PROMPT #399 – WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE

Fire. It has many connotations. From desire to destruction, fire becomes the element that carries the most power. Think of an aspect of fire as your inspiration and let it fuel your burn!

MARIES FIRE:

MADE IN HEAVEN
 
Introduced couple.
Spontaneous combustion.
Someone lit a match.

© Marie Elena Good, 2022

WALTS BURN:

CONFLAGRATION

Molten heat, flesh dripping
with the perspiration of passion's fire.
Crimson patches with crusted edges;
blisters of the resistant strain of hearts
wanting
more to ignite and burn in sacrifice;
the stench of charred skin, 
a blood offering to the gods who pander
to  longing. 
The pyre broils unbridled, arms out-
s  t  r  e  t  c  h  e  d and reaching to
breach the ford between
love and lust. A bridge.
It is what is, from the sanctuary
of solitary souls. Barren.
No one watches,
no one sees from whence smoke rises.
Immolation 
becomes my affliction,
setting myself ablaze for adulation's sake,
an implosion of inward emotions laid bare.
And there, where only ash remains
a powdered stain where once hearts conjoined.

(c) Walter J Wojtanik- 2022

PROMPT #398 – SAILS FOR SALE

Sitting on our shore and watching a solitary sailboat navigating the Lake Erie waters. Made me wish I were manning the rudder and unfurling the sails for a trek. In lieu of a boat, we’re writing a sail poem (or a sale poem). That’s a bargain for sure!

WALT SAILS:

SAYLES HALF OFF SALE

They’re there at Sayles
selling their sails,
sail sales always prevail!
From here to there
they sell their ware,
so the boats can go 
from here to there.
You can see them 
lined up in a row, 
but without a sail
that’s the only way they’ll go
merrily, gently down the stream.

(c) Walter J Wojtanik - 2022

***

Apparently you notice Marie’s absence. She’s taking a poetic pause to spend some Nona time with her beautiful granddaughters. She’s earned a Sunday off, so I’m going it alone.

PROMPT #397 – TEEMING SHORE

We celebrate summer with a trek to the beach. The shore beckons us to write a poem on its inspiration. As always, branch out in any direction as you shore up your verse. Write the sights, sounds, smells of the shore. A sunset appeals, as does a sunrise, sea gulls and swarms of swimmers … take the plunge and write it!

MARIE’S GULFSIDE:

High School Years, Snippets with Mom and Dad (Naples Beach, 1970s)

I pick up sea glass,
rub it between my fingers,
this heart-shaped God gift.

My dad finds twin shells,
quietly pockets them, then
makes earrings for me.

Sunset walk with Mom.
She tells me, “You’ll soon prefer
a romantic walk.”

Walking home from Pier,
something stings me on my foot.
Dad carries me home. 

The sun dips itself
into the Gulf.  We give a
standing ovation.  

An early-sunrise-
beach-all-to-myself morning.
A short bike ride home.

Just curious how
many dads would carry their
teenage daughter home.

Turned out Mom was right.
And part of me holds regret
for lost walks with her.  

Wonder if the next
to find the heart-shaped sea glass
saw it as God’s gift. 

© Marie Elena Good, 2022

WALT’S SHORE:

AS PURE AS AZURE SKIES AT MIDDAY

The tender shore breeze frees my words
from the prison of my mind,
I find my head clears here 
where the skies are the purest blue,
azure, for sure. It seems the cure for 
this muddled muse which at times 
uses rhymes like nickels and dimes
to buy a clue.  But then a stray cloud
plays through and rouses me
to choose the azure blue in lieu
of something ominous. Midday promises
to inspire, the higher into the sky you view.
It offers the truest blue to you.
Purely azure, for sure.

(C) Walter J Wojtanik - 2022

PROMPT #396 – CHOOSE LIFE

The greatest gift any of us have ever received is of course, this life we live. It is all we are and ever will be. It may not always be easy, but we work at it and make it work as best we can. In all things, we should choose life!

This is the life. It’s a wonderful life. Life is worth living … you’ve heard many turns of phrase concerning life. Find one and be inspired. Give your words the breath they deserve. Choose life! Write a Life poem.

MARIES CHOOSE LIFE POEM:

GLIOBLASTOMA

She heard the hard truth:
Treatment might extend her life
to wait for a cure.

Faced with the choice to
treat or go home, she went home
to wait, to go Home. 

© Marie Elena Good, 2022

Delores Graber Good
November 8, 1939 – October 26, 2010
#eternallife 

WALTS EXISTENCE:

WHERE LIFE’S TRAIL ENDS

Off to find where the treasure of life is stored. We
travel along the pathways for they shall
lead us along in our sanguine walk.
We will talk to birds speaking in feathered tongues with
nary a misunderstanding nor demanding tone. A
communion with nature, hands held aloft as we walk
to any destination we please for surely that
is where the trail ends and all us friends will be glad. It is
all that we have treasured, doled and measured
to share with all hearts that conjoin, and
as we get older, although our pace may slow,
we will continue to stroll life’s walkway, and
take our pleasures from the bench where we will watch…

© Walter J Wojtanik – 2022 

“Golden Shovel” Poetry

We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch…

from “Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein

PROMPT #395 – GOING HOME

Today’s prompt takes us to our comfort zone – home. Write about home past or present – yours or someone else’s. There’s home plate, home base, home run… anything home will do.

MARIES POEM:

Come Home (Sonnet to Immigrants and Refugees)

So, at what point does one decide to flee
the land where fruit and spice speak Grandma’s tongue?
Where generations of their family 
breathe music, art, and song as through shared lung?

This land (their land) where memories are made:
The land that births their children’s love of life,
where laughter laughs, and prayers-in-sync are prayed,
with rooted norms for husband and for wife.

At what point does their home feel foreign-born,
so much so that they have no choice but leave?
How long ‘til all their colors wilt war-torn?
How long until their soul does naught but grieve?

At what point can one let go of what was,
to feel at home in land of unlike flaws?

© Marie Elena Good, 2022

WALTS BASE:

THE HOME YOUR GENERATIONS ONLY KNEW
 
An unfamiliar place with no trace
of anything you can recall.
So many thoughts and ideas
given birth as your mind unearths
sorrow with little hope for a tomorrow.
Webs cobbled in fine silk
milking memories from misty midnight menageries.
Windows to the world, a soulless place
replacing what once was held dear,
here where love blossomed
and generations of sons 
and daughters grew in tune.
Airy, left in decadent decay – 
a shell of better days
ghosts of confiscated youth 
ripped from the grip our longing hearts
by upstart degenerates and renegades
where as children we once played.
Zombied now and denigrated to
wait for a wrecking ball or an overhaul.
In dreams you find your mind returning,
yearning for what long ago was your domain.
In dreams you can certainly go home again,
but why would you want to?

© Walter J. Wojtanik – 2022

PROMPT #394 – I’M WITH THE BAND

“Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.”

― Kahlil Gibran

We all have music in us! In some respects, we are our own best instrument. Maybe you play one well or not so much, or maybe you’d like to play one. Either way, you’re with the band. Here’s your chance for a solo! Even if you only sing. Write your instrument and fill our hearts with your music.

MARIE’S SONG:

“To love someone is to learn the song in their heart and sing it to them when they have forgotten it.”  ~ unknown.  Wish I could claim it.

Heart Song

Even David knew the power of music
to the heart of his God –
this God who sang the 
universe into existence.
This God whose angels forever sing of His glory –
from Him, to Him, through Him.
To us.
To those yet to be.
To His universe.
To themselves.  
This God who gave music to birds and bugs
and frogs and trees 
and water and glass and wind.
And (some believe) the very planets.
This God who loved this poet musician.
This One who called him a man after
His own heart.  
This Creator who gave each one of us
our own heart song.
May we sing it back to the Giver
all of our days! 

© Marie Elena Good, 2022

WALT KEYS:

NO FRETS, NO REGRETS

I've aways wanted to learn guitar,
But in that pursuit, I didn't get far.
To me music's always been black and white
And as I'm concerned that's quite alright.
I can't get strung out 'cause of this you can bet,
You won't find me harboring any regret.
The key to my music is at home in my fingers,
That's where my melody chooses to linger.
I no longer desire to play guitar chords,
I no longer fret, nor regret my keyboard.
My song is a part of the Grand Master's scheme.
He gave me a voice, now I wait for my dream.

(C) Walter J Wojtanik - 2022  

(GIVE ME) A DREAM FOR MY HEART  by Walter J Wojtanik
 (The title is the link)

PROMPT #393 – I MEANT TO DO THAT

Sometimes presumed errors or perceived wrong decisions surprisingly work to our advantage. We cover our tracks by proclaiming, ”I meant to do that!”

But was it something you were meant to do? What was it that you were meant to do, or would have liked to have done?

Turn your self-search into a poem and let us know where it might have taken you.

MARIE’S EXAMPLE:

TOO LATE (a waltmarie)

I ignored your advances. I made you beg my
pardon,
while you strained to gain my affection …
but I 
couldn’t encourage candor. No, not when you
meant to
lead me to altars and vows, and expected to hear me 
say I 
do, while my panic clearly cried I don’t
love you.

