8th Grade Dance, 1988 – A Lai Poem

In the market, I’m

Hearing songs sublime

First dance

Takes me back in time

First date jitters – mine

No chance

First kiss fail – not prime

Now improved with time

Perchance

The Lai is a poetry form introduced by Grace for d’Verse’s Poetry Form Challenge. The brevity and constraints of this form makes it quite challenging however, I am enamored by it’s ability to capture so much in so few syllables. This is my first attempt to any feedback is welcome!

The topic of this Lai comes courtesy of Jamie Dedes’ Wednesday Writing Prompt to write a poem with a strong sense of time and place and how you and/or the times have changed. I wasn’t sure what to write for this prompt until I went grocery shopping this weekend. The song “Always” by Atlantic Starr started to play and I was instantly taken back to my first date with Elvio who took me to first dance and gave me my first kiss. I truly believed we would end up like that song until he told me that he was going to take Sally to the next dance because she was a better kisser. (Sigh.)

Have things improved dating wise for me? Well, yes!! Considering I don’t have to date anymore – saved from those trials and tribulations by my Honey. But the hope and innocence I felt in the 1980’s is also gone…(sigh)….

©️ iido 2019

Disconnected – A Haiku

I haven’t read yours

Disconnected from WordPress

I hate crashing apps

This haiku was written for Patrick’s Pic and a Word Challenge #184 – Disconnect.

I want to thank all of you who are reading my blog and to also apologize for not reading, commenting on yours for the past weeks. WordPress has been crashing on me – either through the app or the internet. This frustration coupled with other family going ons has made me a bit of a hermit.

I’m ready to emerge from my self imposed exile and re-connect, re-engage with all of you! I have missed reading about your lives and your thoughts.

WordPress people – if you read this – please fix the bugs! A writer can only take so much crashing and freezing before thinking you’re trying to tell her something!

Update – After I originally posted this, I saw on my notifications that today is my 3 year bloggiversary! Irony – it does exist!

©️ iido 2019

For My Little Boy Who is Growing – A Pantoum

At a hole in the knee
I shout once again
As you stand right before me
I miss your look of pain

I shout once again
When I step on your toy
I miss your look of pain
When I decry having a boy

When I step on your toy
A hug and a kiss you proffer
When I decry having a boy
Heart melting is your laughter

A hug, a kiss you proffer
As you stand right in front of me
Heart melting is your laughter
At a hole in the knee

Today is my son’s birthday – he is 6!! And growing fast! I wrote this when I was folding laundry one February evening and working on Gina’s Pantoum prompt from d’Verse.

All his pants – for school and play and pajamas – now have holes in the knee, both knees. We have already gone up a size but my boy is tall and lanky so what fits in length is too loose at the waist and what fits at the waist are like capris on him. I can’t stop him from growing. And I can’t tell whether my heart is bursting or breaking with love and pride for him.

©️ iido 2019

Soul Fertilizer – A Haibun and Running Update

The packed, gravel path crunches like my favorite candy bar beneath my feet.  The smell is not delicious chocolate but cow patties, liquified and repurposed. The steam from this concoction rises from the turned earth like the steam from my body on this 6 mile run. The smells are similar but mine reeks of determination and accomplishment. Each run is risky – maybe if I was more consistent, I would know what to expect, I would know that I wouldn’t fail, that I would keep going and not give up.  But I don’t, except for today – today, my run wasn’t shit, but it did fertilize my soul.

Risk in every step

But I’m not going gently

In that fading light

This haibun was written for Patrick’s Pic and a Word Challenge #183 – Risk and also incorporates Beth’s Tuesday Writing Prompt at the Go Dog Go Cafe to use the phrase “fading light”.

I haven’t done an update on my training for the Niagara Falls International Women’s Half Marathon that I am training for – maybe it’s because I really haven’t been consistent with my training at all. With sick kids and spring break and other obligations, running has definitely taken a back seat except for this past weekend when I was able to get a run in with a local friend of mine who is also part of Moms RUN this Town.

Danielle was one of the first running moms I met when we moved to PA. She recently had an adorable baby boy and is training for the same half marathon in Niagara as I am (she was the one who actually told me about this race). Danielle is one of the most kind, energetic and determined women that I have met here.  Being a local, she taught me so much about this area (like how to pronounce certain words, introducing me to the local farmers’ market) when I first arrived.  Running with Danielle is always fun and this run was no exception. We were even able to see the Easter Bunny at the end of our run!

After this spring break week, I am getting back into a regular schedule with running so be ready for more sweaty pictures of me!

©️ iido 2019

A List of People Whose Hand I Want to Hold – A Sei Shonagon Style List Poem

A sign of caring

Our palm sweat sharing

Not just the space

But the challenges we face

As people with varying melanin

Who offer all that we have within

We seek fairness and balance

To even the score without askance

Who smile with delight at another’s gain

And delicately hold them when they’re in pain

Who will defend with a voice so clear

And sit quietly with an open ear

Who sees with hearts and not just eyes

Who knows the child as being most wise

Our hands clasped, approved by Mother

Who sees how much we love one another.

This Sei Shonagon style of List Poem was introduced to me by Punam at Paeansunpluggedblog with her fabulous poem, “People who get me hot under the collar” . The beautiful picture is from Hélène’s “What do you see?” Picture prompt.

