VerseDay 6-20-19

Posted on by sereichert

Good Morning!

I’m so pleased and excited to feature this stunning contribution by Jennifer Carr for your weekly dose of poetry.

Jennifer Carr lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her partner and two children. She is an EMT, Firefighter and Poet. When she is not working at the local hospital or firehouse, she spends way too much time (is there every enough time?) reading and writing poetry.

Her poetry has been published in print by Triumph House Poetry With a Purpose and in many anthologies. Her poetry has been published on-line most recently in the Organic Journal ‘Under the Basho’ in the Modern Haiku section.

Jennifer loves flying by her own wings and looks for any opportunity to soar to new heights. Don’t forget to follow her on Twitter @PoetryHaiku13 (https://twitter.com/Poetryhaiku13).

Jennifer can be found on Facebook as Jennifer Carr Munoz or on Instagram.

Enjoy!

 

The Map to Motherhood

Traveling on a good solid trail until a bump in the way
led me to a dangerous detour of winding twists and turns.
The route becoming more rocky – I never saw the speed limit sign
warning me to slow down so I continued speeding ahead
never realizing I was lost and alone even though I was about to crash.
Even when I came to the crossroads I still disappeared
into the shadows where thunderstorms washed away
any chance of me finding my way back home.
I stopped looking over my shoulder
as my dreams disappeared into grey skies
along with the the compass and my sense of direction
all hope seemed lost until one day a miracle happened.

green mountain
Photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh on Pexels.com

There was a ray of hope, a small ray of sunlight
beamed onto my path – I felt it and I followed it.
A heartbeat that was felt long before
his heart began to beat. He brought me somewhere
out of nowhere breaking into old lost forgotten dreams.
In a universal moment I was dancing in a different direction
towards tomorrow’s bright promise the compass that carved a new path
he was the map that led me to motherhood.
The son I would come to know as my “Milagro.”

VerseDay 5-23-19

Posted on by sereichert

Enjoy today’s VerseDay and be sure to send me your poetry, essays, thoughts and musings for consideration in The Beautiful Stuff’s 2019 Poetry Anthology aptly named “No Small Things: The Beautiful Stuff Poetry Anthology 2019“.

Send your work for consideration in the body of an email to: sereichert@comcast.net, with “POETRY SUBMISSION” in the Subject line, along with a brief bio and your website/promotional information.

And now this….

 

When you see me again

 

When you see me

Again

I will be much changed.

I will not be the girl you knew

I will be something

Strange and fierce.

 

The calm of sensuality

That you cannot touch

Hunger you cannot satiate

And when you see me,

You will ache to know me

But will not comprehend.

Cannot comprehend

The ways in which I have left this space

 

When you see me

You will know,

The river you cannot swim

The depth of mystery

And love

You only dipped

Fingertip

in

You cannot

Slide across my surface

or touch to feel me

anymore.

 

When you see me

I will have shed you as old skin

Left behind, pinched

between rock and ground

The ghostly outline, honeycombed in dirt

The woman who knew you

Has dropped away the shell of your empty

Affection

 

When you see me again,

You will not know me.

I will be much changed.

Strange and fierce.

An untouchable,

Incomprehensible

Ache

 

 

 

 

 

VerseDay 4-11-19

Posted on by sereichert

Sometimes, as a poet and writer, it behoves us to stretch ourselves and try out new forms, word use, and technique. I encourage you all to step out of your normal patterns of verse and play with alliteration, assonance, and the ever-popular to say but disastrous to spell: onomatopoeia.

Enjoy this little experiment of mine and pass it along.

DON’T FORGET TO SEND ME YOUR OWN POETRY TO BE ENTERED INTO THE ANTHOLOGY AS WELL AS TO BE FEATURED AND PROMOTED HERE ON THE BEAUTIFUL STUFF!

 

sky space dark galaxy
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Effervescence

 

I am the marksman and martyr

The ever-present effervescence.

 

Symbiotic soul-light, illuminating illustriously

Black nebulous annihilating, extinguishing entirely

 

A Universe boundlessly unfurled

A speck of compressed silicate,

 

Wider than infinite relativity

brief as an angel blink

 

Temporal finitism laid against,

the inconsequential ticks of time.

 

All and none,

Faith fashioned from fear

Release reborn of resistance

 

The ever present effervescence.

 

VerseDay 4-4-2019

Posted on by sereichert

 

 

What We Lost In The Fire

 

The favorite,

The only.

The irreplaceable

Warmth of need

Burned down to ashes

And the lies we told ourselves

To keep it from leaving

Gone.

