Saturday, April 27, 2019

The Muse # 53

Photo by Josiel Miranda from Pexels

Hello writers we are glad you stopped by to take a peek and participate!
 You know the drill:
write anything of your choosing
link
comment
visit
and above all........
HAVE FUN EVERYONE!!

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Let's Dance

Hello Musers! Today I am going to introduce you to an easy form: the Quadrille. This form was created by the poets at dVerse Poets Pub in honor of their sixth anniversary.  Also as a side note and an apology.  I have clinical depression and it has jumped on me bad.  I am in the process o reading your poems from last week.  I do apologize for not getting back to you all sooner. I can't imagine how it makes you all feel.  I am truly sorry.

A quadrille is a poem of exactly 44 words exckuding the title. It can be of any style as long as it is 44 words exactly. It can rhyme or not, it can be a haibun, it can be a tanka. Usualky the quadrille prompt includes a word for the day. I am just going to let you all write to your choice.

Below is a haibun ( a Japanese prosimetric form, tight prose followed by a seasonal haiku):

Haibun:  The Balloon
The day I buried my mother's ashes was a hot summer day. I untied the balloon from my wrist and let it go. I watched it rise quickly to the sky.
balloon rises to heaves
and clears the trees -
my heart goes with it.

So. Please write a poem of exactly 44 words. Easy peasy!


Saturday, April 20, 2019

The Muse #52

Hello Sunday Musers and
HAPPY EASTER!
This is Shay (Fireblossom/coalblack)
with your weekly picture inspiration.
No required form or length...
just write what you are inspired to, from the image,
visit,
link,
have fun!!!

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

The Wednesday Muse #4 - Busy Body

Hello all!  Down here in the south, it is warm and sunny.  All around me my neighbors are busy doing work on their yards, getting their flower and veggie gardens in shape, biking, walking a running.  Most of the folks in my neighborhood still work at a job.  I blessedly retired three years ago.

When I worked, I was constantanly busy.  I licensed the professional engineers for the state which meant I constantly was reviewing applications, verifying credentials, etc. etc. When I got home all I wanted to do was rest.  I am retired now but I still like a change in my routine.

Speaking of which, what do you all do to rest?  do you sleep, take naps, take walks, ride a bike, got to the beach, climb a tree?  This prompt is all about what you do to rest.  If you meditate to rest, that is fine but mainly, this is about resting, of changing your routine.  This is a simple prompt.  Write about resting.  That is all - let it rest, let it be.


People Resting - Cezanne


Saturday, April 13, 2019

The Muse # 51

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels

Welcome to the Sunday Muse, we are so glad you stopped by! Do not forget that Toni will be hosting the Wed Muse # 4 this week, so keep a look out for it.  Her prompts are always fascinating and you learn something new and wonderful every time.  Also, next week Shay will be hosting the Sunday Muse # 52 and I am looking forward to her photograph of choice.  Now that I have given you information over load, let us begin.
 Have fun everyone!

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

The Wednesday Muse #3 - 50 Shades of Rain

Today the prompt  is “rain”.  We all have rain in common – too much, too little, gentle spring rain, torrential summer rain, rain mixed with snow, soaking cold rain.  Walking in the rain, singin’ in the rain, dancing in the rain, playing in the rain.  We stay inside and drink soup or tea or something cozy with alcohol, read while it rains, listen to the rain on the roof before we go to sleep.  We groan at the rain when we have to walk in it to a bus or train stop and curse up a blue streak when a car goes by and SPLASH! thoroughly wets us through.

