While I still & always will create with words I like the concept of creating a unique type of beauty with our running style.
RUNNING: CREATING UNIQUE; ATHLETIC BEAUTY
THROWBACK THURSDAY POETRY READINGS: BARE KNUCKLE WRITER
Hey folks! 👋 Welcome back to my Throwback Thursday series of Poetry Readings. For this week I’ll be reciting a poem I wrote nearly 2 years ago titled Bare Knuckle Writer. Hope ye enjoy it, looking forward to seeing what you all think of it! 🙏🤞😁
BARE KNUCKLE WRITER
All this sanitizer
Facebook uprisers
Here comes phizer
Vaccine
Are we any wiser?
It’s not fair
This quiet despair
Nobody there
To talk to
The cold air
Cuts through
The bones of you
Hands are blue
Stripped
Of moisture too
Dried
Stretched
Tightened
Till it begins to crack
Frightened
Resigned
Like my mind
Undefined
Teetering
Between sick and the sublime
Till my thoughts disassemble
My hands tremble
And they begin to resemble
That of a bare knuckle writer
Who secretly revels
In throwing words around the page.
Unlocking them from their cage
Like punches filled with controlled rage. My vocabulary is my armoury.
Piece of paper is my stage
I’m a bare knuckle writer
Dressed as a bare knuckle fighter.
Yearning to be lighter.
Shed a few pounds from my mind.
Before I lose sight of
What was weighing me down.
Laying them down.
Flat on the ground.
With a literary hit.
Meant to confound
I trust my hunches.
And I pull no punches.
As another word crunches.
Off the inside of your head.
As your brain munches
And digests on the brutality.
Of this world. The banality
of the everyday. The finality
Of a loved one’s passing
Love; life and death in it’s totality
My anger I own.
So I cut close to the bone.
Delight and disown.
The gloves are off.
I feel at home.
POETRY: THE PASSIONATE BEAUTY OF THE HUMAN RACE
“ We don’t read and write Poetry because it’s cute.
we read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.
and the human race is filled with passion.
So medicine, law, business, engineering…these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. but poetry, beauty, romance, love… these are what we stay alive for.”
JOHN KEATING (ROBIN WILLIAMS)
Morning folks! How are ye all doing today? I came across this wonderful quote posted by a connection of mine on LinkedIn a few days back. And I couldn’t pass it up!
1. Because it came from the big heart & deep mind of the late; great actor & comedian: Mr. Robin Williams. His character in “DEAD POET’S SOCIETY”: John Keating inspired a group of young English students with his lofty and passionate endorsement of words & poetry. “Oh Captain, my Captain.”
2. Because it speaks my language: the language of poetry & love and their innate humanity and passion. It stirs the soul; comforts the heart; challenges the mind all the while igniting promise for a better tomorrow. We don’t write poetry because it’s cute but because it gives tremendous purpose to our lives and allows us to express ourselves
! 😁👍 It’s what gets us bards & wordsmiths up in the morning.
3. It doesn’t replace; undermine or diminish the everyday pursuits and jobs we must do to put food on the table and pay the bills. They all have their place. In fact poetry gives meaning to said jobs and pursuits, makes them more bearable & tolerable because we can turn to it at anytime to find beauty; hope & solace.
That’s all my wisdom and reflection for this week folks! 👍 Thanks so much for stopping by and reading this. Hope it helps inspire you personally and creatively to live a more passionate and poetic life! 🤞🙏😁Until next Friday mind yourselves and take care.
LOVE ON A BLANK CANVAS: SADJE’S #WDYS #WHATDOYOUSEE #POETRYPROMPT
“For the visually challenged reader, this image shows an easel covered in white paper. Two hands are emerging out of the easel, the right one holding a posy of roses.”
I was going to publish this tomorrow but I thought I’d switch things up a bit as I’ve nothing ready for d’Verse just yet! So here goes:
LOVE ON A BLANK CANVAS
They say you can “paint a picture with a thousand words”
Never did I imagine though
That you could actually
paint a person into existence!
Hands reaching out to me
Through the blank paper
From the other side
With roses and reasons
Beckoning me to draw closer
And come with them
Into the realm of the created
Instead of the creator
Reluctantly I did so
(Is this really happening?)
This was more than a person
This was a chance for love
Love On A Blank Canvas
Invitation to start afresh
If you’d like to participate in the prompt then you can access it through the following link: https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2022/08/01/what-do-you-see-145-august-1-2022/
POETRY: BEARING THE WEIGHT OF AN INTERNAL QUARREL
“Each word bears its weight, so you have to read my poems quite slowly.”
“We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.”
William Butler Yeats
Good afternoon folks! 👏 Welcome back to my poetry quotes blog where we take a look at a couple of my favourite poetry quotes; break them down; analyse them and apply the lessons learned to our lives as poets and readers alike. 😁
Poetry must have some pretty broad shoulders folks?! What you reckon? I mean, if each word does (as Anne Stevenson states here) “bears its weight” and is thus loaded with undiscovered layers of meaning, then the combination of all the words together in a poem must make for a heavy load to carry?!
