Musings on life, love, and healing past trauma
What kind of stories do you want to be told?
Of magical creatures and knights of old
Or modern heroes with ingenious gadgets
Maybe of vampires that sleep with maggots
Whatevers your taste
Take your time, bedtime is not for haste
Sleep well my sweet
Mother will watch keep
© RedCat
Awake
Not asleep
Company you keepTalk
Worry sharing
Hand hold caringSteadfast
Strong pillar
Repels depressive killerForthright
Honest, straight
Restoring lost faithAccepting
Big, small
Trauma scarred allTrust
Freely given
True heart livingFriendship
Fortifying presence
Find my essenceStrength
Along way
Even when astraySafe
© REDCAT
To be
Realize all me
Re-post comment:
Another Hay(na)ku for this week’s Wandering the Archives Wednesday.
Enjoy!
When dusk is night long
Lasting until dawn
Poppies vibrant song
Siren fey dreams spawnThrumming in the veins
Passion’s deep well
Growing like the grains
By hypnotic smellHear Midsummer’s call
Wonders fill your heart
Feel the fire of Sol
Drink her heedy quartFrolic and feel joy
Bathe in love’s red lust
Freedom life buoy
By starlight souls trustBask in Everglow
© REDCAT
Caressed by the breeze
Rest content below
Midsummer poppies
Re-post comment:
Midsummer is drawing nearer each day. So it felt fitting to share this poem for tonight’s Wandering the Archives Wednesday.
Nights are magical right now. The light is otherworldly. Flowers shine with their own light and lend a seducing perfume to the air.
Read more about the Goddess Sól (Norse Mythology) on Wikipedia.
Also linking to Tuesday Writing Prompt Challenge at Go Dog Go Café.
Yesterday evening after the rain had seized and the skies cleared. I took an evening walk. Everything was still wet and dripping and low lying areas were filled with a foggy haze.
Suddenly I heard music playing loud and coming nearer, happy voices. It turned out to be high school students celebrating graduation.
I found myself smiling happily with the heartwarming normality of it all. I so long for the pandemic to be over!
In the sweet pale night
Happy voices rise in song
Coming of life praise
© RedCat
Re-post comment:
I’ve had a little ache in my shoulder for a couple of weeks. Nothing major. Until today. When it exploded into – want to scream with pain every time I move my arm to much or too fast. Tried to take a rest earlier today, but lying down just made it worse.
So anticipating a night of restless rest tonight. Which is why this is this week’s Wandering the Archives Wednesday.
Haunted nights
Disrupted sleep
Grinding theethHeart-longed ghosts
Reawaken grief
Daylight seizeAngry wraiths
Trauma made
Flashback gavePhantom could-have-been
Raises fear
Near-miss dearLonely-heart specter
Honest trust
Hope dustShades erupting
Legions burned
Can humans learnPoet quills
© REDCAT
Nighttime fills
Worrywart stills
I’ve had a couple of weeks of restless rest. The death-rebirth energies surrounding midwinter tends to do that. Especially if you work with yourself then.
Add to that the realization that climate change is not longer a thing of the future. Climate emergency is NOW. So we should ACT NOW. Stop consuming so much! Choose better materials. Work towards not using fossil fuels. And so on and so forth. All the things I feel like a broken record for repeating again, and again, and again.
As icing on the cake comes angst as a beloved friend, and several others, had a near miss with death. Senseless violence that’s probably aimed at someone, but shows total lack of care for human life. Again, loss of life is down to sheer coincidences. I really don’t want to live in a world where some think blowing a bomb, nearly talking a building, is a correct response to anything!
Poem written for weekly challenge: GHOSTS at earthweal.
