2012.03.28 — Published: A Sonnet & a Haiku

Enough of those dumb ass fushigi blogs. Now for a dumb ass blog of web-published creative writing.

The multi-media and very beautiful and engaging Houseboat blog and its multi-talented creator, writer/artist/photographer Rose Mary Boehm, has graciously published two of my poems in the last few days!

The first one is a Shakespearian sonnet that I wrote several years ago. Imagine that, not only is there at least one nut bar writing sonnets in the world, still, but there is also extant someone willing to ask my okay to publish it!

In Black, Shadow Puppets Dance - A Sonnet
       inspired by Kimberly Keith & Revised 2011.12.29

In black, shadow puppets dance with the light
That leaps in bounds to fire a new year born.
Wicked stories fill with dread an endless night
Of starry dreams dreamt once but now stillborn.

But how the gilt flames leap over these limits.
They tickle open hearts with glittering scenes
Of thick plated truths, gold carded credits,
Hard hitting livers and bilious spleens.

I stare and stare. To my dark eyes' chagrin
Sharp smoke caresses them and makes them tear.
I blink through brine and my mind starts to spin
A tale of two halves — my mask-face and fear.

     The flickering night has caught spots in my mind,
     Spots black in my mind my mind minds to find.

Now I have mixed feelings about the 'goodness' of this effort, but I think that at least a couple of the parts in it are more than acceptable.

Of course there are those in the world who viscerally loathe this format, like it was ipecac. Okay for those people they will be spared looking at the next poem that Rose published. That is in the even more despised Haiku format. This one came to be as an expression of my reaction to a subject photograph Rose published in the Houseboat to stimulate poetry.

Here's what I wrote.

I am a white dog
playing in the dirty snow
of late spring.

Hmmm. Now that I've written that — and the sonnet before that — you may be dis-inclined to visit the Houseboat blog. !f that is your feeling-reaction, please reconsider. HB has truly great poetry and visual art from real and seriously published writers, poets and visual artists like Joan Colby, Jefferson Carter, Ruth Bavetta and brilliant new poets like Sara Clancy and Danny Earl Simmons, Naomi and others.