table of elements and wedding vows

Marriage. Marriage is a pair of destined hands
clap not, cannot, without the other one—
no song needed to taste one’s tears;
no spice to smell one’s burning sun.

Marriage. Marriage is all the sonnets
William Shakespeare (welcomed and
farewelled in Church of the Holy Trinity,
just for your information for marriage
will not make sense, sometimes)
has written, and the tragedies the
Intellectuals have dissected and adored
‘fore the beginning of Gutenberg’s time.

Well. Love. Love can make one mad
and blind and write, usually all at the
same time, until it births its favorite son—
marriage where poems are etched
at the back of their hands, memorised
by heart like the Table of Elements
during your dreaded Chemistry class.

Marriage. Marriage is a pair of destined hands
clap not, cannot, without the other one;
can be clenched fists for a while
tangled fingers most of the time,
until one’s breath is done,
until one’s breath is done.

—

04.05.2020
©2020 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Catrin Welz-Stein

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

—

For NaPoWriMo 2020: Day Five

counting poems before and after him

thousand poems
have i written
‘fore fate allowed
me to meet him,

oh, how in hush heart-
beats, low key hums,
dearness draws near
me towards him,

oh, how my shy
muse sings hymns,
so sweetly since
i knew him,

oh, how rhymes
roll off in rivulets,
thousands and more
poems now for him.

—

01.31.2020
©2019 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

—

For dVerse The music of alliteration, assonance, and consonance.

Today I would like you to try using different types of assonance and consonance in any poem of your choice. Try to listen to how it sounds, and see how you can enhance the connection between the letter you use and the meaning of the poem. Maybe you can add the beat of the poem with accentuated alliteration.

—

Inspired by my book Poems for S.

soft arms and midnight crumbs

soft arms of dawn
sneaks in between
half-closed
bedroom blinds,

(wake up, wake up)

infant sunshine
sweeps leftover
crumbs of late
stars’ snack,

(come back, come back)

i sat, unmoving,
inside the swaying
boat of an
ended dream,

(wishing, wishing)

our sheet isn’t
empty of you.

—

01.29.2020
©2019 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

—

For dVerse Tuesday Poetics with Lillian.

…how about writing a poem that takes us inside a dream? It can be your dream or someone else’s dream. Are you sleeping in a bed during this dream? Sitting on a train dozing? Leaning up against a tree staring at the clouds? Does your dream take you beneath the seas? Into the clouds? Or maybe you’re on a stage flooded with the smoke of dry ice? Is your dream triggered by a scent? By a song? By a photo you came across? Let your imagination drift and take us with you into a dream!

wish come true

You are asking why
I haven’t been writing
lately about love,
well, it’s because

you do not utter
a wish every night
once you can already
hold it with your

bare hands. So why

I haven’t been
writing about love
it’s because I
already have

you.

r. c. gonzales – roy | page 138 of Poems for S

—

Sharing with you some excerpts of my poetry book, Poems for S!

Kindle and paperback available here: https://amzn.to/379k2Qd

—

©2019 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo is mine

newton’s apple

Like how an innocent a p p l e
birthed Newton’s law of gravity,
your child-like smile, my love,
freed the caged lover inside me,

effortlessly.

r. c. gonzales – roy | page 99 of Poems for S

—

Sharing with you some excerpts of my poetry book, Poems for S!

Kindle and paperback available here: https://amzn.to/2CSrGAU .

—

©2020 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

weightless earth

where flood goes beyond murky dirt,
transforms into the lightness of a sea’s
cerulean hands guiding transparent streams,

where lighthouses mark the arrival
on a safer place to land, free of clawing
ghosts of the past’s unstitched seams,

where guns burst life instead of endings,
rescuing preys from predators, away
from disturb mind’s cruel schemes,

where kitchens leak of onion and garlic
a prelude to satiated stomachs courtesy
of porcelain plates filled to the brim,

where calendar leaves exhale oxygens
filling gasping lungs with breathing hope,
for the fresh January moonbeams,

where mother earth’s dress dances
with unbearable weightlessness, free from
dark hate, clothed in faith’s balming cream,

where humans are humans being,
living in a new world, a new peace-filled world—
please let not this be an impossible dream.

