Blues and Soul Haiku

Spun haiku from Barbara Lynn's Don't Hit Me No More

I'm a good woman

Your good woman longs for you

Don't hit me no more

Don't hit me no more

Let me be your happiness

I'm a good woman

I'm a good woman

Should be your treasure and soul

Don't hit me no more

Don't hit me no more

Hit me no more please no more

Don't hit me no more

No more left no more

Of me is left no more left

Once a good woman

Linking to: 

Real Toads ~ Music ~  It's Better to Have It ~ Barbara Lynn

A Carriage Tale

At first the carriage sighed with
Grudging
Monday morning
Potential
Like simmering
Rebellion
Without the gumption to strike

Half-empty
Prison
And a little time to divert into
Alternative pleasantries

All too soon
The seats and aisles
Crammed with
Silent
Still life

(Actually
Pseudo "busyness" 
Indulging in
Electronic
Escapes)

But a seat
Unexpectedly
Vacated
Between the distillers of pleasantries and
Filled with
A studded revolution black vest
Armed with tattoos and
Helmeted with
Silky
Neonic
Green
Hair

Uncomfortable discord
Sizzled

The tattoos
Stroked the neonic greens
Constantly
As if being different was
A shifty business
While the pleasantries fried into
Medusa-like
Stony glares
Fixed
Straight ahead
Peripheral vision was
Negligible

Finally
The staged skit was
Broken

The neonics shuffled out at Parliament
Chewing gum
Fast

For the first time I saw her eyes
As she passed my window
They were large
And dark
And beautiful

But still life
Trained on

NOTE: Parliament is the name of an undergound train station in inner Melbourne


Linking to:
dVerse ~ The Art of Rebellion
Poets United ~ Poetry Pantry
Real Toads ~ Open Link Monday

New Journey

Geothermal pools
Boiling mud
Volcanic mountains

Soaring geysers

Waves of aurora lights in the night sky

And ice
Lots and
Lots of
Ice

Old voices serenade 
The old spirits
From medieval worlds
The families
The conflicts
The loves
Sagas of treasured yesterdays

But I have no place in these worlds

High winds
Frost
Everlasting rains
Keep me locked in
More southerly warms

Yet I long for 
New vistas
New horizons

I hear some of my friends
Have travelled to some rocky hillside
Gift of an old glacier

They're on trial

They have survived
And their numbers grow

But still
They're on trial

Soon
They may be welcome in a city park
But soon may mean years

Some visionaries say that
In coming decades
Iceland may be milder

Perhaps 
My child flowers may be there

I smile when I think of
White petals
Unfolding in
A white world

I live in hope
Always hope for
The strength
And beauty of

A future

Iceland  rose


NOTE: The Rose Club of Iceland was founded in April 2002.
Details of its activities are HERE!

The arctic tundra comprises the majority of the tundra landscape in the world, with 2 million square miles in North America and 1.3 million square miles in Eurasia. The North American tundra begins with coastal Greenland, goes west through northern Canada and extends all the way through northern Alaska. Tundra in Eurasia covers Siberia, parts of Russia, northern Scandinavia and Iceland. A second type of tundra, called alpine tundra, exists on high-altitude mountaintops throughout the world. Mt. Rainier National Park in Washington is one example of alpine tundra.
Read more: What Is the Landscape of the Tundra?

Linking to:
Real Toads - Transforming Fridays Take Two - Tundra

Mandela Day

Today
ANTI-apartheid hero
of South Africa 
Nelson Mandela
marks his 
94th birthday
 in "good" spirits 
in his home village of Qunu
with his close family 


Yesterday
67 years in politics
27 years in prison


One Day
Can we spare
67 minutes of one day
To give
At least a thought
A caring thought
To others?
Maybe
Many others?


I have spent nearly
27 minutes
Shaping
The clay in this post


Sighhhhhhh


Mandela was born on July 18, 1918  in Mvezo village southeastern South Africa.
His great-grandfather was a Thembu king.
His father was a counsellor to the Thembu royal family.

But his family lives in a thatched hut
And raises livestock.

But his father dies when Nelson is nine
And he becomes a ward of the royal household.


When winds of change blow
They may gust for a time
Till the next season


*27 minutes
Your time is now 
UP



Makhalima reads a book to an elderly woman in Qunu...Lutho Makhalima (R) reads a book to Nobantu Mbhokodi, an elderly woman, in Qunu, eastern cape, July 18, 2012. South Africans celebrated former president Nelson Mandela's 94th birthday on Wednesday with special events and charity work in what has become known as "Mandela Day".The former leader's birthday is used for a campaign that aims to inspire individuals to take action to help change the world for the better by asking people to give 67 minutes of their time painting schools, planting trees, visiting orphanages and old age homes to honour Mandela's 67 years of political activism.
REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

Linking to:
Real Toads Anniversary post ~ Bonus Open Link

A Monk's Tale

One summer as dawn broke the night's faint chill, 
I greeted my cell with hesitant eyes. 
No coffee today before minds are still 
And souls appreciate prayerful skies. 
Could yesterday's peak hour be a far guise? 
So here I am tasting a monk's pure sight, 
Wondering if I can live in new dyes; 
If my darkest past can suffer new light.


