The Mood - a Challenge Poem

Black Was the Mood

Black was the mood back in '33
Stock market had crashed, Jimmy was born
Share cropper's son, potato's good year
Doctor's bill was paid, Jimmy's then 'free'
Dad had his Ford, Jimmy had grandma
Jimmy rode the package shelf, "ooga"
Mama did washing, Dad washed his Ford

Grandma died, Jimmy crashed

- - - -

Photo and Poem Copyright, ©  2015 Jimmiehov, All Rights Reserved

Today I am linked with the following Real Toads in the Imaginary Garden pages, each a challenge
 - FLASH 55 PLUS - a 55 word poem (I included my title words), my 'plus' is to relate to a color, I used "Black"
 - Time (The Revelator) - a tribute to song writer, Gillian Welch, I echoed her song, "Hard Times"
 - The Tuesday Platform - exact link TBD on Tuesday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k35haKwqY14

Song, Hard  Times, written and sung by Gilliam Welch,
Video, from the Peter Bogdonavich film, Paper Moon (1973

Birds in my Forest -- a Challenge Poem

Pine Warbler

 

Yellow-rumped Warbler



Birds in my Forest

Many birds are in my forest,

Let me tell you about my three

Killer Jane annihilates rest

Bonnie Sue hides up in her tree

 

That leaves for you my Marilee

Workaholic, she watches all

Savior of the world, help at call
 


Downy Woodpecker

_ _ _

Poem Copyright, ©  2015 Jimmiehov, All Rights Reserved

 Photos courtesy of Margaret with her request/permission

 

Today I am linked with Margaret at the Real Toad's Play It Again, Toads! #14 poetry blog.
 

It is Fireblossom Friday's February, 2014 Challenge (here) for my replay. "Today we're going to try the Rhyme Royal. It's pretty simple, really."The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c. You can write seven-line stanzas, or you can break it up as a tercet and two couplets, like this: a-b-a, b-b, c-c. OR as a quatrain and a tercet, like this: a-b-a-b, b-c-c." (I chose this second form in Iambic tetrameter:.)

Thursday Challenge Poem:

Retired is Good
.
Why am I so tired?  Stock answer is
"It doesn't matter, I am retired."
I would hate to have missed the fun of life
Remissed I would be to my family

My bones do not all carbon to relate
They've got Teflon, titanium, steel
Veins of mesh tubes to channel my red blood
Hoses for cars, water and things till late

Retired I am, proud of it, can't complain
Better than my friends. To me, Heaven sent
But now they're six feet under, absent all
Not a bad life, tired is no excuse

 - - - - -

Photo and Poem Copyright, ©  2015 Jimmiehov, All Rights Reserved
(picture was taken last April in Key West, Florida--Remiss if you miss it)

This post is now linked with  Kerry O'Connor at the Real Toads, The Tuesday Platform

I linked to the Real Toads and found Thursday's  post,
 get listed for February: Absent .  There was the challenge:

 - Grapeling's Challenge.  It was "to select at least 2 of these pairs (below) - or come up with a pair of pairs of your own, words that share common spelling but not common meaning - and weave them into a *new* poem, however you please.
 - The words: miss / remiss --  deem / redeem --  wager / dowager --  pulse / repulse --  file / defile --  peat / repeat -- sent / absent
I used "missed and remissed" and "sent and absent", then two of my own, "tired and retired" and "late and relate".

One Single Impression: Miss (long for)

Originally posted on June 12, 2011



The Friend I Miss

We met there on the bridge one early morn
Admired your beauty always when I passed
Always thinking of the hard life you had
Friend my dear I miss you now very much

You've gone away I'm guessing in the morn
You were laying there lifeless on the side
Brave, you died a death you never deserved
Each time I pass I pause and wonder why

I miss the sight, you watching for a bite
Did you have a family I'll never know
No grave no flowers just a few will mourn
Count me one to ponder each time I pass

Photo and Poem Copyright
© 2011 Jimmiehov
All Rights Reserved
- - - - - - - - Prompt word, Miss (Long for), suggested by Harshad Meta
at Space Within: Attempt to put in words....

Find more poems at One Single Impression using "Miss" as prompt

Also linked February 3, 2015, to the Real Toads, Tuesday Platform

Note"
 - Every time I'd cross the bridge I would look for this grey heron. He would sit on the rail of the Hwy 1097 bridge over the north end of Lake Conroe (Texas).
 - Finally one day I was able to take his picture. He would always fly away when I slowed too much. Once I saw him dive for a fish. He didn't come back up so I am sure he went 'out to eat.'
 - The day we returned from our Midwest holiday I looked for him. Instead there was a pile of feathers and legs and bones by the side on the bridge where he liked. I hope it was a sudden death. Probably a truck sucked him off his perch.
 - I wanted the poem to be able to stand independently of the bird picture. My interpretation then would be about a 'wandering' lady I met who encountered a terrible misfortune.
 - It can be whatever the reader wishes. Possibly it might relate to an experience in his or her life.

Rewind -- a Flash 55 Poem

Rewind

Oh to feel young again, her sigh

Thoughts of birds in the trees

Flowers in the garden
Wearing sixteen bees
 
I'd like to run with the wind
Chase a butterfly, fall and get skinned
I'll beg your pardon
If I land on your toe
 
Please don't let me cry
Just wanna go. And go
 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
 
Poem Copyright,
© 2015 Jimmiehov,
All Rights Reserved

 

Rhyme scheme:

 . . a – b – c – b –

 . . d – d – c – e –
 . . a - e 
I'm linked with Kerry O'Connor at the Real Toads, FLASH 55 PLUS

Kerry's instructions:  " Write a piece of poetry or prose on a subject of your choice in precisely 55 WORDS ."  She suggested a line word count and a rhyme scheme for a form she has devised.  I used the rhyme scheme but not her word count.  I did end up with 55 words counting the title.

