Exploring the Great Beyond

They were explorers, intrepid
they walked beyond the hills, beyond the horizon,
beyond the ken of men where the elders said they would surely be devoured.
They went forth with ships and on horses,
accompanied by armies
or alone and given up for gone.
He planted the flag in new lands, she swam in new waters.
Around the round world in their planes,
they saw everything
and looked to the stars.

How do we get up there? they said
to walk on the moon, swing 'round the sun for a picnic on Mars?
So they looked through their lenses
and filled pages with calculations
and listened through their telescopes.
They built their rockets and went,
off around the solar system, going where none had gone before.

How marvelous!
New orbits, new planets, new ideas
Everything going in cicles
around an axis, around a center, in a swirling galaxy in the endless universe far beyond their reach.
Let's go! they said
and they wondered how they could get there.
So they laid their plans and built new ships beyond any they had built before.
Off they went, zooming into the depths of space
to spread humanity further.

And so it was that at full speed and looking far into the future,
they crashed into the wall
an intricately painted wall but the brushmarks could be seen up close
(and that nebula there, is really a thumbprint smudge Godd meant to clean up but never got back to)
The explorers smacked into the wall
with such force they punched a hole in it
and fell off the edge
of the world.
...

That's my own ticket for this week's Poetry Bus, on the theme of Excess/Too much/Over the edge.

Just too, too, far too Bussy.

The Poetry Bus mission of the week,should you dare to take it on, is one of Excess. Of Far Too Much. Of Going Over the Edge. If it goes off the road and gets dented, so be it: there will be a new Bus the week after, like magic.
And, for those of you sensitive to Blogger's humors and caprice, it is suggested to throw structure out the window and just run it all together anywhichhow. If you like.

Got it?
Off you go! Drop me a comment and I'll try to keep the list on the sidebar current.
See y'all beyond!

Jumpstarting the P-Bus

All was quiet but for the cawing of the sober crows,
No gentle background of birdsong was heard.
All was grey and still in the fields and the woods.
The mice slept in their burrows; the sap waited in the roots.
Then one day, the word was whispered along.
the sun brought with it a finger of warmth, and touched the trees
The apricot, the cherry, then the apples in order.
It touched the soil, where the grasses and dandelions stirred.
Snowdrops peeked up and said
Yes!
Sound the alert!
All hands on deck!
Out of the ground, everyone!

Suddenly the air was full of petals, the garden plot crawling with worms,
A chirping, warbling symphony calls in the bushed-out trees.
Here it is!
Life! ...

To catch the Poetry bus this week just leave me a comment and I'll get your link onto the sidebar Monday afternoon (sorry, no line breaks there).

The Poetry Ark

Titus gave us an animal theme for the bus today, and I really really meant to cook something up from the GeckoPantherKingfisherRingtailedLemur, DolphinBushbabyArcherfish Harrier list. I tried not to write about cats, AGAIN, truly! But they are everpresent. So here you are. . . House Mouse
It drives her crazy she hears it squeaking, rushes forth from the porch but it is already gone. Resting in the garden, she hears it again and bounds to the spot. but it is gone in a quiver of whiskers and a whisk of tail. It has left behind a small, black pellet To mock her. She waits a day, and a night, glued to the spot staring intently at the crack between the steps She hears it moving about, making its downy bed, counting its hundred seeds. She takes a break for the catfoodbowl, out of the rain. And there it is again! Running from the dustbin, its cheeky ears pert and crisp But she is foiled Foiled! by the closed window. She knocks the orchid over in agitation. She will have it one day, the mouse under the stairs. . . Join in the Poetry Bus over here! and I'm very sorry about the run-on text, but Blogger is having another of it's no-hard-return days and simply does not care about paragraphs.

Monday poem

This week's P-Bus task, set by the fabulous Muse, is to write about something without naming the thing in the poem or the title. Here we go!

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Savior .

Hot Hot Hot the morning

smooth with milk washing down

the crumbs of the toast with jam.

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A welcome pause midmorning

around the pot one of the group, not so much the boss.

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Finally a finish to lunch

strong and warm to power me through the afternoon

counteracting the post prandial urge to nap.

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Not much of an enigma, but it follows the rule. If it looks funny it's because Blogger seems to have forgotten what the "return" key is all about, and keeps erasing all my careful mise en page. Corrected it four times already and always the same result. Catch the bus here!

The Bus is made to Travel

This week's Uiscebot task is to write a poem about travelling somewhere, at least a mile from home, in less than 40 lines and with none of that rhyming nonsense. Check, check, check. Easy peasy, since travelling is what NanUs like best. But I'm in a strange and prickly mood lately, and my poem, starting so sweetly in the excitement of Let's Go! took an odd turn, all on its own.

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Vacation
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Where shall we go today
somewhere sunny, somewhere warm
A place where everything is strange
the food has new flavors
the city new sounds
Let's go away from the dull routine
to new dust and grime
to different woes and worries
Visiting, we can fly lightly over the puddles,
lounge in our hotel room if it rains
tasting the honey - not becoming stuck in it.
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Catch the bus here as it travels over hill and dale in pursuit of Elsewhere.

Late late late for the bus

I am missing the bus, missing it !
Goldarn it, oh shit !
To write a poem on demand

Is often beyond this poor hand

Last week's task for the frabjous P-butter Bus was to write a four-line rhyme of protest, which the neato-keen Watercats have promised to turn into a song. I can't possibly miss the opportunity to be included in a song! And yet, I am overwhelmed and out of time. Here it is anyway.

Monday pancake poem

What have we here? A poetry bus prompt to use the style of a favorite poet with an ode to pancakes? Good idea, Peter! Now, was there anyone out there who didn't know I would be picking Lewis Carroll? Granted, it's not 'in the style' so much as lifted and a few words changed.

Jabberforky
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Twas brillig and the slithy toast
did gyre and gimble in the eggs
All mimsy were the butterpats
and black the raths hot coffee.
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Beware the chocolate muffin, son!
the tender bite, the crumbs that fall
Beware the jubjub cake and shun
the fluffy Belgian scone.
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He took his vorpal knife in hand
longtime the manxome food he sought
so rested he by the porridge pot
and stood a while in thought.
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An as in uffish thought he stood,
the blueberry pancake with eyes of fruit
came whiffling from the sizzling pan
all topped with maple goop.
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One, two! One, two! and through and through
the vorpal blade went snicker snack
He ate it all and with his fork
swept up the wayward bits.
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And hast thou et the flapjack cake?
come to my arms my beamish boy
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
he chortled in his jam.
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Twas brillig and the slithy toast
did gyre and gimble in the eggs
All mimsy were the butterpats
and black the raths hot coffee.
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More Poetry Bus fun here!

Monday poem

I'm not terribly happy with this week's bus ticket, though it does have the right number of lines and that counts for something somewhere. Started off with a neat idea, but the writing never gelled as it usually does between weekend errands. The weekend is up! Time ante up or pass. Catch the Bus here!

Family Photo
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On his way to join the circus
Passing through, stopped for biscuits
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Truant of the village, old Jim
Out raiding rubbish, caught again
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Directing the house justly a princess
Little Clara, future prime ministress
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Fighter pilot, police chief, astronaut
Shopkeeper not on the list yet, but...
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Sardines, soft cushions, saucers of milk
Being petted by children is not too much work
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New house new school new parents again
Life is all change for the orphan
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Baths schoolbooks dinners and laundry
She loves them all, especially on Sunday.
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People I've known

The Poetry Bus is driven this week by 120socks, who set for us several possible destinations. I chose "I knew a person who..."
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I knew a man who told me I should
told me I could
told me I'd better
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I knew a woman who gave me paints
who read my story out to the class
who said Of course
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I knew a man who never told me I could
never asked me what I wanted
who told me I'd darned well better
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I knew a man who wanted to be my mirror
who asked how high and how far
who cast no light of his own
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I knew a woman who tsk tsked
and shook her head
and wondered what I would come to
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I knew a man who said yes and meant no
who said no and meant yes
and mistook me for his dark fantasy
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I knew a man who does what he wants
and says what he thinks
and assumed I would go farther
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All these people I have known
and have been.
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Poetry Bus with Icicles

It's Dana driving the Bus this week, and she has posed us a couple of picture prompts for this just-before V-day ride. I picked this one: They loved to go out and sit in the field
watching the sun down, listening to the blackbirds
sprawling, reading a book, talking some
the extended living room carefully too far from the phone.