The blue forest of remembrance is full of quavering echoes
Whispering through the trees susurrations of memory
Wandering among the trees dreaming soul shadows
Most lost in pensive reverie
Reliving, rethinking, re-choosing life through hindsight’s windows
It’s all part of sleeping souls nightly recoveryWhispering through the trees a multitude of echoes
Joy and happiness, sorrow and pain
Most lost to the wind blown shadows
Others fall as antique white petals rain
All part of how memories lights the windows
How dreaming souls lead their wake selves to staying saneJoy and happiness, sorrow and pain through the trees echoes
©RedCat
Some souls dream of floating in happiness rainbow bright
Others fall ensnared in clawing painful shadows
Losing another nights fight
How dreaming leads to the memory windows
How souls fare in the forest, changes every night
Inspired by the suggestive painting by Jane Cornwell and three words from the Skyloverwordlist; Quaver, Pensive and Antique White.
To see all art and read all poems for today go to The Wombwell Rainbow.
I especially liked Looking for Clues by Merril D Smith and the Villanelle Sylvia by Tim Fellows.
Written in the same poetic form as Mind Finds Soul Fearlessly Shines. One of two invented by me. Because I realized a form used but once, might not be a form at all, so I had to see if I could use it again. I’m glad to say that it worked.
I’m still unsure of how to denote it so that anyone but me could use it. How do you denote a line (2, 4, 6) that only partly repeats in the next stanza? Is it a refrain? Or that the last word in lines 1, 3, 5 repeat in every stanza?
Next I have to see if I can repeat the form used in Moonsea.
Jane Cornwell likes drawing and painting children, animals, landscapes and food. She specialises in watercolour, mixed media, coloured pencil, lino cut and print, textile design. Jane can help you out with adobe indesign for your layout needs, photoshop and adobe illustrator. She graduated with a ba(hons) design from Glasgow School of art, age 20. She has exhibited with the rsw at the national gallery of Scotland, SSA, Knock Castle Gallery, Glasgow Group, Paisley Art Institute, MacMillan Exhibition at Bonhams, Edinburgh, The House For An Art Lover, Pittenweem Arts Festival, Compass Gallery, The Revive Show, East Linton Art Exhibition and Strathkelvin Annual Art Exhibition. Her website is: https://www.janecornwell.co.uk/
We want to walk the night free of fear
Not on high alert whenever a man is nearWe want to enjoy the clear moon light
Not keep every shadow in sightWe want to walk the town alone
Without a loved one on the phoneWe want to wear high heels that go clickety-clack
Without feeling predators eyes on our backsWe want to wear short shirts
Without it being a license to hurtWe want to go out for carefree fun
Without remembering we have to be clear headed enough to runWe want to live free
Even if a man happens to something tempting seeWe don’t want to teach our daughters to fear the dark
We don’t want to tell them to avoid every parkWe don’t want to teach our daughters how to prevent
Others not seeking their consentWe don’t want to teach our daughters to always be on alert
We don’t want to tell them to be suspicious of everyone who flirtsWe don’t want to teach our daughters all the strategies
Women use just to be able to go to partiesBUT
Even in trainers on soft feet
We worry about every man we meetEven dressed in unshapely sack
We know we constantly have to look backEven talking a taxicab or public transport
We know we might have an assault to thwartEven with keys sticking from between fingers
That icy icky fear lingersWe just want to get home
©RedCat
Without ending up dead, hidden beneath loam
Read more about the Death of Sarah Everard on Wikipedia .
Read about how One in three women are subjected to violence – WHO on BBC News.
Also shared on Open Link #288 March Live edition on dVerse.
As the witching hour knells
The Mares are in their element
Play their discordant bells
Waking spirits of devilmentThey gather under the full moons
To dance in lost lonely hearts
Sing dark fear filled tunes
That all peaceful rest thwartsNightmares spawn
©RedCat
From dusk to dawn
The Mares in the second line is a creature from old Swedish folklore. That pop up from time to time in my writing, as in Night Ridden by the Mare.
Inspired by the photo prompt at the Sunday Muse and Sammi Cox’s weekend writing prompt.
Also posten to Writers’ Pantry #60: What Got You Started? at Poets and Storytellers United, and earthweal open link weekend #59.