It’s why we write poetry in the first place, no?! Because we can’t carry that weight of feelings; emotion & questions on our own. It’s why we must treat each word tenderly & with great care, in case it’s heaviness causes it to drop & fall between the cracks of our understanding. It’s why we read poems slowly & methodically in case we miss the meaning or purpose of a word or line! 📖😁🤔
Or perhaps it’s down to an internal “quarrel” going on within the poet themselves that the great Irish bard: William Butler Yeats suggests is the beginning of poetry. That “quarrel with ourselves” I know all too well and has resulted in some of my best; rawest and most insightful material.
But it can come from a difficult; confusing and emotional place or state of mind. We must bear these thoughts in mind when reading poetry and remember the struggle they could have went through just to get this poem down on paper; the weight the poet was carrying when writing it and read the piece slowly so as to fully appreciate and comprehend what they are saying or not saying with their words.
That’s all for this week folks! I really appreciate you taking the time to read the blog, looking forward to seeing ye’re feedback! 📖 😁😊 Until next Saturday, mind yourselves; stay creative and take care! 🙏🤞😁
26 LETTERS: d’Verse Fractal Prompt
A. B. C. D.
You know the rest
26 letters
That have stood the test
Of time
Forming a fractal
Fraction of the alphabet
Alpha and Beta
Help you narrate a
Tale or two
Tell poeple who
you are
For
These individual letters,
When placed together,
Form words
(Which make our lives better)
These words form sentences
To describe a time or a place
Bring your emotions to life
Help you retrace
Your soul
Challenge you and console
These sentences merge together
And slowly evolve
Into fully fledged stories
Around which
Communication revolves
Poetry or prose
Fiction or not
These words can explode
Inform and entertain
Our very own language
That we use to absolve
Resolve and explain
Express our deepest desires
Ignite revolutions and fires
Just 26 letters
Can unshackle those fetters
Change our point of view Bring order to our world
And change it too
Written for dVerse poetics. Yesterday’s host, Lisa, says: Now that I have hopefully acquainted you with the concept and examples of fractals and connected them to poetry by subject and application, your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is:
1) Use any of the definitions, examples, images, or application of fractals to inspire you to write whatever strikes your fancy.
OR
2) Think about something/someone in your world that you have, up to this point, only given a superficial consideration of and decide to look a little closer at it/them. Use what you discover as fodder for a poem.
The poem above titled 26 LETTERS is the result. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading it! 🙏🤞😁
MUSICAL LOVE NOTES #SADJE’S #WDYS #WHATDOYOUSEE #POETRYPROMPT #143
For the visually challenged reader, the image above shows a person making some notes on a piece of paper, placed on top of some sheet music.
MUSICAL LOVE NOTES
Musical love notes
Trying to compose…
Myself
Placing my hand on the paper
To steady it
I look for the envelope
Where I already wrote
Your place of abode
As I seek to address
My feelings for you
Through song
As I seek to confess
My love for you
Which grows strong
Despite the distance
And your insistence
That we don’t meet
Yet.
I start to fret
And pray it’s not unrequited
That you will not fight it
That these musical chords
And ink stained words
(It’s all I can afford)
Will tie us closer together
Across the ocean
Stamped with a lyrical potion.
And all my devotion
Hopeful of a melodic reply
Not another reason why
Our song will fall flat
That our notes are whole
Sharp and in tune
And all that.
You’d come to expect
From musical love notes
And the emotion they reflect.
If you’d like to participate in the prompt then you can access it through the following link:
https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2022/07/18/what-do-you-see-143-july-18-2022/
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! #WHATDOYOUSEE #WDYS #139
Image credit; Ben White @ Unsplash
The challenge on Sadje’s #WhatDoYouSee #WDYS Poetry Image Prompt this week was to come up with written response to the cute picture above. So I thought I I’d write from a child’s perspective, full of the wonder and awe so visible in his facial expression! 😁 Hope you enjoy reading it! 🙏🤞😁
If you’d still like to participate in the prompt, then you can access it through the following link:
https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2022/06/20/what-do-you-see-139-20-june-2022/
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT
“Oh, my god!
Jaw dropping to the floor.
I can’t believe it!”
The child exclaimed.
I can’t believe it ended like that!
I thought he was dead!”
“Mum?!
Directing his incredulous gaze towards her,
Wide eyed & mouth gaping
You didn’t tell me that reading was going to be this much fun!”
“These words are amazing,
I want to learn more more of them!”
“When can we go to the library again?
I need to get another book!”
On the Brink
Always writing on the brink
Between sadness & jubilation
Pen & paper as my shrink
For life’s duration
With a healthy dollop of instinct
(And a little perspiration)
A trait that’s nearly extinct
Like poems in gestation
Skating on the ice rink
Spinning words for ovation
Providing a literary link
To a new generation
Encourage them to think
Above their station
To eat & drink
From the cup of alliteration
No more assassinating
Metaphorical fascination
Perfume the poetic stink
Going back generations
Unlock the chains. Clink.
Remove the hesitation
Better not blink
Or you’ll miss the adoration
LOOKING FOR A CURE
Has it ever occurred
To you?
That I’m a painter of words
Making sense of the absurd
Not a saint in for reward
I’m tainted and bored
My thoughts a bit blurred
A bit self-absorbed
Mind that’s injured
Cyncially inured
To the world’s allure
That’s for sure
Looking for something pure
Longing to strike a chord
Sharpen my sword
Cut the cords
Give more than I can afford
Out of a heart that’s poured
Out
Not here to hoard
Or keeping score
Anything untoward
Just keep moving towards
Looking for a cure
Poetry and Prose of Ken Hume 