The picture reminded of my recent trip to Santa Fe, NM – something about the vast open spaces and the flat topped mesas, the roads that seem to go on forever, the friendliness of the people – it all reminded me of how much goodness there is in the world. This poem reflects that – at least what I see as the goodness in people whose hands I want to hold.

©️ iido 2019

The Mesa – A Poem

On the Mesa looking at the rubble of your ancestors
….My blurred thoughts clearer in this higher altitude
….Stones testify of their protective wisdom
….Pottery shards painted with shared knowledge and resources
….Ladders made for bravery and change
….Hieroglyphs telling stories of warning and loss
….That I can feel but will never fully understand.

At your table, the truth and strength
of your heritage
feeds my humbled soul.

This poem incorporates Beth Amanda’a Tuesday Writing Prompt at the Go Dog Go Cafe to use the phrase “blurred thoughts” in a poem.

I was inspired by the Puye Cave Dwellings, ancestral lands of the Santa Clara Pueblo People. My daughter and I took a tour there with a very knowledgeable guide who was descendent of the people who once occupied Puye. This is for Royce and the people of the Santa Clara Pueblo who magnanimously share their heritage.

©️ iido 2019

Card Game – A Quadrille

In this brown arid place
Where the sun casts long shadows
On its back and forth trip
You emerge
Quietly
Asserting
Your own form
Separate from mine
One sparkling with
Ace Energy
No longer up my sleeve
Proudly
I watch
You
Up the ante

This Quadrille incorporates whimsygizmo’s d’Verse Monday Quadrille prompt – Ace, as well as, Patrick’s Pic and a Word Challenge #182 – Shadow. It was inspired by a recent mother/daughter trip that I took with my older daughter for her birthday.

We visited the Ghost Ranch in Santa Fe, NM and took a trail ride to visit the locations that inspired Georgia O’Keeffe’s landscape paintings in the later years of her life. The landscape there is breathtaking and I can see why O’Keeffe left New York to settle here. My daughter impressed our guide with her horse riding skills.

This is the first time we’ve done a trip alone together. It was refreshing getting to know my “tween” – seeing her not as my little baby girl, but as a young woman coming into her own, forming her own opinions and voicing them, to see her confident and challenge herself. She took the lead – holding my hand when she wanted to and then letting go when she didn’t. How well she knew the game!

©️ iido 2019

Drop Growing Cascading – A Cascade Poem

Drip drop trickling
Moving growing powering
Eroding cascading changing

Your idea to smile at that hateful man
Caused me to buy my nemesis a coffee
Drip drop trickling

She, in turn, forgave her sister, the lawyer who caused, then settled her divorce
This lawyer sister pro bono defended the women marching raising the alarm
Moving growing powering

These women gave voice to injustice and hope
A million gallons of smiles rushing forward
Eroding cascading changing

This is Bridalveil Falls in Yosemite National Park, one of my favorite pictures from the start of our cross country trip three years ago, seemed like a fitting picture in response to the theme of “cascade” posted by Amaya at d’Verse Poetics last week. I chose a non-watery cascade for the focus of my poem though. This one was inspired by Devereaux’s prompt at the Go Dog Go Cafe Tuesday Writing Prompt for last week: How can we best avenge the fallen?

I am not sure what meaning Devereaux had in mind when he posed his question – Deceased police officers/fire fighters/military? The “damned”? Angels who have given up their halos to become human? In my writing, I was thinking about people who had “fallen by the wayside” in our lives – either from lack of contact or from a conflict. Repairing these broken relationships (private and public) requires a cascade of loving voices saying, “Rise up and join our love fest!!” Or something along those lines….

©️ iido 2019

Good Night Fight – A Villanelle

A crackle wakes me from slumber at night
A million footsteps pitter-pattering overhead
Just snuggle me close, don’t put up a fight

My imagination rumbles taking flight
Forming shadows of that book we/I read
A crackle wakes me from slumber at night

Sparkling lines illuminate the storm cloud’s delight
I run to your room, my bravery shed
Just snuggle me close, don’t put up a fight

Under the covers, I crawl like a mite
Reveling quietly in the warmth of your bed
Away from the crackle that woke me this night

But the glare from your eyes, made me feel trite
Maybe I should have gone to Dad’s side instead
Mom – Please, snuggle me close, don’t put up a fight?

A rumble and sizzle, then glorious light
You pause, then with loving arms said,
“Did that crackle wake you from your slumber this night?
I’ll snuggle you close. Don’t put up a fight.”

This is my second attempt at a Villanelle – the poetry form of the month at dVerse. It’s still a hard form for me! Feedback would be very appreciated!

I was inspired by Patrick’s Pic and a Word Challenge #181 – Night and this wonderful picture from Hélène’s “What do you see?” picture challenge. Of course, my mind went to all the times my kids have come into my room at night scared for one reason or another. We had also just see “The Sound of Music” and this brings to mind the “Raindrops on Roses” scene – one of my favorites!

One of my struggles as a mom is finding that balance between raising independent, self-sufficient children while making them still feel loved, cared for, treasured. Do I bring them back to their room or just let them sleep with me (which is what I know they want and sometimes need)? *Full disclosure – I am writing this with my 11 year old in the asleep bed with me. The struggle is real…

©️ iido 2019