© Marie Elena Good, 2022

Inner poem reads:

pardon,
but I
meant to
say I 
love you

(Disclaimer:  While most of my poems are based on my life and thoughts, this one is completely fabricated. 😉 )

WALT’S POEM:

THE POEM I MEANT TO WRITE

The poem I meant to write
lived in my soul since I knew
I was meant to write a poem or two.
Or nine hundred. The one blunder
of my existence was my resistance
to refrain from writing rhyme.
So now poetry flows through me,
it knew me long before I was born.
For from that morn on, this gift
has lifted my heart, in part
to touch other souls with no
control over this muse of mine.
I refuse to rest until that one best
poem is written. The one 
that has me smitten.
The poem I meant to write. 
THE one.

© Walter J Wojtanik - 2022

PROMPT #392 – IN DEFENSE OF TREES

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

by Joyce Kilmer

I am channeling Joyce Kilmer, as you can see. His poem “Trees” was brought fully to mind. The weather the other day turned downright surly. We had experienced the most violent thunderstorm that I can ever remember. Monsoon winds, zero visibility. Thunder and lightning.

Lightning. It found the tree behind the back fence on my property. Branches ripped away from the trunk. A forty-foot limb came straight down to embed itself a foot and a half into the ground where I had been working thirty minutes earlier. Such destruction … poor tree scattered all over my tree-less yard.

Of course, I don’t blame the tree. I stand in defense of trees. And so will you. Your poems this week will be tree-centric. Write about a specific tree. A tree from your youth. There’s pastries, pantries, poetry, carpentry … any tree will do. Spread your limbs and write of trees. Mr. Kilmer said it best.

MARIE’S TREE:

 TREES


branches sing with birds
beg me bask in their cool shade
unlike palm thingies

©  Marie Elena Good 2022

Can you tell I love being a northern gal?  😉

WALT’S TREE:

LAND OF TWO TREES

Tall and thickly rooted,
an “orchard” amidst a garden.
The hardened immigrant toils,
muddied soil his base,
and his face is ruddy and worn.
He had been removed
from the home country he knew trans-
planted between two trees
shading his vegetable patch.
Tall and thickly rooted,
the gardener stands amidst his garden.
An apple tree reaching,
arms raised in prayer beseeching
for a fruitful yield. Across the way
plums, purple and regal.
Leathery hands gripping a hoe,
a “Hokka” he calls it, chopping
and tilling clods of dried sod.
Plans for tomatoes, potatoes,
beets and cucumbers
and a number of other plants.
Bandanna flailing raised to brow
mopping the flop-sweat
under the noon day sun, baking.
A curse in his mother tongue,
chopping against bark to free
the mud held tightly. Releasing
his place of birth for a new home!

(C) Walter J. Wojtanik - 2022

Can you tell i love being the son of a Polish immigrant who embraced America for all it had to offer and who offered all he had to give to have that life?

PROMPT #391 – THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT

Temperatures are drifting into the temperate zone of late. The heat is certainly on. so we’re writing the heat in a very cool way, through poetry. Write a hot poem, a heat poem or a poem about someone under pressure. It is the heat of the moment! Write it!

MARIE’S HEAT:

Scorching

Their heated discussions uniquely
would get fired up indiscreetly,
(no warmth in their tone;
like bone against bone)
yet somehow they’d cool it down treacly.

© Marie Elena Good 2022


HAPPY FATHER'S DAY WALT, AND ALL THE DADS AMONG US! ❤ 

WALT’S BROIL:

ICE PACKS AND HEATING PADS

The yin and yang of aches and pains,
weapons in a constant war!
Where medications miss the mark
I hearken for these modalities.
Not a finality by any stretch,
but, it’s good right now, right here.
And right here and here.
Heat it up and chill it down.
It satisfies this aching clown!

© Walter J. Wojtanik - 2022

PROMPT #390 – “Take a sad song, and make it better.” ~ The Beatles, 1968

Playing off Walt’s lyrics prompt from last week, let’s take a sad song, and make it better.  Take something that is a downer (song, poem, book title, movie, etc.), and put a hopeful twist on it. 

MARIE’S GOOD

“One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.” ~Three Dog Night, 1968

ONE

They say one’s lonely
but that’s a tune we can change
if we are all one.

(c) Marie Elena Good, 2022


WALT’S BETTER

EVERMORE

I will send you a bouquet,
a flourish of words sung
to our shared melody.
Romance set to music,
words of love to placate the soul.
A lyric blooms, filling our room
with a fragrance meant
to seduce you, entice you
to love me, make you hate
to leave me. Believe me,
I will bring you flowers.
I will sing you love songs.
Evermore.


"You Don't Bring Me Flowers"  sung by Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand

(C) Walter J Wojtanik, 2022