The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

Colm Roe wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 02, 2019 7:49 pm

Summer magic requires memories,
it's built in layers of time,
enters on a whim, a song
a tune.
It's like an aroma, close your eyes
and breathe, 
feel it circulate deep within
warm your bones
and fill the empty places.
We lift to it
defy gravity, become lighter.
The strange thing about magic is
it really does exists,
we're just too busy to notice.

Love this Colm. Especially the last 5 and doubly the last 3 lines. Magical.

~Deb

Reflections

So I’m sittin’ here
along the Arkansas River
and ponderin’
how clear water
and invisible air
can make white bubbles.
I suppose I could Google it,
but I think I’d rather
sit and ponder
along the Arkansas River.

sittin' on the dock of the bay. . .Nice, Cheryl.

Colm Roe wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 04, 2019 7:18 pm

Absolutely beautiful poeming Linda, Gyppo and Deb.
You've all created a real sense of magic here...loved them all.
 

Thank you, Colm. My boys reacted with shock to my last poem, because they didn't like the ending, which for some reason, makes me like it more.

I think I'm on my way to becoming more like the old woman who wears purple in Jenny Joseph's famous poem, When I'm an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple. https://laterbloomer.com/jenny-joseph/

It was my mother-in-law's favorite poem. I included it in her eulogy.

I read one that Gyppo wrote from his pov. I wish I could remember where I saw it. My mind is scattered at the moment.  I'll have to ask him to share. It is a delightful poem. 

Oh, Gyppo . . .

Have fun poeming.

~Deb

.

Thermal


I cut some flowers
and drove to town
to see her again.

A summer season’s lazy BBQ -
a new sky blued with warmth -
all hazed over Paul’s backyard.

Sitting in a little garden,
I drank rooibos tea,
and smoked two rollups,
before she arrived.


Later that Saturday, after the people,
we went to her place to browse for books.

I’m making more shelves, she says,
laughing, passing me a thin black volume,
her big old room stacked with leaning racks
of mellowed jewels, their sun-edged pages
content in the yellow slide of late afternoon.

First-edition Joyce in my hands,
I inhaled a poem of narrow beauty.
Outside, on a warm sandstone wall,
jasmine sprawled, wild with scent.   

In the courtyard, stars and coffee,
she slowly read Kundera to me,
her musical voice cascading,
butterflies in our eyes.


  

Lyrical and romantic, Mark. I like, Thermal, very much.

Gorgeous stuff, Mark.  I love your forays into narrative and lyric. 

.

Song, Nipples and My Tail

Birds can teach
their song to those
so poor, so snaked
with draining
fluids of the Druids,
Drambuie? -- no,
but some fermentation
experimentation
coagulation
of
the dew drops
accumulating
on
pelican
nipples
or not.

So yes.
The birds.
And song.

And Aye! Let starlight
dance stoned among
puffy paints, the
drunken saints and
pity of how’s cow’s
vows might measure
the milk and earthen
zest of pleasure.
And
the birds.
Song.
Drunken song--
to spur and stir
the fur of starlight
left puffy, huffy
chuffing
like saints
in thanks
and tank-
ards of ale
by the pail
with dancing
quail, again
they wail.
All Hail!
And wag
my tail. Cool.

.
 

Thanks, Deb and Ty.
Playful stuff there, Ty...pelican nipples...
 

summer snap

salt sidewalks fried as holiday am/pm
time stepping in sideway slices toward
the warm-blue saturday suburban throb,
fresh-cut petrol grass, cold beer on a tray
                 a waxsome moon drip-cools a blackened beach
                 slick as star-shells pinned to freighter horizons
                 cascading foam lines of hiss-kiss fretwork neon
                 behind breezes thick and forward through the air