Guest Poet: My Dad

Today, I'm featuring a poem by my Dad.  I hope you enjoy it!!!

“Of Destiny”

According to one explanation

kismet falls to predestination;

no one opts for hell

nor heaven as well,

negating a rite exculpation.

Some will chose predestination

to posit a flee from damnation;

the thesis herein

courts virtue with sin

and thus begets justification.

What value is there then in pleasure

if one has no merits to measure,

what’s good or what’s bad,

what’s joyful or sad

are factors all humans may treasure.

Though tissues of life are unknown,

We color the weaves as our own;

and it may appear

we simply are here

to harvest the seeds we have sown.

Copyright 1982 by Christian M. Yoder

I'm Back with A Little Bit of Poetry

I've been spending the vast majority of my time these past few months editing my novel.  I must admit, I never knew that editing was such a time-intensive activity.  But I'm about three-quarters of the way through now.  Who knows, maybe I'll finish in time for Christmas?

As part of the editing, I need a new poem.  I ended up writing two poems.  Can you guess which one I used?

Poem #1:  I wished upon a star 
that blazed across the sky
I wished upon a star 
that brightened on nigh
I wished upon a star
as it fell from up high
and my wish for love and happiness
came true by and by

Poem #2:  I spent my life in mourning
                   for the life of which I dreamed
                   I wasted minutes, hours, days
                   on a sadness of the seemed
                   I used my time as a prisoner
                   chains of silence screamed
                   But now I know I chose to mourn
                   Instead of living as I deemed.

Happy Birthday, Dad!!!

Today is my Dad's 75th birthday.  In honor of today, and the fact that he always jokes that he was born in a barn, I wrote him a poem to commemorate his birthday.

---

Born in a Barn

In the middle of the night,
by the light of noon,
A rooster jumped up,
Started playing a spoon.

The hens joined in
On the old, rusty saw
Then the pigs jumped in
With a screech and a caw.

The horses stood up
And danced a foxtrot.
A fox sneaked up
To dance the robot.

Cows shook hands saying
“What a fine bloke!”
While the ox began
To play his yoke.

He put it to his mouth
To blow like a horn.
The farm celebrated ‘cause
Chris Yoder was born!

---

Happy Birthday, Dad!!!!!!

Poem: What is Poetry?

Poetry.
What is poetry?
Lines of text, typed in a document
Or scrawled on a page in ink, carbon blood

I write poetry
to tell the world how I feel
What I think
To express those things that prose
simply cannot adequately convey.

Sometimes I write in cutesy rhymes,
Iambic pentameter keeping the time
With fairies, hearts, childhood dreams,
Filling up the paper, bursting out at the seams,

Sometimes I SCREAM at the world
Castigating the selfish evil
That plagues good people
Ripping apart lives
With greed.

Sometimes I whisper untold truths
That no one wants to hear
About Death, the end of things,
about the little child inside crying
about holes of darkness
waiting for one misstep
one wrong move...
then....slurp

That is why I come here,
To free my thoughts
Give comfort to those which stay hidden by day
GIve flight to those which rise up to the sun

Will you join me?

Tear off the scabs of your heart
and pour your blood down on the page
Let loose the foul beasts of your soul
To rampage, agitate, run amuk
among the tangled web of your thoughts

I do not promise that I will laugh,
I do no promise to cry,
I promise no sighs,
But this I do promise...

I will listen.

Art: "COOL!" by Philo Yan

The other day on Google +, I met a very talented artist named Philo Yan.  She said "Hello" and sent me a link to her pencil drawings.  I must admit, I love how she uses color to capture the moment.  I asked her if I could share my favorite one, a frog hanging from a small branch.  Philo nicely agreed to my request, so here is the picture, "COOL!".

Cool color coded dudette, 

Awesome colors look at that! 

Hanging loose, fancy free, 

On a little tiny tree, 

Grassy greens, 

Trickling streams. 

KatFrog shares this post, 

Such a generous host!

To see more of Philo's wonderful drawings, visit here.

On Monday, If the Sky is Blue, I find I have a thought or two...