The breeze of the open house caressed them
through the years the birds got to know them
and the grass grew up around the couch
They wore a smooth path
to make their way back in the dark
having greeted the stars.

It's been decades, and he is gone now
but she still makes her way
in the summer evenings
to their spot and their birds and their sunset.

The Bus Depot

An idea:
If the Poetry Bus blog were open to all of us as authors, we could put the weekly theme up there and the list of participants as they gather and post the schedule, and TFE wouldn't have to coordinate when he doesn't have time to coordinate. We wouldn't have to chase around to find a link to the new theme, or even just to discover if there is one - one central location for all your Poetry Bus needs.
What say you?
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Poetry Bus in fits and starts

This building up a poem over time has been a different sort of experience for me, and the result may be not so much a smooth and coherent patterned patchwork quilt as a cobbled-together collection or bunch of things thrown in a sack. It's been about 10 days, but maybe 10 months would be more interesting. I don't think any poem project will survive that long with me, though!
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The Passage of Days.
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Is it over? is the day over yet?
I'm so looking forward to falling like a sack into the armchair.
Let's go
bring on the day
six no trump and 6-Nations rugby
Throw the English to the ground!
Daydreaming out the window
I notice it's snowing
no wonder it's so cold in here.
I am ready, coffee and croissants on the sideboard
fresh pen and old notebook
the meeting may begin
It will last all day.
dish soap shampoo cereal pasta milk cat litter
Out! cats!
laundry vacuum trash out water the plants the mail
a nap?
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The Poetry Bus stops here!

The theme at hand is something you like that other people don’t like. Or you’re afraid they don’t like it. Or you think they think you’re strange for liking it. Mine is below. Leave me a comment letting me know you're on board, and I'll put a list on the sidebar.

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Working late.

4:30

the workday is petering out

the 8 to 4 crowd has gone home, a second wave putting on their coats

the lingering 9 to 5's are wrapping up early, eager to be out the door on a Friday and on with their lives

But am I hurrying home to family?

I'm waiting for 5 too

for those golden hours of early evening

when the phones and the arguments and the questions

have fallen silent

and I can get something done at last.

.

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When I write a poem, it’s always all at once. I might think about it for a few days, just a ghost of an idea kicking around in the back of my mind, and I often take a note of the next P-bus assignment. Get it into the notebook. Get it into the brain differently, because writing uses a different bit than reading, because of the mechanical, drive-the-hand stage. Get those motor neurons involved. But when it comes to getting the poem onto paper or a screen, it’s always a one-shot thing. Perhaps minimal editing later, but I’m not a person to write a poem and then go back and work on it and change it around and delete half and add another chapter later. Not like an article or an essay at all.

There’s something about the mood of a poem. I can never get back to just that state of mind. If I start changing things in a new state of brain, it’ll all get changed, and there’s no point in that; it’s another poem.

So I wanted to drive the bus twice in a row in order to do something different.

For next week it's me again, and I would like poems built up over time. A couplet a day or however you want to do it, but I want the different attitudes of different days and lights and temperatures to be in there. No one-shot wonders. A collection of shots, okay. It’s more of a structure than a subject. If you’d like a subject too, write about time, change, or evolution.

Off we go!

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Poetry Bus for January

I have missed the bus again. Awwwww! But I was on vacaaaation.

And I'm not even finished blogging about that, but here's my bussy contribution with the themes for the next two weeks.

