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A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi. (In front of you, a precipice. Behind you, wolves.)

Sunday, May 15, 2022

National Limierick Day--May 15--Storymakers

 

 

I went up to Provo to see

If my book was a winner Whitney

But the prize went elsewhere

I was stuck to my chair

But the conf'rence rocked radically!

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

Saturday, April 30, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day the 30th--Tyburn Poems--Dancing in the Wind

 

On this lastest day of April Poetry Month, we're doing Tyburn Poems. To learn how to write this  devilishly difficult poem, go here. Otherwise, below:


DANCING IN THE WIND

Lifting

Floating

Turning 

Reaching

Dancing lightly lifting floating fray

Flying turning reaching Gran Jette

 ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

 

 

 

Friday, April 29, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 29--Poem in my Pocket--Spurs and Point Shoes


 This is National Poem in my Pocket Day. If you want to know about it, go here. If not, here's one of mine:

Spurs and Point Shoes

When she was young she thought

By this age she would be unstoppable

A force to reckon with.

She thought she would be a ballerina, 

A successful artist,

A beloved wife and mother.

And all her muscle work and stretching out and bleeding toes 

Would pay off.

She thought she would have all the answers.

Her dreams would have gelled into a 

Cohesive Plan.

 

How little she knew.

And yet now she has fewer answers.

And fewer of them are true.

The scales have fallen from her eyes

And disillusionment takes up space in her mind and heart.

And she sees the bedraggled kitchen wench

Where once stood a proud and shining squire.

She sees layers of years and dust

Of dripping sweat and living 

Coating the once smooth skin.

Her knees creak and complain,

Back bowed in pain,

Her throat full of nodes, 

Battering the once clear voice.

Those layers and layers contain memories,

Some hard won, 

Some too easily tossed away--

 Dull pennies in a broken well.


Who she wanted to be has fled,

Betrayed her for she who came--

She who gave up and in and settled for less 

Than greatness.

She sought the truth, running it to the ground

But what, then, did she do with it?

She stands panting from the chase, a stitch in her side.

But is she who IS,

Necessarily lesser?

She is what she has done, seen, who she

Keeps about her

All the sights and places and experiences

She has tucked away in her Pandora’s box.

The corners have knocked off, the edges rounded.

Bashed and dented, 

She stands with head bowed, 

Having sometimes failed and sometimes won.

 

Wishing she could have been a Knight

But having held the stirrup cup for long, lonely years

Never having seen, done, or been enough.

The ballerina is broken,

Watching from the wings as new dancers

Take her place, 

Toe shoes all satiny pink

And unbroken.

New squires come to fight

And win, covering themselves

In fleeting glory.

She stands at the tourney sidelines

And weeps inside.

 

But maybe what is wanted is not the Knight.

Maybe what was always needed 

Is the lowly squire, ever there to help lift and light, 

Ever there to bear the cup and steady the horse.

Maybe those scars are the trophies.

Maybe even the serving wench has value

With a truth of her own.

Maybe it's simply too early

To count up the winnings

And she has merely a longer, dustier road

To tramp.

Maybe it's the lamp she holds high

That fills the sky with light for they who come

Afterward.

Maybe someday there will be

Spurs for her,

And a welcome fire and a bowl of broth.

And worth.

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

 


Thursday, April 28, 2022

National Poetry Month--28 day--Spring Senses Poems--

 


Today we're doing Spring Senses Poems. If you want to know how to do one, go here. Mine are below:

Spring looks like a haze of bright yellow, pollen-loaded blooms.

Spring sounds like the bees making the mesquites hum like a plane engine

Spring feels like a deluge inside my sinuses

Spring smells like the orange blossoms in bloom

Spring tastes like allergy medicine.

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

Can you tell allergies are kicking my rear? You can't get away from it!!!


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my ABAB poem:

A COLD OR ALLERGIES OR 

WHATEVER IT IS

How could a germ a tenth of a dot

Not even the size of a sick little chigger

Have generated gallons and gallons of snot?

The volume of tissue just grows ever bigger.

 

My nose feels as if I'd been eating ghost peppers.

I drip and I sniff but the snot just keeps comin'.

I'm out of TP thought the best of the preppers

Getting on top of it simply feels bummin'.

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This tiny foul bug to my knees now has shoved me

I can't do the things I'm required to do

I hole up in bed with the tissue and hot tea

And hope this debacle will shortly run through.

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 27-Alliteration Poem--The Chocolate Castle Caper

 

We're doing Alliteration Poems today. To learn how, go here. Et voila:

The Chocolate Castle Caper

The key keeps me coming. 

I currently call to the crusty kid

Crunching through the canes

Crows cawing caustically 

Can I creep cautiously?

I can catch a calliope calling me from

The cabin of a caravel near a caen stone castle.

A choir cants a cajoling canticle

Keeping me coming complete with key

Cadets call a cadenza in a cheery cadence.

I creep to the curtainwall 

And climb up cautiously 

Calculating the costs of collaboration.

Careful of cads, cacti, cuddly copycat cowboys,

And creepy caimans

(Kindly kill those cruddy crocodilians.

'Cause they're in cahoots

With the cabaret cabal.)

I crawl. Then clamber over.

The crusty key cantilevers,

Completing its counterclockwise

Circuit, connecting completely cattywampus.

The cabinet creaks creepily

I count to a cabillion, crashing like a cadaver

Then crawl like a caboose into the castle.

CRUD! It's a room full of cuckoo clock

Crunching cadgy cadette caddies

In cable-stitched cardigans 

Chewing chicken and chocolate!

I have no cache with this choir of

Cuckoo cutting cats and their

Cacophony of chortles.

I can't keep up with their concatenations

And cataclysmic clamor.

I crazily caper out of the castle

And into the caravel while avoiding 

Caffeine and catapults full of cats and cows.

Carumba they cut! Quit!

I'm careening and capering.

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

 



Tuesday, April 26, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 26--Bookspine Poems

 

 We're doing bookspine Poems today. If you want to learn how to do these, go here. And now for a big explanation:

We decided to have the rule in our family (after remembering the shenanigans we and our sibs got up to in our youths) that after the kids turned 12, they would spend the night in their own beds unless it was with parents home, that we knew WELL, or some kind of church thing like scout or girl's camp. Our youngest daughter was utterly disgusted with that rule and wrote a whole angry diatribe book about how she hates Mom and Dad and THE RULE. We found it hilarious and keep that book in our box of memories along with other fiance blackmail pictures and items. So this poem is all about what I think my privateer (so pirate with permission) forebear might have been thinking since he NEVER (that I know) mentioned his parents or even the country of his birth.

By the way, the author of the angry diatribe book has grown up a LOT and is no longer livid about spending the night in her own bed...;)

So I suppose this poem would read something like:

I hate Mom and Dad

I'm the eldest rebel

A soul so rebellious

Now seeking the Spirit

As my inheritance

John McKusick
 ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

Monday, April 25, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 25--Diatelle Poems--To the Temple

 

So  this is a difficult poem to write called a Diatelle. If you want to learn how to do one of these, go here. Mine is below:

TO THE TEMPLE

Home

God's space

Father's place

Eternal peace

Serving the human race

A delightful spiritu'l feast

I spend one happy day a week at least

To the Temple with anticipation I roam 

Letting go of world's problems--such release

Helping Grandma, Uncle, and Niece

I go before God's face

Blessings increase

Lineage trace

God's grace

Womb

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy