Another week under our belts and another guest host left pulling out her hair trying to choose only one recipient for the Bloom. That’s no lie! Thanks to Linda Hofke for her help and follicular sacrifice this week! And since we’re writing about lies, that contradiction leads us into the awards:
WALT’S CHOICES:
I read through this week’s work, and when I came to this poet’s piece, I heard Billy Joel’s “The Stranger” play in my head. Sometimes people do all they can to alter their look, wearing a mask to fool others. And themselves. And as Poe wrote and Laurie Kolp confirms, the heart is tell-tale. Laurie earns this Bloom for “Heart, Capsulized”.
HEART CAPSULIZED by Lauirie Kolp
you can change
how fast you age
with bleached white teeth
and pumped up lips
permanently painted
hot pink or red
how your
skin appears
with fake tans
not to mention
hair dyed to hide
unwanted gray
but there’s nothing,
not a pill, that will
ever change your
thoughtless heart
© Copyright Laurie Kolp – 2014
***
And as is my prerogative, I have decided to award a second Bloom to Caludette J. Young for the innovative and well received ne form which rightfully bears the name, the Claudelle, demonstrated in her piece,
THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW by Claudette J Young
Today begins with agenda filled
with have-to’s and musts
all lined up, threatening to spill
over into midnight’s thrusts
onto tomorrow’s threshold.
Time flies from window’s sill
to circle the sky’s limits for
accomplishing more still,
emergency tasks that bore
down on my unexpectedly.
Items pushed back to simmer
on a stove boiling over with work
inch forward, each a small glimmer
of hope for one sitting in agenda’s murk,
who know not enough hours exist,
and at trail’s end of day
there’s always tomorrow
come what may.
© Claudette J. Young 2014
I hope Claudette will allow us to use her form some Wednesday. (hint, hint)
***
INFORM POETS:
For the Quintella, I found the piece by Connie Peters very entertaining as it describes in very visual terms the movements of alpacas in a “dance” . The last line in the stanzas ties the poem together nicely.
THE ALPACA DANCE
Your partners are all set to prance.
Long legs, big eyes, thick fur. And hums.
You’ll brush them now from neck to bums.
If you’re willing to take the chance.
Let’s all do the alpaca dance.
So listen here, I’ll teach the stance.
Right arm blocks head, avoid the spit.
Left brushes high and low a bit.
Watch out, they’ll look at you askance.
Let’s all do the alpaca dance.
I’ll warn you now in great advance.
To kick at you, it’s spiteful goal.
Push bum and scoot around the pole.
Brush fast while it holds still perchance.
Let’s all do the alpaca dance.
The fiber grows your friend’s finance.
Remove the sticks, the hay, the burrs.
Then time to shear. The cries! The whirs!
They look like deer now, at first glance.
Let’s all do the alpaca dance.
I’ll tell you now, it’s not romance.
Watch where you step, it’s all not hay.
Yes, you have earned your meal today.
Now, watch them run in the expanse.
Let’s all do the alpaca dance.
© Copyright Connie L. Peters – 2014
***
LINDA’S DECISIONS:
Who knew a prompt about lies would produce so much variation? I enjoyed all of them, but (after much deliberation) narrowed it down to two poems. Then I kept swinging back and forth between the two–this one, no that one, no this one–like a pendulum. How appropriate that in the end I decided on a poem full of time references. My first Bloom goes to Salvatore Buttaci for his poem “The Lie of the Spin”.
THE LIE OF THE SPIN
ignore or stare down
the clock’s three hands
Waving full circles
while we spin
obliviously like
the vitruvian man
plastered against the wheel
we mourn those
whose clocks stopped
but lie how life goes on
as if we survivors
are immune to that death
cruelly claiming others
while we go on living
we kid ourselves thinking
our days are not numbered
the mirror lies to us
says we’re young as we feel
Says the glint in our eye’s still there
Says there’s snow on the rooftop
but the furnace burns bright
so we go on spinning
breezing through a lifetime
fooled by the clock’s slow hands
flying by unscathed by truth
then at the end we look back
and all those lies return
in an inescapable deathbed vertigo
© Copyright – Salvatore Buttaci – 2014
***
The quintella form poems, with their rhyme and meter, were so fun to read. Read aloud the words roll gently off the tongue and flow into the air like song. Very early on I had a favorite but after going back to read all the poems once again, one blew me away with how the meter worked beautifully. There is a steady beat like footsteps and then a stumble of that beat at the end which matches perfectly with the story. My beautiful in-form Bloom goes to Sara McNulty for “The Adventurous Hat”.
THE ADVENTUROUS HAT by Sara McNulty
You raced far down a street to seek
my tan suede hat from which I peeked
with just a fringe of hair that showed
from underneath a brim that bowed.
Until a gust of wind did streak
beneath the hat, and off it sailed.
You were determined to prevail,
so chased that hat, and grabbed the edge.
Just then it touched down on a ledge.
I watched you skid – oh no, a nail!
© Copyright Sara McNulty – 2014
CONGRATULATIONS Laurie, Claudette, Connie, Salvatore, and Sara on your Blooms.
Great work everyone!
POETIC BLOOMINGS 