WD – Distraction Poem

Gretchen at playground Monday Afternoon

Park Distraction

Rest stop at the park

Meet 16 year old at late bus
drop off, just the two of us

walking home through neighborhood
distracted by playground equipment
brings back small slice of childhood

 

Robert Lee Brewer asked for a distraction poem as the 425 Wednesday Poetry Prompt. I decided to play with the cherita poetry form again. On Monday, my almost 17 year old daughter wanted me to meet her at the late bus drop off. She is getting to go see Hamilton at Gammage auditorium through her school. However the opportunity requires her to stay after school to learn more about the American Revolution before they go to the play. I honestly didn’t think she would do it, because it meant taking the late bus home and that is outside her comfort zone. Little did mom know she’d ask her to meet her at the bus stop, which is across the street from the elementary school. I haven’t made that walk in years. And yes, when I used to walk down there to pick up the girls after school (all the way back to pre-k), we would stop and play at the park. Over the years, the playground equipment has changed. They didn’t have the duck there when the girls were small.

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Nasty Women Phoenix 2018

 

Saturday February 3rd, I’ll be attending the reading for the Nasty Women Phoenix Unite. Shawn has some photos in the show again this year; I’m not sure if I’ll actually get to see them since opening night is Friday and it’s a cash and carry show. As I pointed out last year, they reopened submissions because of the huge success the first weekend. This year they are only open one weekend.

Nasty women will
not shut pie holes, voice discord
of chauvinist pigs

 

Sunny Desert Winter

Last Monday I was chilly; it only reached 60 here in the desert. But over the weekend, it warmed up nicely. Yesterday it was 80 and I went in the backyard to soak in the warmth.

Selfie of me in the backyard

While I was out there enjoying my desert heat, I read Ken’s blog – Missouri weather.  He wrote a cherita. It was the first time I saw this poetry form and since it it short, I had to give it a try. I borrowed from Ken’s piece as we are both Buffalo transplants.

Arizona weather

nothing like
Buffalo

sun will shine
no need to shovel
soak in the warmth

This website as more info on the cherita poetry form.

Then when I checked my following reader page on WordPress this morning, I saw more desert pictures from a post by Jasmine, Driving through the Arizona desert. I agree; I love my desert. Can you believe by the end of this week it’s going to be February? Friday, February 2nd is my mother’s birthday and groundhog’s day, marking the halfway point of winter. My mother disliked the bitter cold and snow of Buffalo winters. Shawn and I moved out to Arizona 19 years ago now, and I have to admit I do not miss the snow and cold. Also the humidity all those things affect my CP and the Arizona sun and warmth keep me a much happier person.

Enjoying the sun
my little slice of heaven
sits in my backyard

The #haikuchallenge word on twitter today is slice.

School Rings

Mementos from past
Sit in jewelry box untouched
High school ring on top

Gretchen sent me a text yesterday: We got order forms for class rings. I replied, I forgot you get those junior year. She answered, the guy said you’re old because most parents forget they order school rings junior year. Well I didn’t really mean I forgot rings were ordered in your junior year; what I really meant was I forgot my baby is a junior! How did that happen?

When Gretchen got home from school, she told me she wants a ring big enough to customize. I told her the ring doesn’t have to be big to personalize it. And yes I took out my high school and college rings to show her. My high school ring has a quill and paper for journalism. Gretchen even commented, You would have a book and pen on your ring. Did she really think her mother would stop loving to read and write? Silly child

This morning I asked Rachael, Guess who got her class ring order form yesterday. She answered, Gretchen who else could it be? I said, You. She said, They do college rings? Then she remembered looking at them. The cheapest one was about $600. I told her, Yeah college rings were always more expensive.

Rachael’s high school ring class of 2016

January – Week 3

Tuesday has arrived
write cringe worthy poetry
post one blog a week

My post is a day late. I spent most of yesterday hibernating under blankets. It only made it to 60 and I’ve acclimated to the desert heat; 60 is chilly to me. I did write a haiku for the #haikuchallenge on twitter yesterday, but then I just enjoyed my peace and quiet. As it was Monday, everyone was out of the house by 7:30am, and then Gretchen had to stay after school for Hamilton and didn’t get home until 4pm, leaving me with 8 hours of heaven.

