Legacy

Lynn Burton at Colorful Pen posted a half Sestina for the August Challenge of Casting Bricks and what a delightful challenge it is!  One perfect Saturday morning over coffee at a favorite little spot and the words flowed easily from her perfect set-up.  Her words are in bold and mine follow.

As I look at the calendar I realize that August draws to a close and so I begin to consider a new half poem of my own for Jilly’s September Challenge of Casting Bricks, which I will open on Friday, September 1st.  Of course, there is no expiration on the August link, so feel free to keep writing!  Care to join us in our collaborative fun?  Just click HERE or on the perma-link on my side-bar.  Everyone is welcome!

Sometimes those lemons that are squeezed from life
can leave a sour taste in the mouths of children
and adulthood thrusts upon them less time
than they had before to play and dream.
What they wouldn’t give for some special words
to carry with them, to hold and treasure.

Like the attic trunk overflowing with treasure
immeasurable memories before life
became chaos, before silence was words
before the steely grip of a child’s
nightmares tangled with hopeful dreams,
tripping along with the angry flow of time.

Resilient are they, and know in time
the importance of what’s to be treasured;
tap dance on the devil’s schemes, dreaming
on pale blue skies, contemplating life
as only the wonder of a child
can bring.  Chalk-dust scribble all the words.

When mystery meets meaning, say the words,
the ones that had been trapped in time
hidden behind the windows of childhood’s
eyes; of secret languages and treasure
boxes holding pull-toys and fairy tale lives
lived in that realm of day dreams

in which they embrace that dreamy
place where lemons ripen like wordless
images of guavas on the Live
Oak, unnatural and timeless,
blossoming lines and phrases to treasure
when stumbling graceful into that second childhood

gathering into the caved breast those children
of your children to nestle and dream
there, hearing the rhythm of your treasured
heartbeats in iambic measures and words.
So looking out across the hazes of time
you see countless generations living

inhaling and dreaming of their own lives,
of those childish treasures of times
yet to be and glories gone by without the hindrance of words

© Burton / Lyman Collaborative Sestina

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Day Off sans Descriptors

Charley at Life in Portofino threw down a Casting Bricks Challenge that was too good to pass up.  The last line of his half-poem: “To describe without descriptors” begged to be met with emotion rather than adjectives.  I wrote this fast with little editing, so it may need work, but I lack the raw energy for that.  Oh well, his words are in bold and mine follow.

Our days of release
are uninspiring,
dusty cotton gray.
 
I recline half conscious,
murmur my desire:
describe without descriptors
the roll of the pond,
the nod of the trees.

a riot had been planned
the pines pulled up
scrub oaks
club oaks
catalpas tied back
their vines
with bandanas
weaving blossoms into chains
a puff of crows flew off
leaving only brooding vultures
in the branches

but the outflow boundary
disappointingly didn’t
quite make it that far
and the long-hoped-for
downburst simply didn’t show

so that nothing more than
bitching and leaf rustling
whistled through them
as they stood around
the water-cooler lake
picking the occasional
bass or adjective from their teeth.

© Jilly / Charley Collaborative Poetry

Care to join in with Casting Bricks?  We would love to have you!  Click here to check it out!

Aftermath

Linda Lee Lyberg at Charmed Chaos posted a wonderful August Challenge poem for this month’s Casting Bricks.  Her Somonka is in bold, and my completion of it follows. Everyone is welcome to join in with Jilly’s August Challenge in which we write, post and link a half poem for another poet to complete.  There is great stretching of our poetic muscles in the process of collaborative writing, and tremendous fun, too.  Join us!

Sated, my soul rests

bathed in the essence of us

what now, I ask you

head in your hands

no words fill

the immense chasm between us

 

Your cool granite skin

can’t mine veins of marble, those

hardened arteries

(vinegar of my regret)

iron bile obsidian

© Lyberg / Lyman Collaborative Poetry

Lady, Green and Red

Completing Frank Hubeny’s second Challenge for Casting Bricks took his gentle words in a love-gone-wrong direction as I focused in on the symbolism of the colors. Frank’s words are in bold.  Please join us in Jilly’s August Challenge; the more, the merrier!

Lady loved the plants’ light green
With flowers brightly red.
Her face angelically serene
Had leaves to shade her head.

Lacking luck when first she loved,
gone the green; hindsight.
Wronged by fate or the hand above
red petals rage; leaves an angry blight.

© Hubeny / Lyman Collaborative Poetry

Casting Bricks – Jilly’s August Challenge

Loss & Regret

The Somonka is a Japanese poetic form that is designed to be collaborative, so it is perfect that Imelda chose that as her challenge for Casting Bricks.  A Somonka is a love poem in the form of two Tankas.  One lover writes the first 5 lines and the other responds with a second Tanka.  Imelda’s Tanka, Loss, is in bold and my response follows. Please forgive my incorrect usage of the language and my verbing of a noun.

Jilly’s August Challenge known as “Casting Bricks” is open to anyone who would care to join in; the more the merrier!  There is a permalink on my right-hand side bar or you can click here for details.

Moon, lost in orbit

looking for its sun, I am

a gaping silence

devouring your memory

an altar of your absence

 

Sun, novaed out from

your binding gravital pull

pulsing here alone

no dark to hide my wonder

if you ever think of me.

© Collaborative Poetry
Santore/Lyman

Hospital Birth Delivered

For Jilly’s August Challenge (Casting Bricks) it is my privilege to collaborate with Alison Hankinson – A Spoonful of Sugar to complete her wonderful Challenge poem entitled Hospital Birth.  I have added two stanzas that more are mirrors from a different perspective rather than a continuation of the narrative, and added a word to the title, as well.  Alison’s words are in bold.  

 

 

Darkest hours                                                        Pangs belabored

Patiently pacing                                                    birth forestalled

Dim-lit dawn                                                          legs and lungs

Life-embracing.                                                    exhausted sprawl.

 

Bald cry echoes                                                      Maternal scream

Through the walls                                                 sweat-drenched face

First born child’s                                                   flesh of my flesh

Entrance call.                                                          pangs erased.

The Process

 

 

© Collaborative Poetry

Hankinson / Lyman

 

Everyone is invited to join in with Jilly’s August Challenge of Casting Bricks!  Just click the link on my sidebar for the details.  ~ Jilly

The End; Exiting & Entering

Open Link Night at dVerse!

Collaborative poetry has turned into a favorite for me as we move into the Casting Bricks August Challenge.  I take up Jeren Nazuto’s Challenge to write an Interlocking Rubáiyát.  The first half of the poem, in bold, is Jeren’s excellent groundwork which he entitled The End.  Thank you to Jeren for introducing this terrific form!  All are welcome to join us in the August Challenge where we write a half poem and our fellow poets complete it.  Just click on the Casting Bricks side bar to the right→

The world, burning around me
All the lands and the sea
I weep in streams and rivers
Over the fallen world tree

From the sins, the fire delivers
The earth’s misguided caregivers
And all the pain and suffering
Fueling my body shivers

The sacrifice for my soul’s buffering
awakens, dries my tears unsuffering
the world may ash round my shoes
like fallen leaves, rustling

Lift my eyes, the horizon peruse
quell my fears, none to accuse
all glorious for eternity
body shivers there diffused

© Collaborative Poetry Nazuto/Lyman

What Flowing Water Makes Possible

Casting Bricks is in full swing and here is my first completed poem for Jilly’s August Challenge.  The title and first four lines in Common Meter were provided by Frank Hubeny at Poetry, Short Prose and Walking.  Tip ‘o the hat to Frank for an excellent challenge!  I really enjoyed working with this form.  If you would like to get on board with the collaborative challange of Casting Bricks, take a look at my sidebar item that gives you a direct link to the August Challenge page. (Thanks to Charley at Portofino for the html assistance making that link possible!)  Frank’s portion of the poem is in bold.

What’s neither dry nor frozen hard
Makes circles red with bliss
And green takes form to guide and guard
Metamorphosis. 

Where flows the life blood broke with grief
But love can mend with this
Water’s healing flood comes through
Photosynthesis.

© Collaborative Poetry Frank Hubeny / Jill Lyman

Forgotten Better Days – August Challenge Half- Poem

Casting Bricks, the August Challenge opened a few hours ago and this is my Half-Poem Challenge.  Anyone is welcome to take the challenge of completing my poem and reposting the collaborative final product.  Please do write a half-poem challenge of your own and post a link through the Mr. Linky on the Jilly’s August Challenge page!  The more the merrier, y’all!

My Challenge Poem is a Bop.  The basics are 3 stanzas with 6 lines, 8 lines, and 6 lines, with a refrain line repeated after each stanza.  There are no meterical or rhyme scheme requirements for this form.  I have written the first stanza, the refrain line, “Forgotten better days and a badly written play” and the first two lines of stanza two.  You task is the complete the second stanza, add my refrain after it and then write the third stanza.  The development of the poem is to present a problem in stanza #1, expand or explore it in stanza #2, and then either resolve or reveal a failed attempt as resolution in the last stanza. Good luck and happy poeming! ~Jilly

FORGOTTEN BETTER DAYS ( a Bop)

Smoke gathers round the rim of my coffee cup
remnants of the skirmish in my untouched bowl of cereal
your suitcase sits by the door, the new leather one
not the weary worn green canvas with tags from our trip
to Paris last summer
leaving me with a million

Forgotten better days and a badly written play

Blurred words seep through the wall
you on the phone with some unknown

Casting Bricks – Jilly’s August Challenge

Casting Bricks

Jilly’s August Challenge

Let the Collaboration Begin!

Welcome My Poetic Friends!  The NEW Casting Bricks Challenge is now open for the month of August.  I am so excited about a new round of collaborative poetry.  The July Challenge was a huge success, we had a great deal of fun, connected with other poets, and were stretched in our writing skills.  Based on the feedback and interest expressed, we are here again for a new set of poems.  Here is how it works:

1. Write a half poem and post it to your blog with a link or tag back to this page (Jilly’s August Challenge).
2. If your Challenge poem is a form (sonnet, quadrille, etc.) please state as such and give a quick review of the form or a link to a site that does that for you.
3. Stop by here and add your Challenge link to our Mr. Linky.
4. Find other Challenges that you would like to complete.
5. Write the 2^nd half of their poem and post the entire poem to your blog.
6. Return here to our Mr. Linky again and post the link to that completed poem.
7. You may also want to put a comment on the other person’s original Challenge post to let them know you have accepted their challenge.
8. Spread the word! Extend the invitation to your other poet friends to join us.  We are a crazy, friendly bunch, after all!

NOTE:  In order to keep the links for Challenges (your half poem) different from the links for the Completed Poems, I suggest the following:  When posting your Challenge half poem, post the name you would normally use along with the word ‘Challenge’ behind it.  ex: Jilly Challenge.

When posting the link for a Completed Challenge, post your user name & the name of the person whose Challenge you completed.  ex: Jilly Colin  (if I am completing a challenge put out there by our good friend Colin Lee.)

Questions? Suggestions?   Just drop it into the Comments on this page and I’ll do my best to address it.

There is no expiration on our Mr. Linky, so feel free to post new challenges and completed challenges throughout the month.  Feel free to complete as many or as few challenges as you feel comfortable with.   Most importantly, have fun & flex your poetic muscles!   Cheers!  ~ Jilly