Renga Challenge -Sarah/Qbit

Windows

Come and stand beside me at the window,
the world is out there waiting for us,
the way we used to wait for first and second post,
news of lovers stepping out from their rooms.
Now we just wait for them to post
selfies from their bedrooms or their bathrooms –
Seconds from you now in postscripted time,
never farther from what we first needed:

Though now I’m not sure what it is you need,
your window on the world has shrunk so much,

Careful not to lose your sight
on the cutting points of pixel light.

While your fingers dance their tango
Over that smooth, slick touchscreen

I breathe in, arms outstretched, the stars
my orchestra, the garden my ballroom.

I am dancing in the moonlit air,
My skin alive with the scent of night

and you, and you, and you, and you!

How we move together in memory’s bright song.

Light – renga completed

Come and stand beside me at the window,
the world out there is waiting for us.
The day broke early, light scattering, looking
for refuge from the delusions of the night –
all those dreams shattered, now a thousand shards,
melting and fading in the sunlight. I still reach for them,
a sudden refraction bewilders the senses
while day’s mundane routine veils a private loss,
as if the rhythm of this ordinary day
contains some charm to hold our lives suspended
believing yet we hold the sway
the tweak of light, a spark adrift confirms –
and is belief enough? A single spark,
a single flame that shudders in the wind?
When there’s nothing else? but a faith in a
far flung dawn, another light – scattering
diffracted rays that owe their very beauty
to the barrier that defines their limit.
Prisms bursting colour beyond the origin
diffusing value now through the opened window.

 

Sarahsouthwest and Petrujviljoen Jan 2018

The completed renga! Thank you, P, for a very enjoyable collaboration

 

 

 

Renga challenge for Jilly’s January bricks

Come and stand beside me at the window –

the world is out there, waiting for the morning

 

and here is a renga challenge for Jilly’s January brick casting exercise. Come and cast some bricks of you own!

Dancing – a challenge for Jilly’s January

It seemed like we were always dancing,
though the music was sometimes too fast,
and sometimes a little too slow,
and sometimes we hardly heard it at all

 

A brief start to a poem, for Jilly’s January challenge over at Casting Bricks. 

It’s never – for Jilly’s jade challenge

It’s never about birds in poetry;
it is about our inadequate,
marrow-filled bones that
weigh us down
reminding us of the immediacy
of the dust.

It’s never about stars in poetry;
it’s about the darkness
that sits in our bellies
waiting to swallow
everything.

It’s never about sunsets in poetry;
it’s about the endings
we fear, cold and alone,
inglorious.

It’s never about oceans in poetry;
it’s about finding somewhere
firm to stand,
immutable.

This is a completion of Jilly’s poem, for her November casting bricks challenge. Her words are in italics, and mine follow. 

Renga ~1 sarah/qbit

These days the bus is always late
But someone handed me a flyer saying “HOPE”

Some instinct makes me read instead of toss –
“Ha’penny Oracle, Promise everlasting”

It’s getting dark, and rain is trickling
Down my neck. I need a promise

I turn towards warmth to get some faith
But numpty publican calls “Time!”

Fat assed idiot, that’s him. You’d think
A man might have a little charity.

With rancid slang I have to face
A bitter truth or two

There is more truth in bitter
Than all your whiskey lies

Salvation Army up the road
And a cup of tea

Tambourine oracle
Jingling promises

Jangling bones
Shaking like dice, ready to roll

Ice cubes rattle in a glass
Rain rattles on the window

I drain the hope, slog the queue,
The bus is still late

 

 

Tah dah! The finished piece – a collaboration between me (thanking you) and qbit, who is a bit of a star. This was for Jilly’s October Challenge

Renga challenge #1

These days the bus is always late
But someone handed me a flyer saying “HOPE”

 

 

This is for Jilly’s October challenge, put out in the hope that qbit will take me up on the offer. If anybody else wants to do it, you’re very welcome. Basically, we take it in turns to add a couplet until we  have 10 couplets. You can find the one I did with qbit here.

Narcotic – a brick for Jilly

I hold the needle, paused above my vein
pump a fist to watch it rise and bulge like
hungry goldfish lip-quivering for a grain
of tetra flake craving; a perma-blight.
What night-terror stands naked in the hail
leaves me gill-gasping, ravening for you
a gritty fix for this rapacious frail
Body, that yearns for something like the truth
Yet all I feed myself is empty lies –
False hope, false love, false joy, false everything –
A twisted ugliness that aches and cries,
Leaving me yearning, lost and grimacing –
My face and body coiled in painful bitterness
Empty of fullness, full of emptiness.

Jilly asked us to complete a sonnet, which as any fule kno goes abab cdcd efef gg. I’m not mad keen on sonnets – it’s that punchline thing which I struggle with – but I made an effort for Jilly because she is great. This is for the October casting bricks thing.

Park Shade – a brick

You grew in what became a picnic grove
Providing shade to what is now a park
While dying you were cut and when I drove
One morning past your place expecting dark
I found the stump, your tombstone, your new mark
And knew eventually that so will I
Look up with new perspective on the sky.

I hope my soul will be as clean as yours,
My inner self as clear, and fresh and bright,
Each year of mine there, and accounted for,
Reflected on before the coming night:
That I may say, as you have earned the right,
“I sheltered others when they needed shade,
I will be missed by those who pass this way”.

My response to Frank’s first stanza in a rime royal. He explains it properly, and illustrates it, too. It is, of course, half a brick lobbed into JillOctobery’s pond of challenges.

 

A blessing for my daughter…

I am casting a brick here, for Jilly . I have borrowed this form from Imelda,, who used the form for her challenge last month. This is what she said then:

When I was thinking of a challenge to post in Jill’s collaborative poetry challenge, I was thinking of writing a Quatern.  I love the repeating patterns in a Quatern.  I think I love shadow poetry in general.  But, as I was reading about Quaterns again, I came across another shadow poetry form that I have not done yet, a Retourne.  I thought it will be a lovely form to try.  Essentially, a Retourne is  a poem that has 4 quatrains with 8 syllables on each line. The lines do not need to rhyme.  In a Retourne,  next three lines of the first stanza become the first line of the succeeding quatrains.  As you can see, I used the second line of the first stanza to begin the first line of the second stanza.  So, the third stanza should have the third line of the first stanza as the first line, and so on.

I think it’s a lovely form for a collaborative poem. I’ve just done the first stanza for you. It’s a blessing – for my daughter, who will be 16 tomorrow (gulp!)

May your heart sing like the ocean,
May the air be clear around you,
May your midnight flame burn bright,
May your feet find firm ground to stand…