Here are the random thoughts of the day:

• On September 2, aspiring rapper Ervin McKiness tweeted about driving drunk at 120 mph, justifying the action with "yolo"  (you only live once).  A few minutes later, he died. What strikes me about this news story is.. that it's a news story!  I mean, I expect someone drunk driving at those speeds to crash into a large, stationary object on the side of the road, potentially dying himself and those in the vehicle with him, which is exactly what happened.  That's not news, that's physics and common sense.
• I read another article where someone ranted about getting the U.N.   For those petitioning to  "get the U.S. out of the U.N", please read your history books.  The U.S. started the U.N. It's our creation, started after World War II to prevent World War III.  That's why the headquarters are in New York, NY.   
• A baby panda was born at the National Zoo yesterday.  Squee!!!!
• Today is the 225th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution.  If you want to read this important document, click here for an online copy.  If you grew up in the seventies, you already know the Preamble.  Sing it with me - "We the People, In order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and ensure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution, for the United States of America."

Have a good Monday!!!

Poetry: Election Dejection

The heat of summer

Fries the pavement,

Wilting flowers 

While sucking dry
Any ambient moisture.  

Election season rages on, despite this heat. 

Or the resultant drought. 

Or earthquakes in Iran. 

Or current economic troubles or triumphs.  

Election season rages on.

Lies pile onto lies,

Burying the Truth

Until the truth is no longer.

Mudslingers, naysayers, accusers, 

Political pawns willing to sacrifice their own morals

For a chance at 15 minutes of fame.

Or to be the next Sarah Palin.

Doesn't everyone want an obnoxiously colored bus with their name on it?

Local elections in July

Chase down independents,

Democrats,

Republicans,

Each one vying to get a vote

For their Favorite Cause,

Favorite Candidate,

Favorite Bill.

But no one stands willing to listen to others,

Engage in a real debate,

Reform opinions based on facts,

BE HONEST!!!

The lies of the elections

Pervade and Pervert 

That which they lie for.

The Preamble to the Constitution

Now tells its own lie.

We have no justice,

No domestic tranquility,

No common defense,

No general welfare,

For ourselves or our children.

The Bill of Rights

Now tells its own lie.

We only have rights

IF the government does not declare us terrorists.

One statement,

One word,

And we lose every right.

They say that Evil only prevails

If good people do nothing.

If good people look the other way.

What are you looking at now?

by Kathryn Patterson, 

Poem: "The Labyrinth"

I went to go exploring
The Labyrinth I had found;
In a dark cavern hidden by the river
Exposed only on tide ebb.

I told my uncle about the Labyrinth.
He pontificated on the dangerous discovery,
Presenting me with a dour picture of my looming destruction.

I told my aunt about the Labyrinth.
She uttered a few ersatz cachinnations
Before turning to my uncle to discuss their arbitrage of the morrow.

I told my mother about the Labyrinth.
She fluttered around the dining room
Ignoring my statement as she served polyglot cuisine.

I told my brother about the Labyrinth.
He flaunted a convoluted concoction concerning the creation of caverns
In a flamboyant attempt to appear erudite to his girlfriend.

I told my father about the Labyrinth.
He winked at me, promising me a grand adventure,
Before falling into a drunken stupor.

So I went to go exploring
The Labyrinth I found.
The silence promised to listen to my story as I strolled.
The shadows promised to watch me as I went down new paths.
My lantern provided my comfort as I wandered round and round.

I decided that I had found my new home.

Haiku - Mimicry

Tornadoes, earthquakes,
Fire storms, Nature apes mankind,
Destruction, death, war.

Writing Advice From the Red Clay Conference

This past Saturday, I attended the Red Clay Writing Conference, sponsored by the Georgia Writers Association (GWA).  I admit that I only joined the GWA this year, but so far I have been impressed with their events.

The Red Clay Writing Conference provided once again that GWA is a great organization for Georgia writers.  I listened to the keynote speaker, Wendy Wax, author of "10 Beach Road", before attending three panel discussions.  I learned something in every setting, and I am here to share with you.

• Keynote Speaker:  Wendy Wax presented the keynote address this year, as she discussed how she went from a retired journalist and stay at home mom to a successfully published author with nine books out there.  Personally, I like Wendy Wax because she is just plain nice.  She came out to the conference while facing a publishing deadline to pass on hope.  From Wendy, I learned:
• Even published authors have days when everything that comes out is "suckalicious".  
• It is possible to write a novel between children leaving in the morning and the afternoon school bus, so long as you keep at it.
• Having a critique partner and a set of readers is key.
• The Craft of Fiction:  Wendy Wax jumped from her keynote speech to this panel.  Jeffrey Stepakoff moderated this panel.  If the man's speaking reflects how he writers, I know that Jeffrey turns out concise fiction.  Personally, I like concise fiction. Sheri Joseph is crazy, but in a serious, writerly way.  The woman wrote 400 pages of back story to explain what  happened to her characters before the start of one of her novel.  When I heard this, I thought, Honey, that's not back story.  That's called a prequel. Amanda Gable appears to be a regular person, someone you might pass walking down the street  or working in her flower garden.  But she loves knowledge, and probably wins "Person You Most Want as a Trivial Pursuit Partner".  From these four people I learned:
• There is no writing process - in a way that's quite similar to "there is no spoon".  
• For all the books out there, every writer needs to discover how he or she writes, and follow that process.  
• On the other hand, there is a common writing problem.  My writing partner calls it the BIC problem - Butt In Chair.  Most writers need to just sit down and write.  
• For prose, all the panelists agreed that if you have writer's block, write anyway.  Personally, I find that writing about why I can't write solves most writer's blocks.
• You can find inspiration in any and everything, but the best stuff comes from living.
• Crafting the Poem:  These three women exemplify why poetry is still alive in the twenty-first century.  On top of being a poet, Cheryl Stiles bucks the grumpy publisher stereotype to run a friendly chapbook publishing company.  Katie Fesuk writes marvelous poetry (I read some of it during the panel), and I like how she views the world from a point of view slight skewed off center.  My views on Jenny Sadre-Orafai run from a successful magazine editor to the woman most likely to wear black in college.  (This is a compliment; you should see how much black clothing I still own.)  Jenny balances optimism with a healthy dose of reality, something we all could learn.  From these women, I learned:
  • First off, poetry is fiction.  The panel hammered this home as all of the poetry advice, from creation to revision to publication, works for both poetry and prose.  Poetry tends to be a bit more structured and shorter than other genres of  fiction (excluding flash fiction), but poetry is still a part of fiction.
  • After the first draft, you need to let your work rest and then revise it.  Revise, revise, revise, and when you think it's done, revise it one more time.
  • A poem is never done.  You might get to a point where you think it can be published, but you never give up the right for more revision.
  • Inspiration comes from living life, so get out from behind the keyboard occasionally and interact with the world.
  • Unlike prose, don't just keep writing if you stumble into writer's block.  Instead, switch what you're doing.  Write a short story, take a walk, do the macarena - do anything but attempt to write poetry.  
• Writing Funny: Okay, this was my favorite panel of the day.  Don't get me wrong - I had an excellent time the entire day.  But watching these three men sit and discuss their work was like watching Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, and Ron White at the end of a Blue Collar concert, when they all sit around swapping stories.  The entire audience laughed, laughed, and then laughed some more. Ray Atkins sounds like someone's crazy uncle, visiting the house for an afternoon of tall tales and beer.  John Schulz proved Foxworthy right in his definition of a redneck as someone with a glorious lack of sophistication.  John looked a bit uncomfortable at the beginning of the panel, but as soon as the jokes starting flying and the men read excerpts, John brought out his Southern smile and joined in the fun.  Man Martin needs to read his own book for the audio version of it.  Man took a passage that he memorized, and performed the character so perfectly that even the other men on the panel needed a few minutes to recover from the laughter.  These men taught me:
• Life is funny, if you look at it the right way.
• Humor helps to relieve tension in a book.
• I will never be as funny as Ray Atkins, John Schulz, or Man Martin.