Basho wrote of rain:
spring rain
leaking through the roof
dripping from the wasp’s nest

The Japanese actually have 50+ words for rain unlike the Inuit which really do not have 100s of words for snow.  Being Japanese, their words for rain are seasonal and specific and at times, extremely artistic.  We Westerners look at rain as rain – the same rain that falls in the morning in spring is the same rain that falls at night in autumn.  Right?  Nope. The Japanese are so in tune with the changing of the seasons around them and how those seasons affect them, they created haiku – a poetic form about changing seasons, nature, and the now.  The melancholy felt when the seasons changed and climate changes took place are part of their concept of mono no aware. Here are some of the “rain” words for you:
ame –  rain
kosame –  light rain
kisame – rain that drips from tree branches
enu – misty rain
ooame – heavy rain
yokoburi – driving rain
kanu – cold winter rain
shun rin – spring rain
shun u – gentle spring rain
shuu rin – autumn rain
nagame – long rain
yuudachi  – sudden evening rain
shinotsukuame – intense rain
yulimajiri  – snow and rain
uhyou –  freezing rain
hisame – very cold rain or hail
ryokuu – summer rain
touu – winter rain
houshanouu – radioactive rain

As you can see from the brief list, the words truly do specify the rain of the moment, the season. Write a poem about rain. You can use one of the Japanese words in your poem or you describe the rain.
For inspiration I give you this music video from Darryl Hall:
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Saturday, April 6, 2019

The Muse # 50

Photo by Lukasz Dziegel from Pexels

Hello writers, welcome to our 50th Sunday Muse! So glad you stopped by today! Also, do not forget, Toni will be hosting another prompt on Wednesday
 for Wed prompt # 3. So come back and join in. 
Have fun everyone!

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Wednesday Muse #2 Hanami

Hello Wedesday Musers! I hope you enjoyed last week's prompt. A little bit of business first...The Sunday Muse and the Wednesday Muse are two separate muses. Cousins if you will. Related but with different parents. Sunday Muse does not post on Wednesday and Wednesday does not post on Sunday. Confusing? Oh my yes! Let us get to this Wednesday Prompt. The Japanese love their cherry blossoms. It is A.Big.Thing to view the cherry blossoms. People take pictures, pose with the trees, have festivals and many times, have picnics beneath them.

There is even special food for the hanami. All themed in in colors of pink, white, and green! At night, there are lights in and on the trees as well. The Japanese consider the cherry blossoms as renewal and of death. The blooms las maybe a week and then they are gone. So quickly they die. The samurai also took the cherry blossom to be the symbol of their profession. Whey they lived they were beautiful and glorious but when they died, often by suicide, they were simply....gone. Spring flowers I think make us all feel the same. They are beautiful and glorious but when they are gone, they are gone.

At one corner of my house, there is a huge clump of white daffodils. The smell wafts across the yard, they are so fragrant. Many of us love all of the blooms of spring: the white pear trees, the golden forsythia, the fragrant hyacinths, the happy daffodils. But in another week, they will be gone. Poof! I want a poem from you all about viewing spring blossoms. Do you take a special trip to view the cherry blossoms near you? Do you have flowers in your yard that you pick and use to decorate your home? When I was a child, I lived in Durham NC and twice every spring, we always trooped to Sarah P. Duke Memorial gardens to view all the flowers in bloom. It was gorgeous! We had flowers all around our home as well. The blooms always made me skip in joy. How do the spring flowers make you feel? Happy? Sad? Do they bring back happy memories or do they make you grief because of sad memories?

I visited several Japan several times during hanami and went to various cities to view the cherry blossoms and to participate in the picnics and partying that went on. So much fun but underneath, the underlying sadness at their passing. Mono no aware - wistfulness or sadness at the passing of things.

One of the best poems written about cherry blossoms was this one by Ezra Pound:
 In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Only two lines and yet it has all the elements of life, death, ghosts...Charon rowing people across the River Styx, faces appearing and reappearing, brevity of life...the description of the cherry blossom petals on a black bough is riveting. Pound was a proponent of imagist poetry. This is quite an image, is it not?

Write a poem about the flowers of spring and how they make you feel, memories. Write about enjoying them, waiting in anticipation for them, the last blooming daffodil of the season. Make your images vivid, not necessarily pretty and poetic. But above all, enjoy yourselves. Throw yourselves into flowers of spring.