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When I write a poem, it’s always all at once. I might think about it for a few days, just a ghost of an idea kicking around in the back of my mind, and I often take a note of the next P-bus assignment. Get it into the notebook. Get it into the brain differently, because writing uses a different bit than reading, because of the mechanical, drive-the-hand stage. But when it comes to getting the poem onto paper or a screen, it’s always a one-shot thing. Perhaps minimal editing later, but I’m not a person to write a poem and then go back and work on it and change it around and delete half and add another chapter later. Not like an article or an essay at all.
There’s something about the mood of a poem. I can never get back to just that state of mind. If I start changing things in a new state of brain, it’ll all get changed, and there’s no point in that; it’s another poem.
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So I wanted to drive the bus twice in a row in order to do something different. This is not the assignment for Jan 24! It is for the 31st: I want poems built up over time. A couplet a day or however you want to do it, but I want the different attitudes of different days and lights and temperatures to be in there. No one-shot wonders. A collection of shots, okay. It’s more of a structure than a subject. If you’d like a subject too, write about time, change, or evolution.
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For the 24th, let’s hear about something you like that other people don’t like. Or you’re afraid they don’t like it. Or you think they think you’re strange for liking it.

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Get on the Bus, y'all!

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Poetry to Improve the World

One of the several possible Poetry Bus challenges for Monday is to write about what we would do to improve the world. Jeanne Iris says so, right here.
Here's a first go. Perhaps a proper pome will come to me over the weekend; if that happens I'll post again!
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stop bitching
distribute chocolates
more cats
don't be infected by the bitchiness of other people's bitching, just fix the problem
pet the cats
no allergies
play with your toys
make sure everybody has toys
say "yes"
relax
breathe
have another chocolate
take time
listen
to the cats purring
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Rule: do not regift to the original owner.

This week’s poetry bus is being driven by Muse Swings, who set us the task of writing about our worst/most useless/most disturbing/most painful/stupidest/ugliest/least appreciated/most disastrous Christmas present. A nice antidote to all this good cheer going on.
I’m not sure a poem is forthcoming, but I will tell you about my most disappointing gift.

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I was 8 or 10, and the apple of my grandfather’s eye. When he came to the house and deposited the presents for my brothers and me under the tree, he held mine out with a mischievous smile and said he just knew I was really going to love it.
Oh my, I thought, I’m going to love it! What could it possibly be? The package was long and thin, with something lumpy inside that rattled when you turned it upside-down. I spent a whole week wondering what could it be, with such an odd shape, going back again and again to shake, squeeze and fondle.
Finally, Christmas came.
Usually, we’d go straight for the gifts from “Santa”, because they were always the most fun. Santa always gave toys, never a pullover. This time I went straight for my mysterious gift from Granddad, tore it open at last, and what dropped into my lap but an old string of beads of mine I’d forgotten at his house over the summer.
Oh!
Oh, those.
Hey, that’s no present at all. It was as if my grandfather had given me nothing. I hope I kept from crying, but I don’t think I did. I know he really did think I’d be thrilled.

So, belatedly, Thank you!

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Pubpoem

This week's Poetry Bus is driven here by Kat, and our task is to take the name of our favorite pub, turn that into characters, and write a fun poem with these characters. Well, my favored place for a beer and a big-screen rugby match happens to be called the Garden Ice. Who knows why. Neither "garden" nor "ice" is french, and when you put them together it still doesn't say anything.

I leapt up in the morning
happy for Saturday
bright sun through the window
cats fervently wanting out
Let's go out and pick fall leaves from the lawn
and taste the last apples from the trees.
I open the door
and the cats come barreling back in
It's cold out, Mom!
the garden is covered in ice!
December has come.
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Existing

I never did finish my P-bus poem for today. So typical of my days for weeks now, maybe I should just take some things off my calender altogether. But no, not the fun things! Here's the fragment, which on its own has a certain enigmatic quality - you'd never know the theme is to write about our lives. Perhaps I'll finish the thought for another week.
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Like a rock in a stream
Water going by
Just going on by
Taking bits with it, tiny microscopic bits.
In time, worn smooth
A long time
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Click here for other takes on Enchanted Oak's theme.
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Poetry Bus goes bathing

Jessica set the bus destination this week: bathing. Click here to sign on and take the tour.
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The pleasure of the Bath
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Nothing better
than a candlelit soak
while it snows out.

Damn this drafty old house
with its shower stall.
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