Two Beating Heart Poems each ending with a question

    Prompt: Day 2  – to end a poem with a question

 

1.

 

The Slippery Slope

 

There is the possibility

of a stent. My denials

on so many fronts. Of course,

this could go further,

a bypass or two, or three.

And then there happens to be

the issues with my sight;

one cataract operated on,

the other waiting, not

on growth but finances.

 

But look ye, more than that,

these eyes, both of them

victim to something known as

retinal occlusion. How many

years now these injections

to the eyeballs? The short

answer! Six.

 

Could this be my slow

and slippery slope to blindness,

stroke, a heart attack?

 

2.

 

Raging River

 

The river raging

after overnight downpours.

But on these flimsy shores

our party cannot remain;

the forest here, not a refuge.

We seek the adrenalin

that river rafting brings.

First day had offered

calm waters, now this.

In the paddles go,

around the bend

and into the rapids.

And when it ends

I ask – “When will

we do this again?”

 

Benita Kape © 3.4.2019 for 2.4.2019  (I’m using my N.Z. time zone)

 

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Beach Scenes – Day 10.4.2018

Beach Scenes

 

On the beach, singing songs, feeding seagulls,

walking around in circles figuring hieroglyphics

in the sand with a stick weaving motions as waves

weave, crisscross on currents continually move

in or moving out taking my sand composed stories

with them. Conversations on beaches; a wind

returned from out on the bay, the pages

of a notebook flecked with sketches begun and

abandoned. And because you are relaxed; mirages

out there which you know you are part of when

the sun goes down a beach fire lit. Eyes over

the flames. Are they mine?

 

Benita H. Kape © 10.4.2018

 

Finally, here is our (optional) daily prompt. Usually, we take inspiration from our craft resource, but since our resource is about revision, we’ll go a bit further afield for this one! Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem of simultaneity – in which multiple things are happing at once. A nice example might be Emily Dickinson’s “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died”, or this powerful poem by Sarah Green.

 

 

Zen Masters – GloPoWriMo 2017 – Day Six – Ways of looking at things

Zen Masters

 .

I look my cat in the eyes.

She looks back into mine.

It’s a mutual admiration.

.

I look at her feet, all four, individually.

I’ve read that cats would never let you

touch their pads and in between, tactile

and cushiony. Nice to prove the experts

wrong. I believed Adolf Huxley when he said,

“If you want to write keeps cats.” I think on

some counts he got that wrong; (more on

that later.)

.

One cat will do for me. One whose feet

fascinate me, the long hours she spends

on my knee. I caress each pad. She spreads

each claw, and as she feigns sleep I see in her,

delight. If her claws communicate sharp,

and grip in any way, it’s only to make clear

her ecstasy.

.

If I’m taking more notice of my writing desk

than her; (like now): she’ll let me know that too.

I look on her as she carefully, gradually scatters

my papers. And then she’ll walk across

the keyboard, nudge away the books

I’m piling on the printer.

.

Oh, yes, she looks me in the eye and smiles.

Smug, smug cat; perhaps she saw what I was

reading. Cat quotes, this one by Eckhart Tolle.

‘I have lived with several Zen Masters, all

of them cats.’

.

Benita H. Kape © 6.4.2017

 

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that looks at the same thing from various points of view. The most famous poem of this type is probably Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”. You don’t need to have thirteen ways of looking at something – just a few will do!

Back When I – NaPoWriMo 2016 – Day 17

Back When I was Ten Year old
To: Noeline

She sits knitting and knitting, this sister of mine.
She is only twelve years old, but very smart.
Counting the pixels of a lino frieze on the wall,
Close to her vision behind her on the couch.

Two colours only is what she will use.
Balls of gold, balls of green. Woollen threads
She weaves as she copies this design,
Into a Fair-isle Sunday cardigan for me.

The fair-isle cardigan, like every knitted
Garment, garments of all sorts, passed
Down in a family of nine.
And how my sister knitted, loved knitting!

She knitted garments in Mock-cable stitch;
Bubble-stitch and Chevron,
Herring-bone and Blue-bell rib,
Scallop Stitch and Honeycomb-lace.

And after she retired from retail;
Selling fabric and haberdashery to farmer’s wives,
She fed her passion, her industry,
With her knitting machines, shawl after shawl.

Tiny bonnets, bootees, singlets: she stitched their seams
While watching telly in the evening.
Widowed, children gone she worked on and on.
With her knitting seven days a week

Sharing her skills with others,
Until, almost overnight, she lost
The sight in one eye.
And then her hips played her up.

Her machines (all three) she sold:
Took up embroidery
Stitches with similar names –
Cable-stitch, Herring-stitch and Honeycomb.

But as with knitting and embroidery
Life can zig-zag to a sad change of pattern.
Though I will forever see her as then
Knitting a Fair-isle cardigan for me.

Benita H. Kape © 17.4.2016

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). Today, I challenge you to find, either on your shelves or online, a specialized dictionary. This could be, for example, a dictionary of nautical terms, or woodworking terms, or geology terms. Anything, really, so long as it’s not a standard dictionary! Now write a poem that incorporates at least ten words from your specialized source