Category: 2024

Progressive Poem for 2024 is Here

Denise Krebs7 Comments

The Progressive Poem for 2024 is continuing each day. So far…

cradled in stars, our planet sleeps,
clinging to tender dreams of peace
sister moon watches from afar,
singing lunar lullabies of hope.
almost dawn. I walk with others,
keeping close, my little brother.
hand in hand, I carry courage
escaping closer to the border.
My feet are lightning;
My heart is thunder.
Our pace draws us closer
to a new land of wonder.
I bristle against rough brush—
poppies ahead brighten the browns.
Morning light won’t stay away —
hearts jump at every sound.
I hum my own little song
like ripples in a stream
Humming Mami’s lullaby
reminds me I have her letter
My fingers linger on well-worn creases,
shielding an address, a name, a promise–
Sister Moon will find always us
surrounding us with beams of kindness
But last night, as we rested in the dusty field,
worries crept in about matters back home
I huddled close to my brother. Tears revealed
the no-choice-need to escape. I feel grown.
Leaving all I’ve ever known
the tender, heavy, harsh of home.
On to maybes, on to dreams,
on to whispers we hope could be.
But I don’t want to whisper! I squeeze Manu’s hand.
“¡Más cerca ahora!” Our feet pound the sand.
We race, we pant, we lean on each other
I open my canteen and drink gratefully.
Thirst is slaked, but I know we’ll need
more than water to achieve our dreams.
Nights pass slowly, but days call for speed
through the highs and the lows, we live with extremes
We enter a village the one from Mami’s letter,
We find the steeple; food, kindly people, and shelter.
“We made it, Manu! Mami would be so proud!”
I choke back a sob, then stand tall for the crowd.
A slapping of sandals… I wake to the sound
of ¡GOL! Manu’s playing! The fútbol rebounds.
I pinch myself. Can this be true?
Are we safe at last? Is our journey through?
I savor this safety, we’re enveloped with care,
but Tío across the border, still seems far as stars.
He could not yet come to this new place
But Hermana moon, kiss his tear-stained face
¿Dónde está mi querido Tío?
¡Mi corazón está muy frío!

April 1 Patricia Franz at Reverie
April 2 Jone MacCulloch
April 3 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 4 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
April 5 Irene at Live Your Poem
April 6 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
April 7 Marcie Atkins
April 8 Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a God Forsaken Town
April 9 Karen Eastlund
April 10 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 11 Buffy Silverman
April 12 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
April 13 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
April 14 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
April 15 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
April 16 Sarah Grace Tuttle
April 17 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe
April 18 Tabatha at Opposite of Indifference
April 19 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
April 20 Tricia Stohr-Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 21 Janet, hosted here at Reflections on the Teche
April 22 Mary Lee Hahn at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 23 Tanita Davis at (fiction, instead of lies)
April 24 Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone
April 26 Karin Fisher-Golton at Still in Awe
April 27 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 28 Dave at Leap of Dave
April 29 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 30 Michelle Kogan at More Art for All

Poetry Friday – Trinet

Denise Krebs16 Comments

It’s Poetry Friday and Jone MacCulloch is hosting today. She has an interview with Carol Labuzzetta about the new anthology Picture Perfect Poetry, published this week. Thank you for hosting, Jone. 

I remember when I learned that pigs are not able to look up into the sky. Did you know that little fact?

I learned it last year in a trinet by Alan j Wright. I was amused by his poem, and the form was new for me. I often like to try new forms, but I didn’t. Then just last week Alan revisited the trinet, so I was reminded to give it a try. The trinet is 7 lines, with word counts of 2-2-6-6-2-2-2. (Thank you, Alan for the inspiration!)

Words

windswept wonders

wistful terms

welcome to the whistling expressions stirred

haunting the lexicon mining for words

whimsy inferred

sometimes absurd

communication heard

I thought the shape of the first one looked like an angel, so I had to try a second one.

