The Light and Poetry Friday

 

shine-like-leonard-cohen
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
— Leonard CohenAnthem
You can read the remaining lyrics here.
In honor of recently departed Leonard Cohen, a songsmith, wordsmith and inspiration, I wrote a previous poem and this new poem, retyped below because screen readers for the visually-impaired cannot read words inserted in jpegs:
Shine Like Leonard Cohen
Find the words
everyone knows
but sing them deeper
where fear goes
sing them deeper
where hope hides
sing them deeper
where light flows.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Welcome to Poetry Friday! I’m happy and honored to host Poetry Friday this week for the first time. If you’ve participated before, you know what to do. If you haven’t, you can click the blue box and add a link to your blog of an original poem, a favorite poem or a review of poetry. Or leave your link in the comments.

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Autumn Shindig Invitation

Please post a link to your favorite fall artwork, photograph or poem below!

See below to join the party. Here’s mine:

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Five Alive

five
seeds fly
up sky high
letting the wind
find their inner birds until warm earth calls

Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham

Welcome to my Autumn Shindig!

Please post a seasonal link here or in the comments:

Notes: My poem is my first ever tetractys, or a 5-lined, syllable-counting poetry form, organized as follows:

Line 1 – 1 syllable
Line 2 – 2 syllables
Line 3 – 3 syllables
Line 4 – 4 syllables
Line 5 – 10 syllables

To rhyme or not to rhyme, hmmm. Here’s an example from the talented Aussie poet, Kathryn Apel:

Class
erupts
as teacher
flees in terror,
huntsman spider ignorant of error.

© Kathryn Apel

Final note: This is my first attempt to use inlinkz. It’s a dry run for getting it to work when I host Poetry Friday this Friday! I’d really appreciate you adding a link. I need to know it’s working!!

Continue reading

The Elves Must Go

Oak leaves with red at the edges

Leaves touch earth with a
quiet whisper that sadly says,
the elves must go.
It’s time, it’s true. Continue reading

Leaf Scuffing

Heart-shaped green Catalpa leaf with other leaves

My dragging feet find
note cards from the multi-verse
with its stanzas of seasons,
rhyming couplets of colors, Continue reading

Ferns Found

Ferns of all shades of green and brown

a palette of earthtones
paints hillsides
with Autumn song Continue reading

Halloween Color

 

Halloween
haunted in harvest reds
summer’s fallen

Note: Here’s a happy halloween haiku for you!

October Blooms

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October blooms are
heavy under gray skies.
Summer is a faded smudge
on the hydrangeas. Continue reading

Smiling at Eternity

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Our bones are always smiling. Continue reading

To Know Much

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I never know as much as when I don’t know anything. Continue reading

Hope for Heliotrope

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Heliotrope was in a sour mope.
She was the last crayon picked.
She felt as if she’d been kicked. Continue reading

Mothers Near

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Mother Near

I feel my mother near
in a garden,
leaves trembling,
like my heart,
as a butterfly lights
on a concrete goddess. Continue reading

Delicious Demon

 

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Eat the delicious demon.
Gobble him up.
Before his chocolate
nose runs
or his raspberry filling
bedevils your brain.
Breathe in that
cinnamon scent:
sweet, spicy, sinister.
He has the molten texture
of dark lava cake.
Sink into the zippy
comfort of way-too-much
sugar-joy, skating like
vengeful Olympians
in your veins.
The worst demons
are the delicious ones.
Resistance is futile.
He’s hiding his fangs?
Wouldn’t you,
if you were delicious, too?

Notes: Artwork is rights reserved to the original artist. This poem was inspired three years ago by comments on a post. Since then, it has lurked in my draft file, biding its time, sighing, despairing, imprisoned. Finally, I set it free. Dig in and enjoy. Have a magical day! Two weeks to Halloween!