
along the rippled glass
of star light's fervent dance.

© JPW 2013

REFLECTIONS

Clouds billow, broken
by wind and His mighty hand. 
Azure is always preferred,
but the blue is as deep
as the lake's expanse.
Ripples disturb, a turbulent
swipe of nature to provoke
clouds on the water, an image
mirrored from above, below.
A spreading horizon, beginning and
ending as the same breathless view.

© JPW 2013

Also posted at Poetic Asides with Robert Lee Brewer - Vision - Prompt 234