Angel

speaks warnings

wears wings

wondering who started idea they’re singing

guiding, pointing the way to heaven

angel guest

visiting Earth

commissioned above

Image by b0red from Pixabay

A third one, looking much less angelic, was for this week’s “This Photo Wants to be a Poem” at Margaret’s Reflections on the Teche.

Halo

Encircling umbra

Brilliance ablaze

Magical dance of moon and sun

New celestial feats eclipse our understanding

Oohing ahhing

Awestruck, unparalleled

Eyewitnesses ensorcelled

Image by Dave Davidson from Pixabay

 

Slice of Life – True or False? Perhaps?

Denise Krebs13 Comments
9 April 2024 TwoWritingTeachers.org

True or False?

  1. I saw the eclipse on the sidewalk on Monday.
  2. I drove through the Morongo grade and spied a big horn sheep on the mountain.
  3. I am hosting over at Ethical ELA’s Verselove today.
  4. I saw two baby giraffes yesterday.

Three of those things are true. One is false. Any guesses?

First, look at these beauties.  A one-month-old and a two-month-old!

Second, the sun was eclipsed by the moon by about 62% where we were Monday. The maximum view happened at 11:14 a.m. We had  finished walking at the zoo at about 10:30, so I didn’t want to leave and find myself sitting in a restaurant at the max time. So we got a sandwich at the zoo snack bar.

I guess I thought it would get noticeably darker, but that sun didn’t miss a beat! I didn’t notice a smidgeon of darkening in the sky. I didn’t have any glasses to look up at the eclipse, so instead I found a shaded spot that allowed tiny images of the sun to shine through. I stood enjoying the view under this trellis at the zoo. When people would venture by, I’d tell them they could see what was happening in the eclipse in the shadows on the sidewalk. It was a conversation starter and fun to see the shadows move about as the flowers above were blowing in the wind.

The third truth is that I am hosting at Ethical ELA today. We are writing True/False poems, and you don’t have to identify which lines are true or false. (If you read my “True or False” post last month, you might want to join us. If you didn’t read it, you still might want to join us!) Click here to check it out.

The lie, you may have figured out, is that I still have not seen another big horn sheep in the wild in Morongo.

#Verselove 2024 – A Week of Poetry 1

Denise Krebs1 Comment

7. Things (Better) Left Unsaid with James Coats

Seattle, 1:04 p.m.

it happened that second
in time, after much pushing
groaning and sweating

the world grew by one
and I knew reality
would never be the same

another life
another personality
our family has grown

the world has grown
then I held you as your
bright eyes gleamed

and I was a new person
a grammy first

6. Photographic Poem with Katrina Morris

Your
Grammy
Holds on, but
Your dimples dance,
Feasting on freedom,
Sipping steep grades, your joy.
Restrain your rapture? Never!
When you summit this stony slant
You’ll keep going, for you carry stars

5. Friday Date Night with Leilya Pietre

We went to that park in Long Beach
With the beautiful walking path around a lake
I thought a break-up was imminent

We walked and then sat looking at the water
And you asked me to marry you
It took me awhile to say, Not yet.

Seven years later, I nestled into your safe yes.

4. Alphabeticals with Jennifer Guyor-Jowett

a’s bobbed tail
b’s oft flip fail
c’s open quote
d’s half note
e’s toothy grin
f’s shelf built in
g’s beckoning
h’s reckoning
i’s reaching
j’s leaching
k’s a kicker
l’s a licker
m’s a mountain
n’s spilled fountain
o’s looking round
p’s feeling proud
q’s dainty
r’s fainty
s’s slither’s slow
t’s a compass rose
u’s embrace
v’s a vase
w’s two vases
x’s holding spaces
y’s the wise owl
z’s zigzag scowl

3. Inspirational Places with Wendy Everard

Pittsburgh’s in Jack Gilbert

As we rode Duquesne Incline,
he already was old and in Berkeley. Steel City
watches over the growing of knowing,
for heirlooms of progeny. But this
morning, the three rivers backdrop
for thunderstorms, Andy Warhol and
the bridges of a city bring light to our
dark, pathways of connections.
To this city we came just to
give our kids a taste of Primati Bros.
(way too much cole slaw),
and the Pirates, and Randyland, a
show of hue saturation and celebration.
His hometown was the
landfall of his view from Paris,
the eye of his childhood, always
new. As each of us have our own past, in city or
country, we are products of our nurturing.
His lifetime weaving carried the thread of his
native city, coloring the world, his poetry with
land-roots of comfort and claiming.

