Share Your Creativity Day
I’m trying something new!
You’re invited to post your own poetry or bits of stories, drop links to favorite literature-related sites, tell us about a recent writing-related experience or some other creative writing goodness. Have a poem in a poetry journal? Drop a link. Have a friend who does gorgeous work? Tell us about it. Have a lovely phrase that you just can’t get out of your mind? Drop it in the comments here. Revving up to do an in-public reading? Tell us about it. Slaving away at Script Frenzy, National Poetry Month or NaPoWriMo? Share the pain – and the glee!
You may also post favorite poetry written by others, if you have permission or if it’s public domain or OK to share according to a Creative Commons license.
If I get a good response, I’ll do it again.
……………………
Please, no unattributed works – if the author is known, let’s give them credit. Controversial topics are OK, but keep it clean. Spammers and viagra-linkers will be unceremoniously deleted.
April 26th, 2010 at 3:29 am
this movie
listen: a hum,
a rumble, a roar
a human voice,
a soft sweet song,
a sudden breath,
a car horn
look: a scattering
of city lights
sits below
darkened skies
that stretch and loom
behind faint reflections of a room;
a table lamp, a candle light
some figures sit and dance inside
this movie
this movie that i see
this movie that surrounds indwells excites repels and blesses me
it shames photographic quality
with colors rich, intense, and live
devastating and delicate,
the sound system would make Dolby cry
it’s also tactile and olfactory
a complete chemical laboratory
an interactive 3-D party
a real-time, sensuous love story.
but -
most incredibly -
almost unbelievably included with this movie
is an omnipresent
⋯ and incessant,
⋯ inexhaustible
⋯ and constant,
⋯ condescending
⋯ and contrary,
⋯ running line of commentary
- qthomasbower
April 26th, 2010 at 3:42 am
Thank you for jumping right in, and wow, that’s gorgeous!
Make sure to check out QThomasBower’s fascinating Flickr sets.
April 26th, 2010 at 4:23 am
Elizabeth, this is a wonderful idea and your first submission was a fabulous read. I really like the ending!
The primary thing I’m focusing on right now is the publication of my book of poems based on my Iraq War experience. I was a National Guard officer whose unit was activated for service in 2004 and I spent all of 2005 in Iraq. Being against the war on moral and religious grounds, I struggled with a moral dilemma – serve my country or protest by refusal, which would have likely ended in a jail sentencing as it has for many others. I opted to go.
Rumsfeld’s Sandbox contains 48 poems written before, during or shortly after my service period. Most of them were written while in Iraq and revised since then. Not all are war related, but there is a theme running throughout.
Here’s a sample poem titled “Nocturne: Battlefield Sonnet”:
The night is beautiful, beautiful
with the raspy breath
of live fire. Explosive. Death
tastes sweet like black cherry, a spool
of brut kisses, or crystal meth
with soda pop. Even a fool
can smell the pheromone of ferrous cool
in a coiled cloud. The smart head of Seth
sits on a pedestal of bronze
beaming like a tributary to love.
Hands of steel firm a grip on time, a glove
fit to spark a light touch of fear upon
us. In the end we’re not near as mortal
as the eyes that peer back through that sad portal.
I hope you like. There’s plenty more poetic juice where that came from at http://www.rumsfeldssandbox.com and in a variety of forms and tropes from the pure avant garde to traditional verse, free and formal. Again, not all are on the war theme. I even include audio and video readings of the poems and some PDF downloads. Forthcoming are essays on Just War doctrine.
April 26th, 2010 at 5:40 am
Doubts
Doubts rot the soul away
By crashing you between to different halves
Boggling your mind up
And shoving your thoughts into the sand
While the waves crash around you
While the night is drawing nigh
Doubts keep you in peril
Without conclusion in your life
And so like a boat
As it rocks to and fro upon the sea
You sail along
Directionless you see
For you cant seem to stay upon one coarse
For you are driven between to answers
And you have doubts
For which way to go
Where is your answer?
Where is the hope for which you seek?
It is in Christ!
The one who calms all seas
Let him lead you
To the little port ahead
Not what you expected
Well if you had known
You wouldn’t have had doubt now, would you?
April 26th, 2010 at 11:25 am
Thanks, Allen, Christa and Marq!
I’m up for doing this regularly – anything from weekly to monthly, depending on reader interest. Tell your friends!
April 26th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
What’s in my head has no words, but it is full of meaning nonetheless. Here is a link to a Lakota Flute song played by the revered Native American flautist, R. Carlos Nakai and which I have recently learned to play on my own Native American flute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuTHmxKLM6c
If you are looking for a space of peace in your life, listen to this song.
April 26th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
The Invitation
We were broken fruit,
windfalls full of seeds,
beginning at the end:
one hundred years of living
circling between us.
Our hearts were dry as
well-kept wheat.
Today we are Spring frogs,
round and wet with song:
come home, come home, come home.
by J. Ruth Eklund
April 26th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Nice! Thank you!
April 26th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
The Silver Swan, Who Living Had No Note
The silver swan, who living had no note,
When death approach’d, unlock’d her silent throat;
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more.
Farewell, all joys; O Death, come close mine eyes;
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.
Orlando Gibbons
//Editor’s note – This was originally posted as a comment on another poem. That this happened is part of the inspiration for doing a “Share Your Creativity Day.”//
April 26th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Great idea Elizabeth, below is my contribution; this piece has been published in the anthology ‘Miscellaneous Voices: Australian Blog Writing #1′
Unspoken Love
It hangs in the air
between gazing eyes,
within a mother when she rubs
for her unborn child.
You can see it in photos
of an anniversary,
in the fingered indentations
of a well worn rosary.
It spills from flowers that are
placed to mark a grave,
echoes in prayers,
requests to be saved.
It flows within the tears
of those left to grieve,
waiting for a final kiss
to get some relief.
It’s left within the smiles
when thoughts are brought to mind,
a sweet embrace that lingers
after earth bound time.
It’s when I think of my wife and daughters
while I’m aching through the day,
it’s in the ride I take back home
and when I forget to say
that love is everywhere
untouched and unbroken,
love is captured in these words,
no longer left unspoken.
April 27th, 2010 at 8:41 am
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
or 35 Years and Fruit Is Hard to Come By
This is the fruit from trees in orchards whose seeds were planted by the hands of many,
Tended, nurtured and protected by the passion of many,
Watered and washed with the sweat and tears of many.
Oh, we know the harvest is meager, from such a vast field-
and yet-
We throw our arms out and raise our voices
In celebration of
Each bright
Shiny
Apple
April 28th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Thank you, Mark and Christa. Thanks to you all! I want to do something like this on a regular basis, maybe once a week.
Is Monday a good day? Or would Saturdays work better? Does it matter to you?
April 29th, 2010 at 8:52 am
Hi Liz,
I love this idea! I have some of my own things I could share if you keep this going. For now, I found this and keep reading it. It really touched me.
“I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells.
I honor the place in you which is of love, of truth, of light, and of peace.
I honor the place in you where, if you are in that place in you,
and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.”
(Rumi) on what “Namaste” means