Countdown – A Cascade Poem

The porch steps are cold despite the flowers

I remain hopeful in my solitude

The radio wails so I don’t have to

It’s 6 pm and I’ve been waiting

Since 3 pm, your promise repeating yet

The porch steps are cold despite the flowers

.

It’s 9 pm and darkness is whispering

Forget, the candles are melting yet

I remain hopeful in my solitude

.

It’s midnight and I’m fumbling

For reasons, don’t stop believing yet

The radio wails so I don’t have to

Image credit; Shche- Team @ Unsplash 
For the visually challenged reader, the image shows an outdoor scene. An old fashioned radio is placed next to a couple of candles and a wicker basket. Behind the radio is a pot full of blooming red flowers.

I’ve been sitting on this poem for a few days, but it’s time to set it free! Peter, at dVerse’s last Meeting of the Bar for 2020, brought these prompts together with his request for poems that explored different endings/beginnings. I immediately thought of a cascade poem, one of my favorites with lines that repeat and loop back. The one above also plays with enjambment.

Sadje’s What do you see #60 provide the inspirational picture while Patrick’s Pic and a Word Challenge #257 – Solitude provided the feeling that this picture brought for me. Maybe it’s the melancholy that the end of the year brings me, even for a year as bad as 2020. This year definitely had its share of disappointments, promises and plans not kept. And solitude – even with family, that feeling of disconnectedness has been quite profound this year.

Still, I’m sad to see this year end – I’ve enjoyed the extra time with my children and the more relaxed (meaning, basically non-existent) schedule. I know 2021 will be better. It has to be.

©️ 2020 iido

Biking to the Beach – A Cascade Poem

The shoreline changes

My breath holds steady

Memories of salt, my beacon

The sea air shifts the sand

While waves grab the wet grains

The shoreline changes

Yet directions are not needed

The old bicycle just needs legs to pedal

My breath holds steady

Despite the sting in my eyes

Quickly there and then gone

Memories of salt, my beacon

This cascade poem incorporates four (4) prompts: Patrick’s Pic and a Word Challenge #220 – Shoreline, Merril at dVerse’s call for poems about impermanence, Punam’s Ragtag Daily Prompt – Beacon and the picture is courtesy of Sadje’s “What do you see?” Challenge #18. Sometimes it takes all these little pieces to create something big and beautiful (at least I hope this poem is such).

The idea of impermanence made me think of beaches and the changing shore. There are so many happy memories that can be made at the seashore. However, memories can change from year to year. The smell, feel, and taste of salt water and air also goes well with the salty tears shed in making bittersweet memories.

Ironically, (at least in stories and movies) people seem to go to the beach to get away from some painful event or memory without realizing that the pain is as impermanent as the seashore.

This month, remembering how transient the difficulties of life is, helped me keep moving forward – my beacon for this month. As the Persian adage states, “This too shall pass.”

©️ 2020 iido

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

Nativity with Textures – A Cascade Poem

Scratchy hay tickles your toes

My blue woolen mantle, your warm protection for now

The texture of your life doesn’t yet know the sting of the whip or the rough hewn cross.

Rough wood cradles your newborn form

Gossamer starshine sprinkles your face

Scratchy hay tickles your toes

The slippery lowing of cattle slides in your ear

Your soft essence belies your strength

My blue woolen mantle, your warm protection for now

Your velvet touch sets my heart ablaze

Yet my goose bumped flesh shivers sadness within that love

The texture of your life doesn’t yet know the sting of the whip or the rough hewn cross.

This cascade poem was written for Patrick’s Pic and a Word Challenge #166 – Texture. I used the lyrics from the Christmas song, “Away in a Manger” to compose this cascade poem. It’s one of my favorite songs for this season.

Wishing all those who celebrate a Merry Christmas!

©️ iido 2018

Fireside Chats – A Cascade Poem

He said, “Wicked!”

“Chill,” she said

“It’s a slow burn. Wait for the flames to gather.”

It was a Radical Idea at the time

“Face to face?”

He said, “Wicked!”

They tried it, taking turns

Taking breaths when it got too hard

“Chill,” she said

Yet their fervor created a spark

Embers spread via mouth to mouth with tea times and tupperware

“It’s a slow burn. Wait for the flames to gather.”

This post is a “two-fer”! At the Go Dog Go Cafe, their Tuesday Writing Prompt, Devereaux and Beth Amanda requested: Use the words “wicked chill” in any form of poetry or prose. While Victoria over at dVerse Poetics, thoughtful of the catastrophic wildfires in California, asked us to “think about…the many other possibilities that apply to fire, and bring us the results of your burning creativity“.

Despite the seemingly conflicting mandates, my little poem seeks to illustrates how one spark – an idea, a change in behavior or outlook – can create a fire, a fervor for that change. There are many things I would like to change right now. My flame may flickering , but it will not go out!

https://youtu.be/J2kDsqGeoLU

Night’s Whispers – A Cascade Poem

My child cries “Mommy”

My lover sighs “Honey”

Night’s whispers change but the meaning is the same

For a drink or for potty

For snuggles or a story

My child cries “Mommy”

For a drink or movie

For snuggles or nookie

My lover sighs “Honey”

Darkness calls fear by different names

Speaks secrets and screams, depending on the game

Night’s whispers change but the meaning is the same

The Tuesday Writing Prompt at the Go Dog Go Cafe was to use the phrase “Night’s whispers” in a poem of any kind.

In my first drafts, I was using the phrase “night whispers”, but then I realized the prompt was for “night’s whispers”, that is “whispers belonging to the night”. A few tweaks and with the help of the cascade poem form, and this poem came to be.

This poem is probably the “time opposite” of my previous poem, “No Chocolate for Breakfast“. If you read both, you’ll get a sense of my life right now – day and night! If there was a prompt for “audience in the bathroom” or “all that schooling and all I do is taxi my kids around”, you’ll have the complete picture! Conversely, any prompts for “what’s something you do for yourself besides writing (or running)” or “what do you do when you have a free hour to yourself besides writing (or running)” would draw a blank!

©️ iido 2018