Golden shovel striking line is “As he watches for morning, for the dark to give way and show his landfall, the new country, his native land.” By Jack Gilbert in “Looking at Pittsburgh from Paris”

2. The Magic Box with Bryan Ripley Crandall

List of ten that started this Magic Box poem: a green thumb, “beam me up” travel, lie detector machine, ointment to remove the pain in my right hand, reading and reducing and replacing tsundoku, Colin Kaepernick protest redo, Palestinians having their own homeland again with a good and fair government, connection with others, an organized email with an inbox that gets emptied daily, peace on earth really.

A Redo of Kneeling

My visitor today is a green thumb–
my plants clothed in need
now fed and watered with a hum

The smooth slander spotter,
reviler revealer, lifts
the weight of the world
and clears out the system

Beaming to Pennsylvania on
the wings of hearing,
really hearing you this time,
better beside the blooms,
not a long way from heaven,
not killing time,
but living and breathing freedom

Freedom tastes gentle
It’s never-ending relief
instantaneous sustenance
of hope and release

Transporting success
on the creaking knees of the old
and the knowing knees of the young
A redo please
of a quiet anthem
that hears
listens
and finds
justice

1. #hashtagacrostics with Kim Johnson

#Deliberatelydiligentdiscerner
#Eternallyemergingevolver
#Nonsensicallynaiveniceness
#Inherentlyimprobableindependence
#Solidsecondhandskeptic
#Especiallyeagerentrant

Poetry Friday – A Date

Denise Krebs11 Comments

Today’s Poetry Friday roundup is over at Irene Latham’s Live Your Poem blog. She has today’s line of the Progressive Poem, pockets full of poems, prayers and more. Thank you for hosting Irene.

Today’s #Verselove prompt is to write about a date night. Do join in if you want to draft a poem with us.

A Date

By Kevin McFadden

The first seated takes the chance he’ll be
stood up. She’s getting on with the hope she may
get off. One and one make one
in this riddle. Or, more closely, comedy routine:
first, impressions; second, observations.
I wrote a sevenling about a strange date I had with my boyfriend.
We went to that park in Long Beach
It has a beautiful walking path around a lake
I thought a break-up was imminent
We walked and then sat looking at the water
And you asked me to marry you
I was surprised and didn’t answer
Today, we both can’t remember the name of the park

Seven years later, I finally said yes.

 

Slice of Life – Classical Conditioning Wildlife Quest

Denise Krebs9 Comments
2 April 2024 TwoWritingTeachers.org

Today’s slice was born yesterday on a trip to Palm Springs. It’s a 45-minute jaunt down into the lower desert. We do it about every week or two for one appointment or shopping trip or another.

Part of the trip includes going through the Morongo grade, which is a mountainous section, just three miles or so long. There is no cell service, and a sign along the road tells us that there are desert bighorn sheep possibly crossing the road.

I’ve been coming to the desert, driving through this grade my whole life (first to visit grandparents, then my mom, and now because I live here), but I had never seen a big horn sheep in the wild until last month when I saw one, not on the grade, but in Joshua Tree National Park . I wrote about it for my Slice of Life on March 5 here.

Over the years, driving through the grade I have always glanced around the hills (when I’m not driving, of course), thinking I might really see one.

Then, lo and behold, for the first time, ever just a week after I saw one in the park, I saw more. This time there were two or three scrawny, thin, probably young sheep on one a cliff on the grade. I was so excited, but of course, my phone was way elsewhere, so I couldn’t get a picture.