LOL (Little Old Lady) picture from a friend's Facebook

Lavender -- Challenge Poem

What does red and blue make?

Red and blue make purple they say

A violet hue akin to

Field of lavender, beams your way

Hands of red amid hands of blue

Each has a story of its own

Telling it silently to you

None is alike, not all made known

Everything you can imagine

Children all, each a precious stone

Together sweet and sour wine

Vulnerable, at play today

Squint a little, lavender lined
_ _ _
 

Photo and Poem Copyright,
© 2015 Jimmiehov,
All Rights Reserved

 

Today I'm linked with Hannah at Transforming Thursday/Friday with Nature's Wonders

where she tells of Lavender Fields and the Lavender Plant.  Then she tells us to write as we are inspired by reading her page.

Note:  The hands are actually prints of adults, workers at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in the Woodlands, Texas.  Click on the picture and you can see their individual signing.  In my poem they would be hands of children, each representing a child, as that is what I can "see".

One Drop of Blood ~~ A spine poem

 .

.

One Drop of Blood

. 

Everything I never told you

Adult onset

Our mutual friend

The Departed
 .

- - -
 .

Photo and Poem Copyright,
© 2015 Jimmiehov,
All Rights Reserved

 

Linked to  Kerry O'Connor's post with Real Toads, The Tuesday Platform

 

Notes: 

 - I took a little poetic liberty and changed the last line, title word Deported to a word better fitting with my 'poem', Departed.

 - The first line was from the title of the book selection for Book Club reading on our cruise last week.  It was "Everything I Never Told You" by Celeste NG.  She told a fictional story of a teenager who drowned, either by suicide or by an accident.  I chose by accident. (The cruise was a seven day Caribbean one on the Emerald Princess, departing from the Port of Houston.)

 - My title and lines are all from the spines (titles) of books I found in the ship's library.

The Lover's Boat -- a Play it Again Challenge poem



"The Lovers' Boat" Albert Pinkham Ryder 1881

 .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
..
The Lover's Boat
 
The sun has risen, flowers are awake
Wake up little lovers, they're calling you
 
We've seen it all, asleep still in embrace
No movement from them is seen, still they sleep
 
All night long they embraced and cooed and kissed
Time to go now, a blossom for your hair
 
Smell the fragrance sweet! Awake now she is
Alluring and fresh, what about her guy?
 
Kiss him on his brow, then his ear you kiss
He will smell you sweet and reciprocate
 
Awaken he does, and kisses her sweetly
Sweeter than the flowers, Your boat awaits
 
Into the sunset he rows while she sings
Love songs they are, tonight another beach

 Poem Copyright,
© 2015 Jimmiehov,
All Rights Reserve

 

Picture from Margaret's Play it Again, Toads! #13 to which I'm linked today for her instructions.  I chose Option # 1, "1)  Imagined by Kerry - Wednesday Challenge - Write a flowery poem in a non-cliched way."

 

Note: Comments may or may not be returned, but I appreciate them greatly.  We are in Caribbean Sea returning to Houston in the morning from an Emerald Princess seven day cruise. (Home now--Monday--after a day and night with the kids and grand-daughter, KP)

Our friend? Winter came

Nature's Price;
Winter in Life

Hermit he became
Lived on Ramen Noodle Soup
Alone in the pond
What went wrong with our fellow?
Some say aging takes its toll

Snapped at his old friends
Wife and kids abused, put down
Now in bitter cold
All are gone, him they have left
Bad alligator's remorse

- - - - -

Poem Copyright,
© 2015 Jimmiehov,
All Rights Reserved

Photo courtesy of Fireblossom at
Real Toads, Fireblossom Friday: Winter  
where I'm linked today.

Alligator is subject of an MSN News story found here:  http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/officials-seize-alligator-2-dead-cats-in-box-in-la-yard/ar-AA8bkqk

My Lemon Tree -- It doesn't fare so well

My Lemon Tree

.

My lemon tree has had a hard time

Hard time in life you will agree

Potted in same pot was in the store

Regularly watered not, survived

Bees don't come here anymore.   Got to

pollinate somehow.  An aside here,

I taught a friend how to pollinate

Hers had almost dozen oranges

This year for the tree and me bees came

Three lemons, that's enough for a pie?

Maybe not but there won't be a pie

Lemons were forgotten in the fridge

Bees' work in vain, promises gone wrong

Lemons wait and rot, no thanks they got

Next year will the bees come?  Think not

They're dying by the millions, why plant

Government doesn't care, politics

Cut taxes for rich, let the bees die

A machine can't a lemon tree make

Tree, dumb mute, can't tell you how it is

 

  Photos and Poem Copyright, © 2015 Jimmiehov, All Rights Reserved

 

I'm Linked with Grace at Heaven at

the Real Toads, Sunday's Mini-challenge: David Huerta (Link)

It is also linked with Kerry O'Connor's Challenge at 
the Real Toads, TheTuesday Platform  
  

There Grace wrote of David Huerta, his poems and other literary work he has done.  Then she challenged us to write an original poem for this Sunday's post based on his poetry or something inspired from reading his poetry. 

 

Since I can't visualize (hardly) I decided on his poem, Fruit, which prompted me to pay a little tribute to my Lemon Tree and also a dirge (or ding) to our political scene.  My senator says 'why should the U.S spend money on determining why the bees are dying and on how to save them?'  I would say that the Honey Business doesn't have a very powerful lobby.

 

David also wrote a poem called Machinery (click here, and scroll down or click on Machinery in the index).  That poem prompted me to write in my poem the line chiding the machine, which can not make a lemon tree.  As if it could, would there be lemons?