Grief is a small room
one door: closed
one window: shuttered
four walls
ceiling
room enough for
me
one chair
a thousand thoughts
and a million questions
that begin with
Why . . . ?
Posts Tagged ‘Poetry’
Grief is a Small Room
Posted in Creativity, Poetry, tagged grief, modern poetry, Poetry, tragedy on 02 Jun 2022| Leave a Comment »
Ratiocination
Posted in Creativity, Poetry, Writing, tagged current events, depression, modern poetry, Poetry on 31 Mar 2022| 1 Comment »
I am made mute,
the words struck from my mouth
by the unfathomable.
The world’s gyre spins,
casting lucid reason
into the dizzy vortex.
We cannot see,
having doused the light
for what it might reveal.
Fear is our all,
leading from temperate sense
to blistering fireworks.
Answers are lost,
along with their questions
as knowledge becomes foe.
Bereft, I reel,
accompanied by emptied thoughts
about the stolen same.
Tears are useless,
for I am wept out
and the world is a sponge.
I long for sleep,
for dreams untroubled by dark terrors,
a retreat from what I cannot control.
But wishes fail,
and the tragedy of this circus
continues unceasing.
So I hold tight,
cherishing bits of trust
and blink at each morning’s sun.
k
Hopes of Spring
Posted in Creativity, Poetry, Writing, tagged haiku, modern poetry, Poetry, spring, ukraine on 17 Mar 2022| Leave a Comment »
I Need a New Word
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Poetry, Politics, tagged creative writing, glory to ukraine, modern poetry, Poetry, ukraine, Writing on 10 Mar 2022| 1 Comment »
I need a new word
for the conflict that
rages within me
I need a word
for the feeling that hits
when I see
a response to force
so primal
so basic
so innately human
yet
so brave
so admirable
so worthy of honor
that
I become a forge
a crucible filled with
heart and spleen
love for the spirit
hatred for the reason
This alloy of
love and anger
horror and awe
this reactive nexus to
the best
and worst
of humanity
surely deserves
a word of its own
k
Drumbeats
Posted in Poetry, tagged cold war, creative writing, hot war, modern poetry, Poetry, russia, sanctions, ukraine, Writing on 23 Feb 2022| Leave a Comment »
from beyond our horizon
comes the sound
tympanic booms
savage rumbling
the faraway growl
of stomachs hungry for
power
control
more
so we fret
with brows furrowed
in cultivated concern
whilst
we mumble apologia and
with clucking tongues
serve imported tea
at finely-set tables
but that thrum
that urgent pulsation
to our distant friends
is the pounding of fists
on skins stretched taut
a percussive temblor
shaking hearts and lands
a crescendo of chaos
building
to the cymbal’s crash
to rimshot snares
to the xylophonic dance of bones
once was a time
this selfsame song
danced upon the breeze
a faint and subtle rhythm
we listened and
with pallid interest
chose to admire
the musician’s technique
rather than critique
the tune
but the cacophony spread
and others took up the noise
until the world shrieked
through those bloody measures
and millions vanished
beneath the grinding treads
of war
in time
we wrote a coda
to the obscene chorale
having learned
that for some
more
is never
enough
Mid-Winter Morning
Posted in Creativity, Poetry, tagged creative writing, haiku, modern poetry, Poetry on 03 Feb 2022| Leave a Comment »
purple-robed dawn creeps
past evergreens cloaked in fog,
lifting night’s dark veil
sleeping birds awake,
unfurl dew-draped wings and sing
the morning to life
a cat on the sill
chitters, a phantom huntress
prowling her grey world
k
‘Tis the Season (for Podcasts)
Posted in Creativity, Poetry, Seattle, Writing, tagged creative writing, language, podcasts, Poetry, science diction, the allusionist on 27 Jan 2022| Leave a Comment »
—-
first light begins its
slow creep toward younger hours
dreaming of new life
—-
I wrote that haiku yesterday or, more accurately, I copied that down yesterday, as I awoke with it fully formed in my brain. All Things Natural have been “front of mind” lately, as this week we had our first real break from the rain, and I’ve been spending time outside.
Every afternoon this week, for an hour or two, I’ve been out in the gardens—pruning, raking, trimming, clearing, gathering—in a futile attempt to complete all my cold-weather chores before the season warms and the now-dormant plants awaken. While this is arguably less of a workout than time on the elliptical, I keep at it longer, so I’m calling that a wash.
One thing I cannot do while gardening, though, is watch a video (my go-to for indoor workouts). So, because I’m a over-achiever by training and cannot do merely one thing at a time if I can do two (or three), I indulge in the next best thing: I listen to podcasts.
I’m relatively new to podcasts. I’ve tried audiobooks, but since I have no commute and thus no regular activity where I must remain eyes-alert but idle-eared, I usually got a few chapters into a book and then didn’t have a chance listen to it for a month or more, disrupting the narrative.
Podcasts, though, are perfectly suited to this task, even the hour-long ones. Encapsulated, whole, pithy, geared toward the audible rather than the visual, I can set them up in a row and burn through them whilst puttering with ferns and maples, roses and lupines, listening and working simultaneously.
The two I’ve been listening to this week are both language-oriented, and I recommend them to writers and readers of this blog.
Science Diction:
This podcast is an offshoot/subset of the more well-known Science Friday podcast. I’ve never liked Science Friday, as the faux banter they use to tie together the various “articles” is—sorry guys—cheesy and painfully obvious. Science Diction is a subset of those “articles,” was hosted by Queen of the Vocal Fry, Johanna Mayer (at least through 2021), and focuses on the meaning, etymology, and historical context of science-y (and not-so-science-y) words. Ambergris, jargon, hurricane names, gene names, robots, mercury, these have all been topics of this 12–20 minute segments, and I’ve burned through them all, loving each one.
The Allusionist:
Helen Zaltzman hosts this language-centric podcast, with a voice that is the perfect juxtaposition of posh British tone and working-class American idiom. I’m only a handful of episodes into this (working from 2015 toward the present), but already they’ve covered the origins and history of words/phases such as “bra,” “going viral,” and the c-word. As with all good (IMO) podcasts, they spiral outward from the base topic a bit, to give a broader view of the surrounding context, showing the wider connections to the world at large. They vary in length from 10–30 minutes, and come out once a fortnight.
There are other language-focused podcasts out there, but I haven’t spent time with them so cannot recommend. If you’ve listened to any, please leave a recommendation in the comments. I expect I’ll be burning through a lot of them this season.
k
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 