Sing a Song of Giants

Sing a song of giants
in a land far, far away.
Tell a tale of magic
to keep despair at bay.

Whistle an adventuring tune
as you begin your trip.
Wander an ancient desert.
Try to give your shadow the slip.

Gather odds and ends of myth.
Plant the bits you love the best.
Weave the remainder into a quilt
to wrap around you as you rest.

King, from the animated series, Owl House

Song Choice: Owl House LoFi 

Liner Notes For This Groove: This poem was written in honor of one of the regulars at the local writers' group I frequent, Tyler Simanski. He passed away some time late last Friday. Tyler was a fantasy writer too. Sometimes he and I would talk about our favorite cartoons, including Owl House. He will be missed by me and all the other members of the Bucks Country Writer's Room.

In Search of Nuance

This is the bleeding heart
that shines the mirror
begging you not to look away.

This is the ram
unafraid to challenge
both demon and angel,
demanding a response.

These are the hands
cramped from the sorting
of seed from stone.

These are the throats
swallowing worlds of emotions
while looking for a space to scream.

This is my heart
in search of nuance.

All I find is a mirror.

Photo by 卡晨 on Unsplash

Song Choice: For What It's Worth covered by Stevie Nicks

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem is linked to Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings

New Year's Wish

My wish for you—

Hope as sharp as lion’s teeth
devouring all the concrete that buries you
until you can

unfurl yourself under the encouraging sun
and make your own wishes
fly far and wide.

Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

Song Choice: Hey Jude covered by Infinity Song

Liner Notes for this Groove: This song is linked to Poets and Storyteller United's Friday Writing Prompt, Fascinating. I'm not sure how obscure this fact really is, but it always tickled me that the word dandelion originates from Latin meaning "lion's teeth".

Solstice 2023

I greeted the Sun empty-handed
worn out from too long nights
spent counting out collected griefs
from near and far.

The Sun gave me Her gift

of the light I could not hide from
illuminating who I was
and asking what I wanted to be
the morning that light came back 

into the world.

Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash

Song Choice: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me cover by Roger Daltrey

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem is linked to Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings. 

To Heal this Broken World

If my words cannot hold water
let them at least not act as tinder
for those eager to stoke the flames.

If I am struck silent
at the scope of the horror,
let my eyes at least be
brave enough to not look away.

If I can remember
only one thing, let it be
that every needless death diminishes us all.

The ability to kindle compassion
is the only superpower
that can heal this broken world. 

Photo by Nowshad Arefin on Unsplash

Song Choice: Won't Give Up by Pattie Gonia, featuring Yo-Yo Ma and Quin Christopherson

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem is linked to the Friday Writings Prompt at Poets and Storytellers United.

Proto-Mouse (In the Last Days of the Dinosaurs)

I did not witness the first strike
but I had already seen the signs
that came even before the ill-omened moon
and understood the end was near.

I did not have to measure
those deep and ancient fault lines
to be wary of the poison I could smell inside them
well before I scampered too near.

The impact ignited the built-up gas
devouring any possibility
of sound over the screaming flames.

And it took no great cunning
to know this poisoned air
would burn down all of the history 

of a once lush era.

Photo by Jon Butterworth on Unsplash

Song Choice: Dancing with Tears in My Eyes by Ultravox

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem is linked to Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings.

Eclipse Warning

My anger is a fast-moving planet.
But when it eclipses fear,
whole worlds can be re-ordered.

Photo by Jongsun Lee on Unsplash

Song Choice: Blaze of Glory by Bon Jovi

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem is linked to Poets and Storyteller United's Friday Writings Post.

Pleasantly Lazy

The pleasantly lazy feeling
of stretching wide

over not quite so crisp sheets

and feeling the sun 

gently tugging on my eyelashes,

completely unbothered

by thoughts

of what comes next.

Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash

Song Choice: Sunshine by Gabrielle

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem was inspired by the Friday Writing's Prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Glimmers.

Thoughts on Your Birthday

I wanted to tell you
how I fell in love again
with the sun on solstice morning.
Her warmth pulled me back
to myself and all the living
I have yet to do.

I miss you most in these moments,
when I’d share
another ridiculous whimsy of mine
and you’d take it as seriously
as a selkie takes the ocean.

Maybe this is why you called me Joy.

That never made sense to me.

It wasn't as much joy as survival.

I know the limits of my moth-eaten memory
and no matter what well-meaning people say
it isn’t the same as you still being alive at all,
not even a little.

I am left making up stories instead
about the sun and the stars 

caring enough to watch me

scavenge strands of joy
from the little moments of living,
in the hopes of weaving something beautiful
enough to honor who you were.

Image from Anne with an E

Song Choice: Welcome to the Black Parade covered by Halocene, Violet Orlandi, and Lauren Babic

Liner Notes for this Groove: Today is the birthday of a friend of mine who passed away. These were just thoughts I had about it. 

Breathless

Some memories

are sharp enough to cut

off my breath,

 

leaving me

gasping

like a fish

who just wants

her ocean

back.

Photo by Joseph Barrientos on Unsplash

Song Choice: Breaking Down by Florence + the Machine

Liner Notes for this Groove: I know I'm getting serious about a new writing project when I start writing poetry in the voices of my characters. Rina has a some serious inner demons to face (and several fae beings are just complicating the situation). But I'm deep into the super ugly rough first draft and enjoying getting to know her world.

This poem is linked to Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings prompt, Writing About Writing.

Grail Quest

I have made a vow
to be a knight, brave and true.
And now all my vows
compel me towards the grail.