—

12.18.2019
©2019 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

—

For dVerse’s Poetics: New Year – New World

My book, Poems for S is now available here: https://amzn.to/2CSrGAU  and in India via Pothi.com: https://bit.ly/2M4KwK3

for you: a zejel*

To you, who will hold my dear heart
with its hidden, broken sharp parts,
for you, dear, I write this word art.

Love’s a known sea I did explore.
Yes, I have loved some hims before.
Yet I know for us it’ll be much more.
Let’s wait until our story starts.

For now, let me just write to you,
a nameless man I don’t know who.
To let you know that this is true,
my heart is waiting for your heart.

r. c. gonzales – roy | page 8 of Poems for S

—

Excited to share with you some excerpts of my upcoming book, Poems for S! Pre-order available here: https://amzn.to/2CSrGAU.

—

Zéjel is a romantic Spanish form with Arabic influence related to the Qasida and adopted by the Spanish troubadours of 15th century.

*Zéjel are:

1. syllabic, most often written in 8 syllable lines.

2. stanzaic, opening with a mono-rhymed triplet followed by any number of quatrains.

3. rhymed, the rhyme of the opening mudanza establishes a linking rhyme with the end line of the succeeding quatrains. Rhyme scheme, aaa bbba ddda etc

—

©2019 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo by Jake Melara on Unsplash

postal code stamps

Our tongues are dancing muscles
sprinkled with the magic dust of languages,

as if before birth we’re treated
on a buffet of diverse dialects and accents

where we select how our mouths will circle and arch
to utter each twisted word’s lyrical march, but

pause and place your vein-hand
in the middle of your breasts, there,

there is a polyglot organ,
tapping ceaseless da-dum, da-dum,

tasting the kindness in a stranger’s smile,
touching the tendrils of love’s blurry profile.

There is where we learn,

our tongues may be the dancing muscles
sprinkled with the magic dust of languages,

but our hearts are our postal code stamps
proving this big, big world is our residence.

—

04.19.2019
©2019 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo not mine

---

For dVerse Open Link Night #241

in seven stanzas

i

There are two
not singing Asian
koehls dancing to
the tune of April
drizzle, playing
with brown, and a
bit smaller mynahs.

ii

The plane above
looked c     r      a     w      l     i     n      g ,
ever so s l o w l y ,
gliding on a noon
sky void of fluffy
nor heavy clouds,
yet with Math it’s
actually eating hundreds
of miles for its lunch.

iii

There are two
women – one wearing
a delicate, lilac hijab,
while the other
possessed eyes like
the small cracks
of a for-sale piggy bank –
sitting with a grey-eyed
man, with mane so blond.

iv

Before I was able
to sew the story of
their chit-chat, I
can’t get rid of imagining
their races’ proud flags,

v

like bokeh halos
floating on their head tops,
flying, flying, flying proud.

vi

Perhaps in that table
without kissing nor hearts,

vii

I tasted another flavor
of love.

—

04.02.2019
©2019 R C. Gonzales | A Reading Writer.
All Rights Reserved.
Photo by Slava Bowman on Unsplash

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For NaPoWriMo 2019: Day 3.

And now for today’s prompt (optional as always). Today’s prompt is based in a poem by Larry Levis called “The Two Trees.” It is a poem that seems to meander, full of little digressions, odd bits of information, but fundamentally, it is a poem that takes time. It takes its time getting where it’s going, and the action of the poem itself takes place over months. Today, I’d like to challenge you to similarly write something that involves a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable length of time. Perhaps, as you do, you can focus on imagery, or sound, or emotional content (or all three!)

midnight wish

open palms, wet with
salt of sweat and tears,
reach out outside as
glass pane’s fog clears,

like a yearning new branch
of a house-caged vine
bending, sneaking,
reaching out for sun,

these palms, brined with
my excreted liquids stretch out
to feel the breath of
the cold December wind,

wishing this same
midnight breeze has
kissed your oh,
so, calm sleeping face.

in one brush of air, floating,
against my skin, waiting,
i can be with you,

at least.

—

12.06.2018
©2018 Rosemawrites@A Reading Writer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo via Unsplash

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For he who has loved me wholly, written while listening to Ed Sheeran’s Autumn Leaves.