Now, like Pavlov’s dog, I know those sheep are there, so on the last two trips down the grade, I have my phone zoomed in three times, and lying ready in my lap. Then I scan the mountains like a detective. I have yet to see another bighorn, but I keep looking for the reward of seeing these creatures in the wild. Yesterday, I wondered how long this classical conditioning reward would last in my wildlife spotting quest.

I took this picture to show you what the hills look like. No sheep yesterday!
Here are some bighorn sheep I saw at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in Palm Desert

Slice of Life 31 – Easter Vigil #sol24

Denise Krebs9 Comments
31 March 2024 TwoWritingTeachers.org
Saturday morning rainbow off my back porch

Paying Attention in the Dark

Who in creation was the first to notice when you took the
handkerchief off your face, folded it up, and set it down?

Did the moon and stars praise your rising?
Did the owls hoot a salute to humility
having the last winning word?
Did the angels do a stepdance when they
realized the fullness of God’s plan?
Did the rainbows plan the palette to
decorate the joyous dawning sky?
Did the mynas celebrate with a
new playlist for Sunday morn?

Who else noticed when you first ventured out?
You left the tomb while it was still dark;
sometimes
it’s hard to grasp
truth in the shadows.

And today, help me to
take notice of you
while it is still
dark down
here.

Thank you, everyone, for a great month of writing, reading, and commenting. You make me a better writer and person. I’ll see you on Tuesday.

For those who would like a National Poetry Writing project, do consider joining us for Ethical ELA’s Verselove starting tomorrow. It is a 30-day poetry writing community that meets daily at Ethical ELA. Each day in April a different teacher/poet hosts by sharing a prompt, which will be posted at the website at 5:00 a.m. Central Time. Some of the Slice of Life friends will be hosting on different days.

  • Kim Johnson – April 1
  • Denise Krebs – April 9
  • Joanne Emery – April 10
  • Barb Edler – April 13
  • Margaret Simon – April 14
  • Donnetta Norris – April 22
  • Glenda Funk – April 28
  • Fran Haley – April 29

Participants are invited to stop by for one, two, three, or all 30 days throughout the month. For more information and FAQs, click here.

Do you have the National Poetry Month Poster yet? Get it here.

Slice of Life 30 – Fear a Narcissist With Many Jars #sol24

Denise Krebs15 Comments
30 March 2024 TwoWritingTeachers.org

Today I read Tabatha Yeatts’ Poetry Friday post. She had an idea to use the beautiful poem, “Trust a Woman With Many Jars” by Mackenzie Berry, as a mentor text.

Then while I sat in church tonight, the priest said, “We all have narcissism, some a little (he held up two fingers in a small pinch) and some a lot (he held his arms open wide).”

Yes, indeed. We are all sinful. God died to save us from our narcissism, but we remain vulnerable to ugliness in ourselves, and caught from others, as well. Now, with apologies to Mackenzie Berry, I used her poem as a mentor to write my own:

Fear a Narcissist With Many Jars

Who fills them with disgust and loathing
and makes others weep
as they fall off the train of empathy

Fear a narcissist who can blind others with hatred
whose art is dishonest dealing and grift
Who lacks conscience and skill

Fear a narcissist who says, “How stupid are the people?”
and “You have to take out their families.”

Fear a narcissist who
hijacks democracy
on the pinions of prejudice.
Who reviles truth.
Who projects pathology.
Who makes George Orwell
turn over in his grave.
Who learned twisted lessons from 1984:
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”*

Fear a narcissist who
threatens an experiment
a quarter millennium in the making.

Fear a deranged narcissist
who calls for
total authority
retribution
bloodbaths
and bedlam.
Fear a narcissist who demands
immunity from the rule of law.

Fear a narcissist Bible Salesman, who is a
“liar who takes pride in his nihilism.”**
Who breaks anything he can’t have for himself.

Who cons, who dupes, who fleeces.
Who is a broken promise.
Who spreads narcissism systemically
and without partiality.

We are all at risk.
Fear a narcissist, I beg you.

*1984 by George Orwell
**”Good Country People” by Flannery O’Conner

Stained glass window I was standing in front of during communion