I know there is no true healing
for some of the wounds I have taken.
There are things beyond
even the grail’s power.

But that was never the point.

The pain will not end
when I reach the grail.
But at least then I know
a new quest can begin.

I am a knight, brave and true,
seeking both my reflection
in the water of the grail

and remembrance
of all the adventures 

still left to find.

Photo by Nik Shuliahin 💛💙 on Unsplash

Song Choice: Man of La Mancha performed by Niizuma Seiko

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem is linked to Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings Prompt, Small Victories.

Love Letter to a Wildflower

beautiful things grow
in unexpected places.
you taught me that

there is no wall
no cement pavement
thick enough
to keep what is meant to grow
from unabashedly blooming.

at the end of every winter
i search through last year’s dead leaves
and the cracks of suburban civilization
until i find you again.

Photo by Lee 琴 on Unsplash

Song Choice: Wildflowers covered by The Wailin' Jennys

Line Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings Prompt at Poets and Storytellers United

Words

What's the use of words
when they aren’t really mine,
just lines I'm expected to say?

No one wants the real
ones that have been prowling,
thrashing their tails and hissing
in the warm cave of my throat

waiting for their chance
to run and be seen.

There is a script
for the way things are done.
Those words that were really mine

have nothing to do
but wait in the dark while I hope
that in their restlessness
that they don’t tear my own throat

from the inside out. 

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

Song Choice: Words by Missing Persons

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem is linked to the Friday Writings post at Poets and Storytellers United.

Necromancer

Rages buried,
especially in unremarked graves,
never rest easy.

They claw
out of their tombs,
polite skin peeled away
making you confront the rot.

They rise
bringing the deterioration
of the past to the present

and they rest
only after they have truly been fed.

Photo by Simon Wijers on Unsplash

Song Choice: Zombie Stomp by Ozzie Osbourne

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem is linked to Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings post.

Fisher Queen

I told a story to the river

about a mutual friend of ours
and how she loved
the way its scent would carry the stories
of what happens
when the river meets the sea.

The river said seeing me
reminded it of a story,
the one about an old king
and a wound that would not heal.

"The Fisher King", I said, remembering
she loved stories of Camelot too.
It’s true. Some wounds never really go away.

But the thing about a heart
that will always bleed a little,

means that there’s plenty to use as ink
to craft into stories
about kings and queens,

that I can tell to the river
so it can carry them back to the sea.

Photo by Jared Subia on Unsplash

Song Choice: What the Water Gave Me by Florence and the Machine

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Bleeding Heart.

Ordinary Is

Ordinary is
feeling like an animated five-year-old
when the rising sun makes patterns through my curtains
that feel like a secret message for me to decipher.

Ordinary is
tasting the alchemy between the elements
that created my morning tea.

Ordinary is
picking up a wriggling earthworm from a puddle
and wondering if it thinks of me as a mad eldritch horror
that had a sudden moment of benevolence.

Ordinary is
tucking in the bones of the flowers that I planted on a whim
under a bed of decomposing leaves
much to the dismay of my HOA.

Ordinary is
staring up at the stars to chat about my day
and the way we always decide

this still isn’t a bad life at all
by the end of our conversation.

Photo by Carl Campbell on Unsplash

Song Choice: Ordinary World by Aurora

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Ordinary.

Today's Story

What story will I tell myself today?
I wonder,
smelling spring green
mixed into November leaf piles.

Will this be the one
about the dancing trees
with the tempo of their sway
commemorated in the bark?

Maybe I’ll think about the lost
autumn wind that shaped the dancers'

trunks and branches
and how it will return
like no time had passed
between meetings.

You sound like a woman who hasn’t given up,
I say, letting my heart take comfort
in the hush-shush song

my feet make when I ramble on
though a field of leaves
only slightly out of my way
on my walk home.

I answer back,
I really haven’t,

at least not this time.

Maybe I really never will, I add,

making another satisfying crunch

in last year's leaves,

while knowing my pen and notebook
are still waiting in the place
I last set them down.

Photo by Konstantin Dyadyun on Unsplash

Song Choice: Anne with an E soundtrack suite.

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings prompt, Dialog.

On Third Thought

The first is pure reaction—
a mallet for what passes
as a kneecap to my psyche.

The second is for holding,
passing it from hand to hand
to check for knubs and hollows.

(I might take some time here,
maybe take it into the shower
and see if it can handle water
or drag it out for a walk
to learn what it does in the sunshine).

The third is the beginning
of what it could grow up to be.
It's much less feral than the other two,
no hissing or biting,
unless it absolutely feels like it.

Photo by Ante Hamersmit on Unsplash

Song Choice: Think for a Minute by The Housemartins 

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings Prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Three.

Sweet Inanities

Speak to me
of sweet inanities
and bite-sized bland confections.

Let us talk
without the gravity of emotion
to compensate for
roots that were rarely watered.

Let us stay
here, outside of the place
where my tender things try
yet again to grow

and never go near
the blighted spots that remain
as memorials to the things
you've trampled.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Song Choice: Push by Matchbox 20

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings Prompt at Poets and Storytellers United.

This Distillation

I did not ask
for this distillation,

but that is what grief does,
inside me at least,

condensing,
sharpening,

things cast off
or at least buried.

Some things taste brighter
in the concentrating,
while others allow their bitter

undertones to take over.

The only thing I’m sure of
is this distillation

could be medicine or poison,
depending on
when and how I drink it.

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

Song Choice: Anti Hero by Taylor Swift

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings Prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Scary Bits. I was inspired by the phrase, “There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.” from Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley.