Month: November 2017

Pyrolysis*

/ Portofino / 53 Comments

“Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?”

— W. B. Yeats, No Second Troy

 

Upon first impression he struck
her like a match… incendiary, consuming.

She was drawn yet cautious, having
been burned by several iced “lovers,”
who sought to conquer but not save.

From the tower she’d built to isolate
her passion from being besieged
recklessly, she focused her glass

…and toasted him from afar.

 

* — pyr (fire) + lysis (a loosening, setting free)

Written in response to Jane Dougherty’s, A Month with Yeats: Day Twenty Nine.  This quote was too good to resist!

Posted to dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night.

 

 

Steps to Change

/ Portofino / 23 Comments

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. – Lao Tzu

“Step
in, have a seat, meet
the group.  Just a few incisions—”
Say what?
“questions.”

Looking for a change,
pulling for a change,
praying for a change
need a change.

Could use some change.

Interviews,
overviews,
previews,
resume
reviews.

Call-backs few.

No good news… yet.

 

Posted at dVerse Poets Pub for Poetics.  The key word is Change.

In Plain Unsight

/ Portofino / 53 Comments

Howl

It’s Poetics Night at dVerse Poets Pub and the prompt for tonight is “to write a poem, of any length or form, about an animal in a human way or a human in an animal way, highlighting some trait of the animal/human that either sets us apart or brings us together – it’s up to you, just as long as the poem is new.”

I have added a page of reference material to my blog — mostly poetry, but not only poetry.  Please take a look and feel free to comment!

Reflection on the Subconscious

/ Portofino / 41 Comments

“You dozed, and watched the night revealing….”

 – T. S. Eliot

You threw

your Sisyphean rock arcing
toward the laughing face
of  the moon.  Several miles
high, it caught glimmer
from starlight.

Dreamer’s insight,
strokes like a swimmer.
Showing a canine’s wiles –
one of the un-kenneled race –
you started barking.

You knew

night’s dream mirror.

 

A Quadrille posted to dVerse Poets Pub.

I have added a page of reference material to my blog — mostly poetry, but not only poetry.  Please take a look and feel free to comment!

Smile and the World

/ Portofino / 2 Comments

“Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball….”

— T. S. Eliot

 

So here am I on
November the nineteenth wondering
whether with the willing kindness
of a smile I could bring the physical
laws of Newton to naught –
draw the detritus of dawn
and dusk, the furthest yin
and the farthest yang into a coiled
mass very much akin to beneath
the skin of golf balls of yore.

I ponder the ability of upturned
lips, bared teeth – the gorilla smile –
while meaning to bring a positive
response, to truly do such damage.

Would it be worth while to find out?

 

I have added a page of reference material to my blog — mostly poetry, but not only poetry.  Please take a look and feel free to comment!