calendar leaves

One year ago I dived into another job, left the comfort of the four corners of a white room filled with the smell of fresh news and sweet scent of deadline sweats. With closed fists and shut eyes, I took a leap away from comfort to embrace the unknown new.

Now here we go again.

My soul sifts the autumn’s apple fume slowly succumbing to the mint breeze of winter. My bare feet moving inch per inch towards another cliff too stiff for me to see the bottom cloaked in dead black pitch. My ears can hear the soft crackles of January crackers and a faint love song of June’s giggling sea.

Dry calendar leaves
falling with each dusk and dawn.
Brave breaths ebb and flow.

—

10.30.2018
©2018 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

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For dVerse Haibun Monday – Transitions.

map of mess

Unfinished coffee,
void of warmth,
aching for last touch.
Oh, the daddy.

Spilled sauces blots
on canvas, wait,
it’s kitchen table top.
Oh, the mommy.

Crumbs of cookies
paved roads for
the hard working ants.
Oh, the eldest.

Traps made of Lego
too tiny, too tough,
barefoot left scathed.
Oh the youngest.

Bedroom scented
with the musk of
used pair of socks.
Oh, the middle child.

This map of mess
proves a house is still
a living,

breathing

home.

—

10.17.2018
©2018 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

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For dVerse Beauty in Ugliness.

w i n t e r g u m s

Cold against the bare skin
of warm, deep-lined palm,

colder like a December midnight
against the tastebuds of tongue.

Brick-hard on top of a hand—
so fragile and so soft.

Sweet, chewy ‘side the calcium cave
with teeth-made loft.

Perhaps, humans are winter gums—
sugar-coated, guarded, armored
at first glance,

melting, undressing, when inside
a found home with sincere,
summer warmth.

—

08.25.2018
©2018 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

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For dVerse Mindfulness and Poetry.

Here is the gum I held to birth this poem. 🙂

 

fogged up

While the roof sings to the tune of the monsoon keys, the leaves outside dance with the storm’s cold breeze, with a warm, fresh cup of coffee, my eyes stare blankly at the road void of wheels and feet— empty— wishing I can say the same with my mind.

The antonym of empty is full yet my thoughts are spilling and brimming a gusty storm of fear, uncertainty.

Today, a rejection letter opened the can of insecurity I thought I have kept locked tightly.

Perhaps, I’ll let the fog sits comfortably on the glass window, and inside my troubled mind.

—

Word count: 100

©2018 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.

Photo credit: wildverbs

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For FFfAW 182nd by PJ! 😊

On Continuity

One…
two…
three…

what is there
for you to see?
Will there be
a bubbly bee—
bringer of
positivity,
yet with bite,
oh, so feisty.

Four…
five…
six…

what is there
for you to seek?
Is there a
bullet-size hole
where some light
will somehow leak—
to free the words
you cannot speak?

Seven…
eight…
nine…

Moving forward
is divine; giving up
is a landmine.
Once you step
on it— boom!

…
…
…

All is gone.

Your remnants
will then
go back to one.

—

08.03.2018
©2018 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

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In response to dVerse MTB: Punctuation and enjambment in poetry.

f e r o c i o u s

Surrender to
the ferocious
waves of life’s
twists and turns.

Learn to paddle
in calm and chaos,
for the sea won’t
get any kinder,
you have to be
a better swimmer.

—

07.15.2017
©2017 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

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In response to dVerse Open Link Night!

s a n c t u a r y

Clothed pair of soles
dressed in faux leather top
and synthetic rubber pants,

clanking, clanking,
against the cobbled,
sometimes cemented
concrete jungle paths,

dreams to be
bare and naked
against the foliage
of the fallen petals
of Autumn trees,

ready and brave
to be pricked with
the crisp and thin
sun-dried twigs,

for the slave feet of the city
yearns to be the lost queen
of the wild—

the sanctuary
of the soul’s respite.

—

05.02.2018
©2018 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

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In response to dVerse Let’s Get Wild!

verbs (a vakh)

Know the meaning of brave, break.
Learn the meaning of love, lose.
Swallow your unsaid words, breathe.
Think death is coming soon, live.

—

03.26.2018
©2018 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

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In response to Blogging from A to Z Challenge and NaPoWriMo 2018.

V is for Vakh.

Vakh (Sanskrit – “speech” interpreted by some as “verse teaching”) is a 14th century stanzaic form, originated by a woman poet, Lalla-Devi or Lallashwari, a Kashmiri Shaivite mystic and Sufi saint. 258 poems by Lalla were preserved in this form ranging from songs, proverbs and prayers. This form is found among the earliest Kashmiri literature and records when the Kashmiri language emerged from a descendant of Sanskrit.

The elements of the  Vakh are:

1. a tetrastich, a poem in 4 lines although it has occasionally been found in a couple of stanzas of 4 lines.

2. syllabic, lines of 7 syllables each, with 4 stresses per line.

3. occasionally rhymed with true or near rhyme.

weightless (a haiku)

Autumn window smiles
as weightless leaves start falling.
Yes, you can let go.

—

03.23.2018
©2018 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

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In response to Blogging from A to Z Challenge and NaPoWriMo 2018.

H is for Haiku.

Haiku are:

1. syllabic (17 syllables or less)

2. an imagist poem (draws the emotion from the image). Concrete images are described. It is important in haiku to deemphasize the ego. The subject, not the poet is what focuses the haiku. “One of the most common characteristics of haiku,. . . . is silence.” Bruce Ross. The words silence or stillness can be used in haiku, but it is the concrete image as described that makes the reader respond to the feeling of silence.

3. written in the moment. The past can be referred to as long as it doesn’t overpower the present.

4. one of two forms “traditional” or “modern”
        “traditional” requires a season be named and images and emotions be drawn from of nature.
        “modern” can be images of relationship, personality, experience, etc

5. often a tristich, commonly written in 3 lines. BUT, it can be written in 1 or 2 lines. (if not broken into 3 lines, the haiku should still follow the pattern of 3 units, 2 images that either conflict or expand resulting in insight.) The common break down of syllables:

   • L1 5 syllables describes image (traditional name season)

   • L2 7 syllables, adds conflicting image or expands first image

   • L3 5 syllables provide insight (the ah ha! moment) through a juxtaposed image.

lulled death (a go vat)

Inside silence, a flower blooms,
Lifting petals, leaking perfume.
Lull can also be beautiful.

Microscopic lens slowly zooms,
locates a dead leaf ‘s many rooms.
Death can also be beautiful.

—

03.23.2018
©2018 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

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In response to Blogging from A to Z Challenge and NaPoWriMo 2018.

G is for Go Vat.

The Go Vat is a stanzaic form which according the Poet’s Garrett apparently was popular in Cambodia in the late 1800s. The line length and refrain are suspected to be influenced by the French who colonized Cambodia during that period.

The elements of the Go Vat are:

1. stanzaic, written in any number of tercets.

2. syllabic, each line is most commonly 8 syllables.

3. rhymed, turned on only 2 rhymes, aaB aaB aaB etc.

4. written with a refrain. L3 of each tercet is a repetition of either the whole or part of L3 of the 1st tercet.