Rachel’s Ladder

Rosie Hardy - Self Portrait

     I. When There Is

No darkness without light.
No rest without sleep.
No dreams without love.
No madness without obsession.
No miracles without imagination.

    II. The Builders

Angles and machines build
a nimbus on my breath.
A cherub sends a raincloud.
Archangels bleed excess

   III. The Rest Place

To return
without denial
to a warm body.
My head on a cushion
soul and joy are one.

    IV. The Twin Flame

In dreamland
our silver threads meet:
A love affair in corporeality.

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I think this is the last One Stop Poetry Challenge for Sunday:

http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/07/sunday-photography-interview-rosie-hardy-poetry-challenge.html

This is the:  Sunday Photography Interview: Rosie Hardy & Poetry Challenge

I got the picture from her website, specifically, the Self-Portrait Section:

http://www.rosiehardy.com/1145-self-portraits

More Than

Greater Than Sign

More than a fork makes a pie crust flake.
More than sugar in chocolate.
More than goats eat anything.
More than bears eat honey.
More than your soft lips.
More than riches.
More than health.
More than.
More.

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This is for: Form Monday – Nonet hosted by Corbie Sinclair – on this page –

http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/07/form-monday-nonet-hosted-by-corbie-sinclair.html

Also posted on:

Open Link Monday Dec 12, 2011

The form goes like this:  ABCDEFGHI or alpha numerical form, so each line is a different ending word. The corresponding syllables are 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1.  If this doesn’t make sense, go to the link above, and they will explain it in other ways.

As for the amazing artwork above, I did it. It’s too inventive, I know. If there were something better, something else, I would have chosen that.

in the red

Neil Alexander explores light

in the red

you don’t think
it’s going to happen
until it actually does

 count to ten
 in the red
 don't get to mad
 it's in your head

take precautions
take a breath
listen and learn

 count to ten
 in the red
 don't get to mad
 it's in your head

walking to school
running to the store
what did you forget?

 count to ten
 in the red
 don't get to mad
 it's in your head

a kick here
a punch there
it won’t add up

 count to ten
 in the red
 don't get to mad
 it's in your head

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A one stop poetry Sunday challenge.  Choose from the works of Photographer Neil Alexander.

http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/07/sunday-photography-interview-neil-alexander-poetry-challenge.html

Joy Garrison Programs: Command Highlight

     A. Joy

I was born Joy, to enjoy
in a state of overjoyment,
an adventurous joyrider.

I play with a joystick
always joyfully, giving others
much enjoyment.

In this game,
my obstructors
are killjoys.

      B. Garrison

Ghosts defend me
through time, as I design
the ultimate garrison.

Understandably, my actions
lie on the periphery
of the fourth dimension.

I build protective barriers
so you can hold flowers
so you can smile.

     C. Command

The laws of life
move me along.

If I don’t see it,
I make it.

I theorize.
I change the facts.

As I change,
I command the world.

     D. Highlight

Watch me move the pieces:
A Queens Gambit
A fancy castling.
I always defend.
I always protect.
Do not seek my highlights.
I have not peaked:
too much to achieve.

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Posted on:

Open Link Monday

The artwork is by Bonnie. Her blog is http://originalartstudio.blogspot.com/

This piece is a response to onestop poetry challenge:

 http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/07/friday-poetically-with-brian-miller-21.html

I’m not sure what this work will mean to you, but I will assume no one will guess how/why I wrote this. After I explain it, it may make even less sense. 😉

Some time before seven this morning, I HAD to get on my computer to do some preliminary work on my screenplay. I booted up, and instead of NOT turning on my browser, I brought up Google Chrome, clicked on the one stop poetry page, and saw the challenge.  I decided that in order not to waste my time of not writing my screenplay, the only solution was to write the poem about my main character.

I had no idea what to write about. I read the first poem posted, by Esther Douek. This can be found on

http://www.estherdouek.com/?p=381

Her poem is titled: “A Salesman with X-ray Vision | The Eyes of Poetry” . Her concept of X-Ray made me think of Four Dimensional art, as in Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)  Salvador Dalí. (1954).   Which you can see on  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dali_Crucifixion_hypercube.jpg

My protagonist’s name is Bashira Garrison. Bashira is a popular Muslim Girl name. It’s Urdu and Arabic for “Joyful.”   The main theme in my screenplay is “Protecting the Protector.” This is why her last name is Garrison. I called the character in my poem “Joy” instead of “Bashira” because I could play with the word “joy.” Poetry is all about playing and painting with words. So at least that part should make sense.

The image, above is saved as file name “ghist.jpg” . I thought it could be a mispelling or perhaps a variant of “ghost”, because it’s a ghostly image. I looked it up, and it’s a computer command: command highlight. The picture is one big highlight.

Bashira is an engineer who is developing a small unmanned aerial vehicle (SUAV). She often must re-programm the control system, so I thought that naming  this poem about Bashira (Joy) after a computer command would be apt.

Yesterday, someone asked me if my poetry was inspired by some sort of ” gift from a higher power.” It’s not.

This is how my poetry is contrived: I have one thing in my head, in this case doing some analysis on my screenplay. Then I encounter something I have to write a poem about, in this case a onestop poetry challenge. I take the two concepts and blend them into an abstraction. I look up words and phrases. I use them in my poem. In this case, I looked up variants of words with Joy in them. I looked up famous quotes for the words “change” and “highlight.”  That’s pretty much it.

Too Many Car Blues

Too Many Cars - How many More in the Three Car Garage?

There’s a janky ol’ dude.
He keeps forty nine cars.
He stays with his mama.
She collects cannin’ jars.

He’s got seven pit bulls
that will tear you to shreds.
They crap on his rugs.
Sleep on their stinkin’ beds.

He got up one mornin’,
sneezin’ mightier than hell.
Them dogs peed inside.
He done holla and yell.

Got in the Town Car,
got a nail in a tire.
When he changed up the spare,
darn engine caught on fire.

The next day he drove,
an old Chevy truck.
Road to the reserve:
He had mighty fine luck.

He took all his cash,
bought himself a new Ford.
Now he’s gots fifty cars
by the Grace of the Lord.

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Here’s another “One Stop Poetry Challenges.” This time I’m writing in response to Form Monday “The Blues:

http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/07/form-monday-the-blues.html

OK, this is nothing like anything you are used to me seeing. As @Deshair has said in the past, my poems are vocabulary lessons. Well, this is just another type of vocabulary.

So, for those of you used to seeing me use words like chemiluminescent and nanomanipulator, he’s a whole different set of vocabulary words to ponder. I happen to favor “janky.”

Fear of Happiness

You are a puppet to your greatness.
You are the amplifier of its voice.
When you peak, you are amazed
and query your accomplishments.
Since your imagination has no limits,
a mirror exposes the bulges of your greatness.

With humility, you smile, relax,
and a fall asleep to sweet dreams.
You command a well timed silent dominion.

With the authority of laser like radiance,
envisage persistent obligation.
If your vision lies dormant,
Rub influence as you zip by;
Inspire with the scent of your perspiration;
Cajole with poise and assure with consolation.

Walk not with the gravity
of one who lost a child.
Even those outside the household bubble
are with blustery flares of disposition
in place of beaming manifestation of pleasantness.
If those shocking moment laps,
don’t accede to benign complacency.

Don’t accede to unhappiness.
Happiness leads not to empty hedonism.
Without it, authority disappears like sounds in a blown speaker;
Influence vanishes like weather in the eye of a hurricane;
Elucidation meanders about like a hungry, lost coyote;
And inspiration is not more than a fading spot light.

Make happiness tantamount.
Penalties are not mandated
on your subordinates
for you, your self
are endowed with merry gifts.

Make corrections.
Prevalent mistakes minimize your greatness.

Though in some domains you have lost control,
life, as a whole, averages it out.

Express your voice
In tones of utter determination.
Use your limitless courage to put right
what you now bemoan.

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Here’s another “One Stop Poetry Challenges.” This this is the One Shoot Sunday – Independence Day, 2011.” In other words, Fourth of July Eve.

Also posted on:

Midweek Motif – Happiness

 

I wrote this back in 2001 for now Brig General William Thornton.

off-center

Adam Romanowicz - Convergence

in coordinate and velocity space
a clear compositional asymmetry
shifts mass from the hub.

various elements are produced.
an expansion timescale distributes
reaction product elements.

radial detonation wave
expands in the propagation direction.
thermodynamic trajectories are dense.

this off-center special distribution
is a toy model
of a massive white star.
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Here’s another “One Stop Poetry Challenges.” This time I’m writing in response to the photography of Adam Romanowicz, an engineer in the real world.

http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/06/sunday-photography-interview-adam-romanowicz-poetry-challenge.html

Bottle Out

Bottle Out – iPad Drawing by Alison Jardine

Fine nouveax deco
Running glaze.
Grass green;
Color slipping
On and off the surface.

Rough as a bead,
Feel the edges.

An instant favorite
Opalescent
Ground to the base.
Daring and vamp,
Sleek flattering shape.

Dramatic cameo.
Open it up.
Olfactory experience.

Signature etched
Virtual art.

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Here’s another “One Stop Poetry Challenges.”  It’s Friday Poetry with Brian Miller:

http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/06/friday-poetically-with-brian-miller-19.html

The assignment was to select a picture from:

http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/06/one-stop-spotlight-artist-alison-jardine.html

It’s another quickie. 😉

Geometer’s Playground Over Wyoming

City lights illuminate the horizon of an unnatural land.
A menagerie of images captures geometric designs.

       Arch diffuse as the Milky Way.
       Hexagonal crystal lunar halo.
       Shadows appearing at oblique angles.

Star trails point in multiple directions.
Sky juxtapositions surround the pyramidal structure.

       All points of view enhanced  aesthetically.
       Lunar corona shrinks and swells.
       Drifting pollen grains distort the scene.

Nothing  can quench the soft green glow of a far off Nebula.
The landscape is both daylight and semi-darkness.

       A bright night landscape,
          hyper-real and unreal all at once.
       A moon glaring like an evil eye.

Shadows stretch to and from the camera in unison.
Homestead-tech in a high science field.

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Here’s another http://onestoppoetry.com/ endeavor.

Also posted on:

Also posted on:

“G” Is For “Gigi” Ann” A Little Bit About Me

It’s from a great picture I saw on Astronomy Picture of the Day, the specific link being:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110606.html

on 183rd

Deadbeatniks Graffiti By Joel Friese

on 183rd with a dozen spray paint cans:
blues of all moods, an orange and pink,
a mean type of brown (it’s a bit like red ink)

he announced a band, from a time long ago
when rebels rejected old middle class views
when jazz was exciting (only politics made the news)

he drew a motif on cold urban bricks
to soften the hardness of the dullest of greys
and brighten up anxiety, driven, sad mournful days

no one had noticed (it’s another city wall)
the metropolean sounds blocked out the sights
thus, his artwork just faded into a lonely black night

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Here’s another “One Stop Poetry Challenges.” This time I’m writing in response to the graffiti art page:

http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/06/one-stop-poetry-the-arts-and-graffitiiogg.html

Also posted on:

Poetry Jam – the sound of music •♪•♫•♪•

Also posted on:

Write2Day: Music and the Written Word