Poetry Portfolio

[Doc Dan]

Hi Folks,

 

I thought it would be fun to have a place to post poetry, especially those we write down with a fountain pen. Here is one I made up while walking down the hall to get a cup of coffee just now.

 

 

My Fountain Pen

by Lanier Thomas

 

My fountain pen and I

Can write about the sky

Or anywhere my mind decides to go.

 

Once we fought a dragon.

Then we rode a wagon.

Oh I love my little fountain pen so.

 

Where can your pen take you,

While on adventures new,

And your fountain pen a new world to show?

Edited October 25, 2023 by Doc Dan

[txomsy]

Nice idea. Keep the posts coming (I love reading poetry).

[Doc Dan]

22 minutes ago, txomsy said:

Nice idea. Keep the posts coming (I love reading poetry).

Post one of your own. A simple Haiku will do. 

[inkstainedruth]

I'm always a bit hesitant of threads like this, because if I want to actually ever get my work published, I have to reckon with the concept of sites like this effectively being "where I've published a poem before".  Which gets complicated.

But here's one I wrote a few years ago, that would likely fit the thread (and the forum overall): 

 

A Kenning

                                                                       Wellspring of wisdom

                                                                       Conduit of inspiration

                                                                       Bard challenger

                                                                       And artist’s heart

                                                                       Wielder of the creative flame

                                                                       Bestower of status

                                                                       Ink-drinker, I name you

 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

edited for formatting issues

[Sailor Kenshin]

With sincere apologies:

 

 

There was a young man from Nantucket

Who poured Baystate Blue in a bucket

When the bucket dissolved

He was filled with resolve

To jackhammer his floor and then chuck it

[Doc Dan]

4 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

I'm always a bit hesitant of threads like this, because if I want to actually ever get my work published, I have to reckon with the concept of sites like this effectively being "where I've published a poem before".  Which gets complicated.

But here's one I wrote a few years ago, that would likely fit the thread (and the forum overall): 

 

A Kenning

                                                                       Wellspring of wisdom

                                                                       Conduit of inspiration

                                                                       Bard challenger

                                                                       And artist’s heart

                                                                       Wielder of the creative flame

                                                                       Bestower of status

                                                                       Ink-drinker, I name you

 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

edited for formatting issues

Yeah, and it is hard to get published anyway, unless one is a bit perverse. I don't think this is fair for many publications to exclude works shared on a forum or elsewhere that is not an actual publication. So, I just write one for the thread. I can always publish it later in a book or anthology. 

[Doc Dan]

Here is a Haiku that I wrote.

 

PEN

 

Perennial love

Ever more to be wanted

Never had by most

[inkstainedruth]

17 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

With sincere apologies:

 

 

There was a young man from Nantucket

Who poured Baystate Blue in a bucket

When the bucket dissolved

He was filled with resolve

To jackhammer his floor and then chuck it

That is HILARIOUS!  And totally awesome!

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Sailor Kenshin]

26 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

That is HILARIOUS!  And totally awesome!

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Thanks!  

[inkstainedruth]

17 hours ago, Doc Dan said:

Yeah, and it is hard to get published anyway, unless one is a bit perverse. I don't think this is fair for many publications to exclude works shared on a forum or elsewhere that is not an actual publication. So, I just write one for the thread. I can always publish it later in a book or anthology. 

Well, my mom was an author, so I was sort of trained to NOT go the "vanity press route".  I also remember that one editor who bought a story from her for an anthology then re-sold it without permission (!) but was then STUPID enough to send her *partial* royalties.  The thing he resold the story to was a magazine that IBM put out for employees they sent to work in Germany.  Well, a guy at our church was a lawyer for them at their corporate headquarters, down county from where we lived (my dad and something like half to 2/3 of the men on my street also worked for IBM as it happened).  And my mom told the guy at church and IBM's response was "OMG -- We are SO SORRY!  How much do we owe you?"  (The original editor ALSO claimed that my mother inflated the word count -- which was a lie, BTW).

Years ago, when I first got out of college, I went to an open poetry reading.  The woman who ran it was the editor of a small press magazine, and seemed to like my work -- but wanted me to be her (UNPAID) art director.  And I said that I needed to get a PAYING job.  So, she turned down my work.  I think the rag might still exist (at least online) and I'm tempted to send her the "revenge" poem I wrote a few years ago as IIRC, a NaPoWriMo prompt: "Write a letter to someone you hate..."  And I wrote a poem from the point of view of the Goddess Athena (patroness of the arts)....  If I send it to her under my married name (assuming she's still in charge) I'm betting she won't have a clue....  

HMMMM.  Sadly, I seem to have NOT ever typed that one up.  Maybe it wasn't NaPoWriMo after all -- maybe it was an Artist's Way exercise....  So I'll have to dig out the really nice journal that my husband commissioned secretly when we were ordering a couple of other, smaller, journals from a friend a number of years ago for when I was getting the top service award for the organization we belong to.  I didn't get to be friends with her until years after I met her, and she moved to SW PA from NYC.  But I had a couple of lovely chats with her about pens and inks once we did become friends, and sadly, she passed a few years ago.  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[inkstainedruth]

14 hours ago, Doc Dan said:

Here is a Haiku that I wrote.

 

PEN

 

Perennial love

Ever more to be wanted

Never had by most

Oh cool -- a haiku AND an acrostic poem as well!  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstained ruth

[Doc Dan]

We can all just make up something fun for this thread. 

[Doc Dan]

It is a sad day for me

I discovered something, see?

 

People don't like poems, here.

That much is made very clear.

 

Maybe sword and fantasy

Will better suit vanity.

 

Or perhaps poems of love,

But of that I'm not sure of.

 

I hope folk will start to share

And we lose our daily care. 

 

 

[txomsy]

Or may be we are so busy, in the modern World

O'immediate rewards, online entertainment,

Instant messaging, production improvement,

That we have forsaken leisure, all for worse.

[Doc Dan]

Excellent!

[Sailor Kenshin]

Autumn ink wanted

Shading, with deep-water depths

Liquid dogwood leaf

[Doc Dan]

A good haiku to ponder!

Edited November 4, 2023 by Doc Dan

[Sailor Kenshin]

15 hours ago, Doc Dan said:

A good haiku to ponder!

 

Thanks!  Years ago, I started my daily journal with a haiku…just looking around the room or out the window for a subject.

[inkstainedruth]

What a great idea!

You should send off email to the woman who does the NaPoWriMo website and suggest that as a prompt for one of next year's NaPoWriMo days!

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[essayfaire]

I haven't been around FPN much of late, but the front page of the WSJ on Monday had a photo of the Northern Lights outside Vegas and it made me think of @amberleadavis.  So here it is:

 

Far to the South Northern Lights Dazzle

In Honor of AmberLea Davis

 

 

 

The Northern Lights were friendly,

 

Drawled entrails in Van Gogh’s palette

across Southwestern sky

 

Vegas on the front page-

Not the normal glass-imprisoned neon gasses,

But others, liberated by extraterrestrial combat.

 

 

The Northern Lights were friendly:

 

Geomagnetic gifts for AmberLea, the Queen of Color,

The generous goddess who weaves community from pens and inks, embracing all available shades

 

shimmers and sheens, murks and glows,

siennas, aubergines-

 

(plus plain old lilacs, pinks, and greens)

 

 

She who proclaims: “Ink is my preferred delivery system, because crayons melt in Vegas.”

 

 

In desert heat, above the Joshua trees,

 

God scribbled her the sky.