Inspired by:
With Britain becoming an increasingly secular society, the number of people devoting themselves to the monastic life has been in freefall. But now several monasteries and convents are fighting against the trend by offering taster weekends in the hope of bringing fresh members into the fold.
- A monk's life...but just until Monday ~ BBC News ~ Saturday 10.2.09

NOTE - This is my first attempt at a Huitain.
It is a poem in a single Ballade stanza.
The verse form was most popular in the 16th century and was often used for epigrams in the 18th century. One source suggests the Huitain may have begun in Spain.
 The basic layout is:
Line length: 8 (French) or 10 (English) syllables
 Rhyme scheme: ababbcbc
Number of lines: 8

Linking to:
Real Toads ~ A Mini-Challenge for Sunday ~ A Monk's Tale ~ Huitain form
dVerse ~ Open Link Night ~ Anniversary Week

A Touch of Koan

Autumn calls the leaf to fall
The leaf assumes the final dance of colour
Snug on a velvet chair a book waits to be loved
Some leaves turn to gold



Linking to:
Real Toads ~ A Mini-Challenge for Sunday ~ Koan

The Wind Singer

Aramanth
Sounds like some legendary jewel
But the gem 
The walled city 
Has lost the sparkle of the wind singer
The strangers' tall tower of
Wooden beams and metal pipes
Has lost the voice of
The soul


Young twins
Bowman and Kestrel
With a little whimsical help from Mumpo and
The bonding of a wish huddle
Search for the lost song 


From the stench of the Underlake
And the enigmatic delicacy of mudnuts 
To the windy plains of sand
To a crumbling parapet high above a gorge


From the cursed touch of the old children to
A lonely emperor's passion for chocolate buttons


Riding wolves or
Sailing in the claws of eagles


Space, time and beings are not always what they should be
Or could be


Not till the old queen's silver hair clasp
Unlocks the voice


Not till the killing golden Zars 
Age
Rot
Not till the winds that bring the wind singer to life
Blow the dust
From their bones


And Grey District
Orange District
Maroon District
Dare to mingle
Their colours


The Wind Singer by William Nicholson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An extraordinary fantasy that hints of breaths from old legends and becomes a chameleon of reality and dream! And if you feel the spirit deep down, you will feel the smudges of our society lurking.
View all my reviews

 Linking to:
Real Toads - Open Link Monday

Sylphs of Old Decay

Muted clouds are gathering
Like gaunt sylphs of old decay
Like listless moods pondering
The fears of midnights today


Air is hushed and whispering
The monologue of distress
Winds are lost in tinkering
Earths cringe in plaintive duress


Tiny birds seek sheltering
A cat - alert eyes widened
A child bows low whimpering
A mother's hopes seem muted


Linking to:

Real Toads - Celtic Quatrain

It Was...It Is...

A deserted Autumn Safety Beach on the Mornington Peninsula


Space
Silence
Deserted
Faded summer
Pale waves of our yesterdays drift ashore


Linking to:
Real Toads - Tetractys - 1, 2, 3, 4, 10

Wonder of Mushrooms

Mushrooms at a park in Mornington


Wonder of mushrooms
Like designer feathered shapes
Like sacred cycles


Like sacred symbols
Dramatic in black and white
Almost mandalas


Linking to:
I Heart Macro
Macro Monochrome
One Single Impression - Black and White
Real Toads - Open Link Monday

Magnolia

Poster design by BLT Communications, LLC

Tangled inner pains
Discordant lives and visions
Personal conflict


Personal chaos
Released to the whims of winds
Magnolia time


Magnolia truth
Relief for the soul set free 
Personal beauty


NOTE:
Magnolia, released in 1999, is a movie epic which exposes 9 lives connected by tensions.
A key scene takes place on Magnolia Boulevard.
Magnolia is a typical San Fernando Valley boulevard, wide, straight and long. From its easternmost end, at the foot of the Verdugo Mountains, it travels more than 10 miles, bisecting neighborhoods of postwar ranch homes one mile and gritty commercial stretches the next. Ref: Los Angeles Times 
The writer/director, Paul Thomas Anderson, had the title of "Magnolia" in his head before he wrote the script. "As he started writing, the script "kept blossoming" and he realized that there were many actors he wanted to write for and then decided to put an epic spin on topics that don't necessarily get the epic treatment."
 He also did research on the magnolia tree and discovered a concept that eating the tree's bark helped cure cancer. Ref: HERE
AND
More on the film's title HERE!

Linking to:
Tackle It Tuesday - Prompt - Magnolia
Real Toads - Open Link Monday