On Saturday Gretchen had her Eng 102 class at EMCC and Rachael had volunteer training at the Phoenix Zoo. The house was devoid of people on a Saturday! I did 4 loads of wash. I prefer to do laundry on the weekends because of the cheaper electricity rates though it means more in the summer when we’re running the AC. Then Shawn went over to his Mom’s house; they’re working on a piece together for the Exotic Show at the Alwun House. Opening night is February 9th this year, they have to get the artwork done.

Friday Rachael doesn’t have any classes so she and I went grocery shopping at Walmart. They had the entire freezer section emptied for cleaning and inventory. Ugh! This morning Rachael was looking for breakfast, the go to frozen waffles have been depleted and we couldn’t replenish them. Even Gretchen was asking for waffles and I had to tell her, oatmeal or cereal are choices this week.

Ekphrastic Haiku

Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights

Callipygian
perfect canvas to display
aria from hell

Trish Hopkinson shared the submission call for this ekphrasis anthology. A friend shared a list of out-dated words we should bring back to our vocabulary and callipygian was one of the words. Of course I had to turn it into a poem. And yes, another “haiku” or really senryu; but since this month has started, I have made 5 submissions and they do include other poetic forms. Since Monday has rolled around again, and I’m trying to write a blog a week and I couldn’t think of anything else to compose, I decided to play with a new, old word.

If you want to hear how the composition is played, check out this article.

Arizona Illustrated Celebrates Poetry

To continue my contribution to the online poetry community weekly blogs for 2018, Arizona Illustrated did a story on the Poetry Center down in Tucson. A place I have yet to visit.

Poetry Center
fifty thousand milestone
special fold out book

I wrote another #haikuchallenge for twitter. Today’s word is special. I’m starting slow in 2018, but I have written at least one haiku a day for the twitter challenge, better progress than last year. I also want to share the call for art for the next Nasty Women Unite show here in Phoenix – check out this blog. I’m sure my readers recall I attended last year’s show of course I quoted a well known female poet, Adrienne Rich. I’m sure she’d be a nasty woman, too. Write on poets and bloggers!

Enjoy Sunny Days

Hello from sunny, warm Arizona, watching and hearing about the cold snowy weather back east makes me happy to be living in the southwest. A few years ago, I submitted a poem to Silver Birch Press Where I Live series. Melanie posted my poem on my mom’s birthday – the first birthday we marked without my mom.

Now they are dealing with record low temps back east. In fact in Buffalo, they’ve closed some schools tomorrow for the extreme cold. Lol! My poor child was stuck in school in August in Arizona without AC already one day this year.

AC has broken
School sends students home early
Renew cool classrooms

 

August 23, 2017 #haikuchallenge. On day two of broken AC, I got a phone call around noon stating they were sending the students home early. It was a Tuesday; the AC was also not working Monday and you should have seen how wilted Gretchen looked walking into the house at the normal time Monday afternoon. Hey well over 100 and no AC, school no problem. Temps dip below 0 and apparently schools close their doors.

Of course I do enjoy #haikuchallenge poems focusing on Arizona weather. The word today is snap.

Forecast bitter cold
Snap back to reality
Valley of the sun

Hello 2018

Old rolls into new
marked by clock chiming midnight
Calendar not changed

 

Happy New Year! I am not a fan of resolutions to me one day rolls into the next and why let an arbitrary day mark a new beginning? If I want to make a change, I make it when it works best for me not based on a day in a calendar. Yesterday was the first day of the new year and the start of a new month. I was just in my kitchen, pouring my second cup of coffee for the morning; I looked over at the calendar and realized it was stuck in 2017.

Speaking of not following arbitrary dates, the City of Avondale issues free calendars every year that start July 1 and run through the end of June. There was no need to change my calendar; I just needed to flip to the new month. However I guess I was being a little lazy yesterday and didn’t think about the wall calendar. So welcome to the second day of January and hopefully a more prolific blog.