Reignite the Flame

Love Lights the Flame

Hot coals of love burn down to ashes

Glowing in the white powder of life

Smoldering in pain and suffering

Red-orange and glowing embers of what once was

The story of our life reduced to ashes

Hard clinkers of melted molten anger

Igneous chunks of hate and despair

No life // no fire // no will to rise anymore.

But then… shaken and stirred

They fall through the grate

Giving breath and life to remaining embers

Letting go of despair // shedding the pain

Finding forgiveness // reigniting the flame.

Breath of love makes hot coals glow red

Choking dust of life shaken free

Only embers of love remain

Rising up // a rekindled flame

Continues to burn

Photos: Dwight L. Roth

I was going to use this poem for the d’Verse prompt the other day, but then realized that the quadrille was only 44 words, so I saved it for another day. So, here is my poem of Love rekindled.

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Soul Glaciers

My heart sheds itself

A glacial calving

Splashing

Into an ocean

Of salty tears

Children dying

Barrels of hell

Incinerate

Unfortunate souls

In their wake

Ghost towns appear

Cavernous emptiness

Gaping mouths of

Fear, dust, and concrete

Atrocities of power

Continue

The world goes ‘round

I bend my knees

My heart cries, “Why!!”

I crawl into my warm bed

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Glacier Photo:  geologycafe.com

Our prompt for d”verse poetry group today is to write a poem using metaphors in a way that expresses a feeling without actually saying what that feeling is. The reader is supposed to tell what feeling came across to him/her as they read the poem.

Come join us at d’Verse: https://dversepoets.com/

Burning Star

Ever hitch yourself

To a shooting star

Only to find it’s 

A comet flying through space

A cold solid chunk of ice and rock

Living off shining reflections

 

Find yourself a star

Burning brightly

Full of passion //fire

Better yet… 

Be that shining star

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Photo Dwight L. Roth

Monday Quadrille called for by Victoria at de’Verse~Poetry Pub. Today’s prompt is to use the work burn in a Quadrille. Come join us and read all of the great poems by our group.

https://dversepoets.com/

 

 

Gun Limericks

AK-47 TOY ASSAULT RIFLE KID BOY MACHINE GUN SOUND MILITARY ARMY CAR-15 M-16

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We are so contradictory in our affair with guns. On one hand we revere our American Heroes and buy our kids GI Joe toys and guns to play with, while telling them that guns are not to be pointed at anyone because they are so dangerous. We buy them video games of virtual reality that allows them to kill at will, and then tell them this is not real and they should never think of killing real people. We buy guns at gun shows and keep them in our house, and tell our children if anyone tries to break in we will shoot to kill. We watch our Hollywood heroes kill at will, but they are not to do the same. What are you teaching your children by word and by the toys and games you allow them to own?  Solutions solved by guns almost always end in death and collateral damage.

Teachers at school are all shaken
Students lay dead// lives taken
Blame freely passed
The public’s aghast
While guns freely trade and are taken

*

Student in school have had enough
Parents and administrators in a huff
While congress delays
The gun lobby pays
As the NRA’s stand remains tough

*

TV news constant streaming
Showing pictures of shooter and screaming
The death count will rise
Amid shots fired and cries
As the next insane planner keeps on scheming

*

Trump says teachers should be armed
As parents and teachers sound their alarm
Teachers used to be teaching
Carrying guns seems far reaching
As they try to keep children from harm

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Gun Ad above can be seen at amazon.com

Beauty for a Day

 

Haikus from the Web

Delicate strands shine

Morning dew brings out beauty

Only for a day

Carefully spaced strands

Unaffected by the rain

Spider’s dreamcatcher

Drawn to web’s allure

Nature’s polyester thread

Bugs hit the bull’s eye

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Photos: Dwight L. Roth

Alberta Jack

Jack Rabbit

In the cold Alberta Northland

The Jack Rabbit lives close at hand

Near the pond with mother ducks

In the city next to cars and trucks

Trims the grass all summer long

Enjoys the green with the summer throng

Bad weather’s coming cold and snow

Fatten up while he can before 40 below

Snow crystals have little nutrition

Eat all he can is his only mission

Snowshoe looks for a new fur coat

Winter is coming and that’s no joke

Pulls out the old coat throws it away

A sleek new white coat is his today

No protestors complaining about his new fur

He’ll blend right in that’s what it’s for

On a white blanket of glistening snow

You won’t see him he’s good to go

Photos: Dwight L. Roth

Living Among the Stones

We Live Among the Stones  

We live among the stones

Some rounded and smooth

Others sharp and jagged

Stones fresh and raw from upheaval

Laid bare by heat and pressure

Scorched and Broken

Stone surrounding the fossils of life

Embedded ancient remains

Relationships yet to be excavated

Stones in the river of life

Hard yet rounded smooth

Shaped by the flow of life

Stones cut and shaped to perfection

Stacked and fitted with keystone and arch

Support and strength for all above

Stones of beauty shaped with loving hands

Smoothed and polished

Exquisite beauty stately and cold

Stones of hurt hurled to harm

Smashing killing with devastating force

Leaving only piles of rubble behind

Stones of moraine crushed under ice

Laid bare by the receding foot

Cold snow pack fading fast in the sunlight

Precious stones forged with extreme heat

Pressures that forever change…

Leaving a greater metamorphic glory

Stones of love left in sweet memory

Of loved ones gone // lying among the stones

Now only names carved in stone

We are all precious stones

Jewels in our creator’s crown

Reflecting love and grace

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Photos: Dwight L. Roth

For d’Verse open link night we can post any poem of our choosing. I chose this one because it describes how we live among so many and diverse peoples of the world. It also has personal connotations that apply to us as individuals as well.

Come join us at de’Verse: https://dversepoets.com/

Here is another post on rocks from a spiritual perspective by fellow blogger David Alleman at Compost and Grace.

https://uplandweb.wordpress.com/2018/02/24/on-being-chips-off-the-old-rock/#respond

Daffodils

Daffodils are blooming in North Carolina. I heard the peepers singing their spring song today and it lifted my spirit to know Spring is just around the corner. The flowers this year are more beautiful than ever.

Daffodils

Daffodils bring spring

The daffodils don’t worry about gray clouds.

Their strength of the flower is in the bulb

They simply push from within

Up through the cold landscape of winter

Through rain and snow and ice

Rising, thriving, blooming

Pushing away the dark clouds of winter

Bringing smiling spring sunshine to all

Rain or shine

Photos: Dwight L. Roth

Fermentation

 

Today on d’Verse~Poetry Pub, Paul asked us to write a poem about drinking! It could be alcoholic or not, or metaphorical. I decided to write about a childhood experience of playing with my neighbor and going through his basement where his father kept his empty beer bottles. The smell of the fermenting beer in the empty bottles has taken away the appeal to drink beer of any kind. To this day I have never had the desire to taste one. Here are three limericks that compose one poem.

Fermentation

When I was just a little tyke

Still riding my three wheeled trike

I passed through the basement

Where beer bottles in casements

Left foul sour odors in their wake

*

My neighbor really loved beer

To drink it gave him good cheer

Always Carling Black label

Bottles sat on his table

Empties sat in his basement it was clear

Those sour beer bottles I remember

The smell the basement always rendered

It affected me so much

That I never did touch

A Carling Black Label // not one single

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Top photo:  collectablesonlinedaily.com

Second Photo:    midwestsupplies.com

Come join us at d’Verse: https://dversepoets.com/

Fading Shades of Gray

Fading Shades of Gray  (a Hai bun)

Watching my father-in-law’s mind fade from shades of gray to black evoked a lot of emotion.  It became noticeable to my wife and me when we visited her parents in 2009. Driving us across Edmonton to the Science Center, he got mixed up and forgot how to get there. Apparently this happened before, because Mother had written the directions for him on index cards. Later she told us that one day he came out to the parking deck, after volunteering at the hospital and could not find his car. She kept tabs on him until 2012 when she developed a brain tumor.

Giving up his keys and driving privileges it was very hard on him, but the hardest thing for him to understand was when they were in separate care facilities. He would ask about her over and over, and could not quite comprehend what was happening. After she died, he kept expecting her to return. He is now 90 and seems to have adjusted to his confinement, even telling friends who visit that they should try to get a room there as well. He tells them that they take good care of him there.

Winter brain cells fade

Short term mem’ry turns to black

“Helen, Where are you?”

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Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Bjorn, at d’Verse~Poetry Pub asked us to write a Hai bun using the word gray. I chose to write on the graying effects of Alzheimer’s on the brain.

Visit us at: https://dversepoets.com/