Mary Lee had an interesting video up this morning to inspire poetry as part of her month of sharing resources from Wikimedia Commons. The video (above) is of a revolving sushi bar, and that got me thinking a bit about how the range of choices might actually be limiting.
Here’s what I wrote:

The predator hunts,
biding his time,
as his dinner cavorts
with others in line.

One might think
there were hours to wait,
as dinner flows by
on a small blue plate.

Another night
with too many choices,
the predator slinks home
in his stomach, the voices

call out for some meat,
some rice, some fish,
something of substance
from the small moving dish.

But, alas, that won’t be
so he takes out his bread
spreads peanut butter and jelly
and slinks off to bed.

And the podcast:

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Peace (in the poem),
Kevin

Bud posted a few new images this week to inspire poetry. The first is of an abandoned shopping cart at the edge of the ocean. Here’s what I wrote:

I’m not sure what’s taking him so long
to get the groceries:
the list was simple enough -
a gallon of milk,
a dozen bananas,
a little bit of orange juice …
I wonder if he has gone off the deep end
again.

And the second is a quiet scene — just two people holding hands, walking down the street. Here’s what I wrote:

She’d like to think
the silence,
a blanket;
She’d like to think
the fingers,
a thread;
She’s like to think
their dreams,
a quilt;
She’d like to think all that
but she’s just not sure,
and he’s not talking as they continue walking
into the quiet.

Peace (in the poems),
Kevin

Mary Lee has been posting some nifty images and media files over A Year of Reading, and asking us to write poems inspired by the work. It is part of her push to share more about Wikimedia Commons. Yesterday, she posted this animated image:

By Silver Spoon (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons
It reminded me of a conversation I inadvertently eavesdropped on the other day between a boy and his father. Which led to this poem:

“It only takes 20 moves,”
the boy whispered, as his father stared
at the young fingers
quickly swiveling and twisting the color tiles,
remixing the cube back towards its original and perfect state,
“and I can do it in less,” the boy boasted,
barely looking at his hands in movement,
matching up colors in a blur of speed
and confidence.

Instead, the boy gazed intently at his father,
seeking a compliment, or comment,
or an acknowledgement at the very least,
but all he got was that dead-eyed look of an adult
suddenly realizing just how difficult it would be
to put his own fractured world back together in just
20 moves or less.

Peace (in the cube),
Kevin

I noticed that Storybird, a site that allows you a unique way to create and share picture book stories, now has a poetry option, although it is still in beta. But I tried it out. The poetry option combines the idea of magnetic poetry (a set cache of words) with the Storybird format (a collection of images along a theme). You drag and drop words on the image to create a poem.

Here’s what I came up with:

Peace (in the poems),
Kevin

Mary Lee has been posting a great collection of multimedia from Wikimedia Commons over at A Year of Reading, and this morning, I caught up with two of her poetry prompts. The first is inspired by an audio clip of ocean waves, which reminded me of my mother-in-law on our summer vacations, and the second is  inspired by an Ansel Adams piece that had me thinking of the way the sunlight is seen on the mountain.

First,

She was always happiest
sitting by the window of the house
overlooking the Atlantic Ocean,
knotty hands knitting
as she listened to the rhythm of the tides
coming and going, like the years,
just like the years, coming and going,
and sometimes, I’d see her eyes close,
as if she were floating away for a few minutes
towards something better.

And:

You’re out of breath,
chasing sunspots around this mountain
as if you were lighter on your feet
than a rainbow,
or faster than the fingers of clouds
casting shadows.

Peace (in words),
Kevin

This morning, Bud the Teacher had an image for poetry that had me thinking. It showed a mother and child, standing in front of a picture of a woman, and a man is off to the wide of the frame, looking in. I had this sensation of everyone looking for everyone else, but in different realities (including the photographer), and that reminded me of a Mobius Strip.
Here’s what I wrote:

I’m the guy in the corner of the frame

looking in on the scene

as the photographer snaps the shot

from the other side of the room.

 

Together, we form a bit of symmetry,

dancing along this Mobius Strip of

me

watching the

camera

watching the

woman

watching the

child

watching the

photographer

watching

me out of the corner of his eye,

even as

She

eats her breakfast in the perfect silence

of the

Still Life

hanging on the wall.

And the podcast:

Peace (in the frame),
Kevin

Mary Lee posted a video clip this morning, as part of her month-long inquiry into using media to inspire poetry, connected with using Wikimedia Commons. The video shows a bird, in a cage, squawking as if laughing (I doubt it is laughing, though), which led me to write this short poem. I was playing with rhymes a bit, trying to overlap lines.

Don’t laugh
this could be you
stuck here with me
inside this zoo

where all we do
is prance and wait
for someone else
to navigate

we situate
ourselves, here,
while dreaming only
to disappear

I fear, though,
we’re here for ages
tossing words
across our cages.

And the podcast:

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Peace (in the poem),
Kevin

Mary Lee posted an interesting photo this morning of a telescope in Chile, shooting out its beams to outer space. (This part of Mary Lee’s use of media to inspire poetry and learn about copyright issues.) This is the poem that I wrote:

Riding lights;
writing nights;
The sky falls down
in a gentle rain of heavenly sights.
We gather hands and dance
amidst the possibilities
of chance that somewhere,
perhaps unaware,
someone else is looking out as we look in,
our eyes both extended into the stars
even as our words get scribbled out,
near and far, letter by letter,
line by line,
in this data-strewn world of virtual space.

And the podcast:

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Peace (in the stars),
Kevin

Leave it to Bud to come up with a little twist in his sharing of images this month to inspire poetry. Today, there was no image. Instead, in its place was a message saying the photo had been redacted and removed. That inspired me to write this poem.

This day, I fear, has gone in reverse -

so that every door opened, shuttered;

every word uttered, retracted;

every kiss given, returned;

every lesson learned, forgotten;

to the point where driving out becomes merely coming home,

and tonight, as I sit down heavily on the bed,

book in hand, ready to read to sleep to dream,

my mind is already cranking into the slow gear of morning thoughts

with coffee percolating in the air

and words dangling along the edge of the wilderness,

where stories graze on the embers

of night, and still,

I cannot sleep.

And the podcast:

Peace (in reverse),
Kevin

Mary Lee, over A Year of Reading, has been teaching us about the use of Wikimedia Commons for accessing and using images, videos and more in the common domain. This morning, she shared a lovely audio file to two harps playing (and some of her students’ poetry) and I wrote this:

While my left hand, fingers, float,
my right hand navigates the interior
of melody,
scaling solid lines of notes
shimmering at an altitude that no one else knows.

While my right hand, fingers, finesse,
my left hand follows the heart
of harmony,
skirting the outlines of sounds
weathering the storms that one else
hears.

And the podcast:

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Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin