Vincent Van Gogh

Starry Night By Alex Ruiz

The brush was stirring with life

Stars swirled and dropped from the bristles

He cupped them and put on the canvas

They vibrated with the village and cypress

 

They all lusted for life like Vincent

 

 

The Starry Night by Van Gogh : source

Posted for Mag 234 @ Magpie Tales

Maze of Life

image source here

                                It’s a maze

                       Stubborn paths encircle

                  In a never ending winding way

I have been walking from my birth to carve my path

                  Rest I may but I shall not turn back

                       Dark face has starry smile

                               And day star

Posted for Margaret's hosting Play it Again Toads! #8 @ Real Toads. I selected Kerry's challenge: Jorge Luis Borges - become lost in the maze of language, magic & endless possibilities

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Shared with Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

Patterns of Time

Let my brief glow

In the blackness of stasis

Create a ripple of light

 

Let my white root delve deep

Into the dark path

And send up a wave of life

 

All life is a moment’s pattern

Like flash of fireflies

Dancing in the night

 

 

Posted for Susie’s hosting Bits Of Inspiration ~ Spirit Nature @ Real Toads…I used a portion of the quote from Blackfoot: "What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.”

 

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Sharing it with d’Verse MTB where the prompt is Patterns of Life

 

On Mahatma Gandhi or Pleasure without Conscience or Pleasure of living

Joel Robinson Photography source

The shy kid* who walked like a shadow

Was once a 13 year old groom

Butterflies never left his stomach yet his stony words

Hit his child wife in their room

 

Squabbling kids!

 

The razor’s age he had trodden

Hacked and hardened his diffidence

The girmitias** held him in esteem

And some with nonchalance

 

Hail the change!

 

His easy way was bizarre to the worldly men

Hanging a smirk on their face

Eyesore that he was needed to get rid of fast

To save the man’s own race

 

 God save the Man!

 

But the bullets targeted his chest to stop that beat

Of the simple man

Red birds flew up from his bosom into the void and his words

Were the silent sun

 

He is no more!

 

Mercenary killers still walk and I hear their footsteps

In channels and paper

The red birds from the remote past bring me the silent sun

And words dance and caper

 

Poets still live!

 

 

*Mahatma Gandhi

**girmitia was probably distorted form of ‘agreement’-workers who were hired from India to work as bonded laborers in South Africa. They were deprived of basic human rights. Gandhiji fought for them in SA.

 

Written for Susan’s Midweek Motif: Social Goods @ Poets United

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Shared with d'Verse Poetics

Paths

image source here

They leave their homes bidding goodbye  

Soft petals eager for a full bloom   

Walking side by side arm in arm            

All towards the same destination               

 

Soft petals eager for a full bloom   

Till time’s magic wand casts the spell       

All towards the same destination               

Tasting on the way the sweet and bitter fruit  

 

Till time’s magic wand casts the spell       

They firmly move on a slow twilight path                     

Tasting on the way the sweet and bitter fruit  

Their feet to turn stony gathering moss                 

 

They firmly move on a slow twilight path

Walking side by side arm in arm

Their feet to turn stony gathering moss

They leave for their new homes bidding goodbye

image source here

 

Note: leaving home for the first time the little children set out for school, a new world; youths rush towards fulfillment and the aged wait for the call to their real home. The poem is in Pantoum form though I took a bit liberty.

 

Posted forPoetry Jam where the prompt is Path

Some Plants Need Fire To Survive

image source here

Forest dies

The ash wasteland sighs

Forest fire’s nightmare still battering

The black muted pain gives off the odor of death

I am reminded of the adage

One’s loss is another’s

Obvious gain

 

Jack Pine waits

The fire-worshipper

For its deity to open up cones

To free the seeds like Sequoia’s or Manzanita’s

Only to confirm the adage that

One’s loss is another’s

Obvious gain

 

Mushroom clouds

Hover over ghost towns

Marauding aliens loot Baghdad

Dazed victim’s dead eyes vacantly search everywhere

The Dove for their offspring

I find Mother Courage*

Counting gains

image source here

 

*Bertolt Brecht’s immortal character in the play Mother Courage and Her Children who was blind to her loss and expected to thrive in Wars

 

Posted for Kerry’s hosting Sunday Mini-Challenge – Triquain @ Real Toads

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Shared with Poetry Pantry @ Poets United 

Flight of the Bumblebee

Tsung Tsung’s** fingers begin the dance

Calling the magical Swan-Bird

Who is supposed to help the Prince

To visit his father the Tsar

I gape in wonder

               

 His fingers now talk in rhythm

Will the enchanted bird arrive?

To send the Prince to the Tsar’s court

The Prince is ready to buzz off

I drink the music

 

The fairy tale door opens wide

The Bird casts her spell

Prince Gvidon sprouts wings

Pianist sets free the bumblebee

 My happy feet dance

*an orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan (based on a Russian folk tale) composed in 1899-1900.

**an amazing child pianist  

I am not sure if this poem followed any meter…

Posted @ d’Verse MTB where the prompt is Your (Own) Beat