Orange and black wisps in swirls of wind

We destructive pillars

That love

only to destroy

That shield

only to suffocate

That want

only to deny.

Fickle-hearted arsonists,

Love and burn

Cherish and consume

Better to see objects of affection destroyed

Than ever set free.

Rather let the memory burn,

an inextinguishable flame

Than free ourselves from the shackles of desire.

Never understanding,

how much of ourselves sits smoldering alongside

Until all we are

Is ash and loss.

VerseDay 3-28-19

Posted on by sereichert

Good morning ladies and gents. I don’t know where you are living these days, but Spring is making a coy arrival here (followed, of course, by a snow storm forecasted for the weekend).

But, as I am working towards living in the present moment, here are some thoughts on this hopeful, anticipated season. Enjoy and share!

 

The Quiet Fury

 

The silent rustle of Spring

Comes renewed in partial glances

A robin’s canter, coy flash of red breast, 

Among the tender buds, 

Tucked tight arrow tips.

Fearful, of irrational snow

And wind still chilled by winter’s breath.

 

The sun creeps round the curtain, lessens her stage fright

Staying for longer moments on horizon’s stage.

Life stirs below ground, within dark chocolate soil

And harbingers of decay make their case like tender pink accordions.

 

Where last have you slowed the pace of expectancy

To stare in wonder at the world?

When last did you marvel,

Explore,

Dissect and rescue

The gentle, beautiful

Living

Things?

That when in Spring do rise to the occasion

In bursts of sound and furies of color.

 

VerseDay 3-14-2019

Posted on by sereichert

Hello Lovies,

Today’s Verse Day is brought to you by the amazing and talented, one-of-a-kind, Rebecca Cuthbert.

Rebecca (Schwab) Cuthbert lives and writes in Western New York. She is a hopeless believer in “the beautiful stuff,” like gardening, caring for shelter dogs, reading and writing, and spending time with people who fill her heart up.
Please enjoy and share this gem of writing. Don’t forget to send me your own entries for consideration!

 

Intermission

“It’ll be just like playing house,” she’d said. “You’ll wear slippers, but not cologne. I’ll wear an apron, but only on Thursdays, only in April and June, and not if I’m not at the bus stop.”

 

She made me a key, but I saw the framed pictures, coffee rings and toast crumbs I didn’t leave.

 

Her hair smelled like hyacinths. She left the porch light off when she kissed me goodbye, ignored my declarations, told me not to creak the gate.

 

It’s August now and I sit behind her on the early bus. She focuses on her crossword or stares out the window, and I wonder if she’s pretending now, too.

 

VerseDay 3-7-19

Posted on by sereichert

Before I wow you with my versatile verses here are a couple of quick announcements:

 

Send me your poetry for consideration in the The Beautiful Stuff 2019 Poetry Anthology. If you don’t write poetry, but know someone who does, encourage them. Contributors will get two free copies of the anthology and bragging rights. And we all know bragging rights are way better than a cash payout…um…ahem…(*nervous throat clearing).

You can send entries via the contact page on this website or simply by emailing it to me at sereichert@comcast.net with “2019 Beautiful Stuff Poetry Submission” as the subject line.

Also, The Beautiful Stuff’s weekly blog post will now be moved to Tuesdays of every week, as I want to spread out all the thought. I will be looking for guest bloggers at the beginning of April so keep your eyes open for that announcement.

And now…a little scuttle into Sarah’s latent memories.

 

Recollection

 

Remember days, sunlit and spread

Tentacles of diving suns and

Russian thistles, green teeth bared,

Before winter tumbled them dry.

The sand blasted faces, relentless wind,

Grit swallowed with water from the hose.

 

Remember the stolen boards,

The battle of nail and hammer; an engineering feat.

The tree house mansion at the end of the road

That dropped my brother from leafy heights

And gave him the best scar of the summer.

 

Remember the joyful toil

Sticky hands and brown feet

Mosquito bites torn into angry holes,

Captured horny toads, succumbing to belly rubs

Such degradation of the regal king of sagebrush.

Awe filled fascination, as blood fired from their eyes

A defense of true dragonry.

 

Remember settling into M*A*S*H with dad,

Never noticing the sting of war around the click of Klinger’s heels.

Or the soft, seeking peace of Radar’s eyes.

The MacNeil Newshour always put me to sleep on the floor.

A sleep that never paused for the bustle of adult worry, or nuclear meltdowns.

