The Bus goes back to school

Karen at Keeping Secrets is driving the bus this week, and it's a school bus!  Her prompt, aptly enough, is to write a poem about school or schooling. I give you a poem I wrote when I was in the 10th grade.  I tweeked it a little just now (I was going on memory, anyway), but for the most part it is true to the words, and certainly to the thoughts, of the high schooler who wrote it many years ago.


My heart longs greatly
For a love long lost in time,
A love I searched for
Too strongly ever to find,
A love sadly lost for aye.

The love I needed
Lay before unseeing eyes,
For the blinders of
My fantasies and desires
Hid your eager heart from me.

So I live without
The love I did not notice,
The hope you carried,
The gift you wished to give me,
A love sadly lost for aye.

A Playful Sunday with LC

Thought I would route this to One Shot Wednesday for a little love...enjoy!  And check out some great writing while you're in the One Stop neighborhood.

The Precocious Pelican
By Lemuel Crouse

As I sat looking out on a slate-gray sea,
A precocious pelican swooped from the sky
And lazily glided in front of me
Until a fine fish caught his eye.

At once he dove in headlong manner,
Splashing down noisily amongst the waves.
Then floating proudly, a wind-tossed banner,
A nod of the head to me he gave.

With tipping beak and gulping throat,
He slickly swallowed his salty snack.
Then, flapping his wings, the water he smote,
And my pelican flew off without looking back.

To be a bird like he I sometimes wish,
To have a home upon some marshy shore,
With naught to do but fly and swim and fish,
And be a haunted human, nevermore.


(Photo courtesy of me, taken in Charleston Harbor, March 2010)

Swallowtail Saturday

The Bug was out and about this morning (a birthday party for twins that I'm sure you will hear all about), so I was left to make do with only the Canon PowerShot A710 IS.  It is a fine camera that has captured so many lovely moments in our lives over the last half dozen years, but close-ups of butterflies is not its forte.  Still, this lovely swallowtail was quite accommodating, practically posing for me!

This Sunday, LC rides the Poetry Bus to the Gulf

Welcome, One Stop One Shot Wednesday visitors.  This week I'm sharing a poem I, er, LC posted on Sunday.  I will let it speak for itself.

Chiccoreal is driving the Poetry Bus this week!  I have chosen prompt #2:

Write a poem about the first song that POPS INTO YOUR HEAD IN THE MORNING. It could be your favourite song, or your least favourite song, or a song that keeps replaying over and over again in the breadbox. This is called an all-day EARWORM and you need to find a good dewormer. It is music in the making and over ripe for writing a poem about.

Lemuel insisted on writing this one, and he has given you a sonnet:

Gulfsong

By Lemuel Crouse

On salty sands where once we played in light,
Slick shadows crawl, as I, now still for good,
Lie mired 'neath the spewing, endless night.
Gulfsong: “Forgive…forget…not sure I could.”

For good…a ghost-laugh leaps from withered throat
At such a backward phrase, for evil wrecked
With zeal my birthing beach, then paused to gloat,
Some years before his well unleashed the dreck.

The dreck, this crude effusion cov’ring all
That once was home to life and hope and bliss,
Now clings and lingers deep inside my walls,
Consuming, burning with its lethal kiss.

The ghost-heart silent ‘neath my carapace
Will ever be “not ready to make nice!”


(Image courtesy of AP; for the relevant Dixie Chicks video, click here)

Birdbath Saturday

 On this overcast, humid day, the little birdies were happy

to stop by for a drink, but not a dip in the pool!

 "That water looks cold...stick a toe in and see..."
"Sure...what's a toe?"

"Here's lookin' at you, kid..."

"Ah, got the place all to myself..."

"For about three seconds..."

"Pool party!"

"Where'd everybirdy go?"

"Who's the pretty bird?"

"Lookin' good makes me thirsty..."

"My best side..."

"That last guy was kinda stuck on himself..."

Magpie Tales

Painted Ladies

Between,

in the interval

that separates

two,

like bubbles 'twixt
your bathing feet,
subtly parted
by the drip

from the faucet
I need to fix.

What drip is it
that keeps us
apart,

we two who know

each other so well?

Your toes
above the suds,
ruby nails
like painted ladies,

catch my eye,
inviting me
to explore
the interval
that lies
between.

To participate in Magpie Tales, or to read other entries (you won't be sorry!), just click here.

Linthead with a brush

I acknowledge that I can paint.  I can dip the brush into the paint, be it craft paint in little plastic cups or oil on a palette, but I'm not sure I can *paint*...not yet.  I can visualize, and sometimes I can come close to what I see.  My favorite painting may well be the one I used for my header, the one admired by the Totalfeckineejit.  I painted it on a 6"x8" piece of plywood with craft paint from that chain store ol' Sam Walton foisted upon us.  I have since graduated to oil on canvas (farther down the page), but I love the early paintings, both for their style and for the time in my life they reflect.  I was recovering from acute depression, going back to school, becoming a teacher, trying to be a good husband, and trying to live, not just survive.  Some of the poems you have seen/will see also were born during this era...the Snowflake poem, for example.  I am proud of all of it.  It was part of my journey to become who I am today...a beautiful part, lived out in one of the more beautiful places on earth: the mountains of western North Carolina.  I found health and healing and hope in those mountains.  I miss them so very, very much.

The above is a stylized view of Mt. Pisgah, near Asheville.

The above was inspired by a trip to Cade's Cove.

The above was inspired by Lake Junaluska in winter.

Stylized depiction of a farm near Hickory, NC.

Oil on Canvas, Central Kentucky Barn (8"x10")

Oil on Canvas, Piedmont North Carolina Barn (8"x10")

Oil on Canvas, "Kentucky Twilight" (16"x20")

Oil on Canvas, "Marblehead Imaginings" (16"x20")

Oil on Canvas, "Carolina Dunes" (11"x14")