Twilight’s Thread – A Poem

Here’s that little weaving poem that was a sonnet and then I changed it around so it may no longer be a sonnet…g’nite:)

Twilight’s Thread

Because the loom of time and space
entwines its soothing silken yarn
between perplexing fringes frayed,
does not prevent my brief return
to long abandoned faded folds.
I tumble back, against the nap,
and feel familiar patterned ways
confine me in discordant scenes
with broken symbols, pulled so tight
I can’t discern
the energy that gives them life
in frequent fitful slumbering.

Ellespeth

The Next Four Days

Thanks for following the next four days of my life…

Beginning tomorrow, I have four solid days off.  I’m determined to write a short story or an outline or an idea…

Some sort of ideas for the first story of my short story collection:

The way I want things to work is that there will be several stories with interweaving characters or even an interweaving theme/place. Something like that. I’ve practiced the flow and connection with my Sissy and Buck flash fiction pieces but…I don’t want the finished work to have anything to do with Sissy and Buck.

Some of my favorite authors who have done this brilliantly are Ellen Gilchrist, Joyce Carol Oats, John Cheever and Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge). I want to set my goals high – to strive for something meaningful to time and place and yet still universal threads weaving.

Well, of course, all I have to do is to simply begin with one friggin 1500 word story and some sort of daily schedule only broken under penalty of…I’d say death but that seems rather harsh for both of us.

I certainly don’t want a rigid schedule so the one I can live with – for the next 4 days – would look something like this:

10AM to 3PM – write save original copy of the work

3PM to 8PM – time off – walk to market and cook and be with my main man

8PM to 11PM – read the day’s work and make some editing notes/changes onto a 2^nd copy of the work. NEVER ERASE THE ORIGINAL WORK!

This schedule works well because you are back at the pottery studio or hiking for the next 4 days. Oh well…the best made plans, right?

And when I find it, I want to put one of my sonnets up here about weaving things together…it’s an important creative image in my life.

I am also editing 50 of 434 poems…

I had a dream about Donald Trump. I don’t remember it,  but I woke up groaning.  I certainly hope I gave him a piece of my mind😛

I held a little 3 month old baby this morning.  Oh my gosh!  The softness of everything baby smiling up at you…  It’s almost an unbearably happiness overload.

Ellespeth

A Long Shot

Sometimes, I use an old manual typewriter

Unfortunately, for me, I never asked myself what I intended to do with these hundreds of poems I’ve written in my life – and am now overwhelmed in the editing of some. Until I started this blog, in 2013, I just assumed I’d keep my poems printed out in a notebook ‘to be read by others after I’m dead’. That assumption is not how things have turned out.

First of all, I’ve learned that I can use my guts AND my blog to help me determine poems I might want to work on further. And I’ve learned that, on a creative level, I trust those reading my blog…some stuff is ok – on a personal level, but I want to write about beyond what is personal. Something personal and universal.

And secondly, I’ve learned about different ways writers are publishing these days. Before 2013, e-Books seemed futuristic and foreign to me. Self-publishing was something poets did in ‘vanity publications’ – same thing but more complicated because one still had to find such publishing places and send your work off and then pay them to publish it…so that’s pretty eye-opening and mind-altering to me because…

I actually want to be a short story writer. I actually want to get a book of short stories together and have it published in paper copy. I don’t want to self-publish. And that’s my present dilemma.

I’m in the process of editing 50 of the hundreds of poems I’ve written. Maybe I’ll do something with those poems. They are still so far from finished. There are editing issues – using the same word more that once, in poems as short as I write, is really annoying to me, and other larger issues to help my poetry flow from personal to universal.

I know I’m a poet. I’m also a wife and a daughter and a sister and an aunt and a friend.

So I’m gonna write a short story, dammit, and send it into some magazine. Maybe I’ll publish bits of it here, on my blog, to get a feel.

So there!

Ellespeth  ♥

photo via pixabay

Those Days I Go Crazy

Those Days I Go Crazy    (maybe a poem title, too)

Tomorrow is my self-proclaimed donut Monday! Have I ever said how much I love donuts? And that I have limited myself to one a month for over 30 years? Or that I tired of cronuts after having two? Or, just tonight…

Me: Oh! Tomorrow is donut day   (add a clap here)

You: What kind do you want?

Me: I’m not sure. I’ve read there is a new donut craze nowadays.   Do they have ‘new item’ signs at the donut store?

You: No

Me: Hmmm…ya never know, it could be healthier.

You: The only way it could be less healthy  is if they added arsenic.

Me: Hmmm…so what kind are you getting?

You: I like the fried apple fritters.

Me: Hmmm… (silent giggle)

Ellespeth   ♥

On Watching Birds Nest Building

On Watching Birds Nest Building

Nests are very fragile.

some of us live cocooned in them
all of our lives
through heavy
howling snowy winds
and soaking rains
droughts
and fires.

some nests are snatched away
and lives
never the same again.

I don’t know why
nests have to be so fragile

I just know they are.

Ellespeth

Nirvana – Poem For A Fiction Challenge

Time again for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.  So grateful to PJ for hosting this weekly challenge.  Please follow little froggy for more stories.

Some little voice tells me that I probably would do best not to post this but…I’m listening to Janis Joplin on the stereo and taking chances while I still can.

Here is the photo and my entry:

Nirvana

It’s other lives
others’  lives
or another life
that gets in the way
until you’ve been
there
for just the briefest moment
in that ever-loving place
you’ve reached for
all your life
and
from a particularly
slanted point of view
this moment may not mean much
except to you
it does
at last.

Ellespeth

This week’s photo prompt is provided by Joy Pixley. Thank you Joy!

Seeding The Moment – A Love Poem

We had avocado/tuna toast for supper tonight.

Seeding The Moment

The seed itself
had broken in its fruit
towards roots
and stems
and leaves
and a tree heavy
so we rescued it
into the future
and our loving care.

Ellespeth