 

Remember toe-headed boys and dirty-dishwater blondes,

Running naked round houses on dares,

Unfathomable speed of youthful freedom

Still not faster than motherly wrath.

When laughter tickled like a persistent cough

And sadness reserved itself for opened knees and epic bike wrecks.

Wounds that healed far faster than the heart.

And left scars you bragged about, not buried.

When life was immortal and endless,

Possibilities not yet limited by the bottleneck of time.

 

Remember the stolen, joyful days

Dragonry and castles in trees

The naked hearts, and pauseless sleep.

Before we settled into toil?

You toe-headed boys and dirty-dishwater blondes.

What memories lay, grit covered, on your shelves?

VerseDay 2-28-19: In Honor of The Feminine Divine

Posted on by sereichert

So I was feeling uninspired when I sat down to write today’s verse (a frighteningly common occurrence these days) and I found a voice that has always inspired me laying in wait in the back of my mind.

So in honor of March (it is tomorrow after all) being National Women’s Month, I offer this tribute to one of the great female voices of our time, Ms. Maya Angelou.

May your words and thoughts continue to inspire us to rise.

 

 

Phenominity

 

She says she is not swayed,

By transcendental bullshit

No one clips her wings

Or guides the undulations of her hips.

 

She says she cannot be cut,

A skin so thick

It holds the fire,

So nothing gets in, and nothing burns out.

 

She says she made the world,

And shines her womb in darkness.

Where lesser beings cower, confused

She plays the fear of life divine.

 

She says no man will change her

Erase her, degrade her.

She is stronger than mountains

More fluid than sea.

 

She rises like hot mercury

Cresting metallic and fluid,

A danger to hold.

A beaded, magnanimous being.

 

She dives, not falls, precise and sublime

Small but mighty with peregrine speed

A dazzling twirl of feathers and blood

The small bones crushed, all down plucked clean.

 

She says she is no token, no check mark

In insufficient boxes of guilty consciences  

She is a pale rider, a dark horse coming

And Her rendering of justice won’t satisfy your quota.

 

She is no one to own, and no body to claim.

She is envy and apathy, lust and indifference

She is all things, undefined and free

Phenomenal you. Phenomenal me.

VerseDay 1-24-19

Posted on by sereichert

Before you immerse yourself in this succulent little slice of verbiage, take a moment to remember that I’m still calling for submissions to the poetry anthology and look forward to featuring your work here on my website. IT’S FREE PEOPLE…and you get all the feel-good bragging rights of being ‘published’. So consider and send me your stuff.

 

Okay, proceed to the Verse…

 

 

Puzzle

If I could stand in those empty fields once more.

The sun and wind bearing down,

Driving back the faint of heart.

If I could catch the notes of sage on the back of my tongue,

And the distant blue horizon

Far and stretching for eons

The time of endless days, turned eye-blinks.

If I could walk those creaky halls, and the comfort of shadow

The patterns of wood and love

If I could smell the dust of my bedroom, hear the closet door creak,

Lean against kitchen countertops, where the coffee pot left

Traces of brown on the laminate.

If I could just go back.

To that time

To that girl.

Maybe I could find the pattern of me,

The places before broken lines were drawn.

And piece the puzzle back together.

Maybe in this place, the dirt that grew beneath my fingernails,

The dust that scattered through my hair

The sweet sunshine that painted my cheeks in freckles

And the smell of an innocent child who belonged to the wild.

If I could just run those tracks, single and winding through empty fields,

On the squeaky tires, of the most faithful steed,

Who’s cracked seat pinched tender thighs, if ever the thought to sit occurred.

If I could spend the day on an adventure,

I could find the greatest one yet.

The one that tells the story,

Of a girl who was fearless

A girl who loved the wind and the sun

And the freedom beneath her was a fair gale to wings

Of a girl who wouldn’t give up.

Not ever.

Of a girl who persisted and

Stayed wild.

Maybe I could find the pattern of me,

Before the broken lines were drawn,

And piece the puzzle of myself together again.

VerseDay 1-17-19

Posted on by sereichert

 

Klutz

Today I stumbled

Head long.

Tumbled over the errant thought, that came from nowhere,

Like a toe caught on the lip of concrete,

Stopping my heart while the Earth’s momentum continued.

I crashed,

Scraped both knees,

Bloody and torn

 

In love with you.

 

I raised tattered palms

The shock of surviving

Such pain

Embarrassment,

Stupidity.

I looked up to see who’d noticed.

But the world carried on,

Oblivious to my fall.

And me, staggering to rise,

Unable to take any of it back.

Left with these scars.