Pulling the pin.

Some like to write on the good of life

While others strive on trouble and strife

Are differing ways of looking at the world dishonest –

playing with words the poets prerogative?

 

Trying hard to comply with the rules is trying

Always swimming against the tide

puts you at a disadvantage

Remembering at all times there are always two sides to a story.

 

Were not tangents invented so as ‘writers’ could hop on board

and go in different directions all at once

distancing ones self, slipping between the cracks solves nothing

confuses matters all the more

tossing that imaginary hand grenade

what does it gain?

 

It may well bide more time

But will that solve the issues at hand?

It is rarely seen to do so

Level headed constructive thinking

yes that appears to be the answer

to all world disasters

once the poor can be used as human shields

terrorists on all sides will continue their annihilation.

(c) Chris Black 2016

heading to the lady camp from Bella & Shirley by pd lyons

Pdlyons's Explorations

(lady camp)

up in the highlands. a small camp once used by shepherds. there was a clean water source and not much more when we started but now? three small cabins, latrines, cooking fires. Do you now there is a way to make a smokeless fire?

really! i said.

they help each other. whatever one knows is what one does. and for those who didn’t know much, look outs were always needed besides a mind sharpened by the promise of safety and food learns quick. there are even a few men. good men. not always someone’s relation but men who had helped or tried to help. men who had proven themselves. one fellow was an expert with  noiseless ways of trapping animals. there are also some very good fisher ladies she laughed. we live like savages but honest savages. there are things to eat from the wilderness. there are people…

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In The Arms Of A Dream

Glimmer of Hope.

Welcome to our house of knowledge

The light that shines beckons one and all

Our door is open come on in.

We’ve gathered here to share poetic words

To give each other the will to go on

Our door is open come on in.

As we sit and listen

We dare not interrupt or digress

Welcome to our house of knowledge.

People gather in the gloom outside

Some consider entering then turn back

Our door is open come on in.

The chairman sits atop the table

With tomes, to answer any query

Welcome to our house of knowledge.

We hope that when you leave

Next time you may wish to bring a friend

Our door is open come on in

Welcome to our house of knowledge.

(c) Chris Black 2016.

For you my friend.

My thoughts on a page.

As November draws to a close it does so with a difficult final week. Tuesday November 29th is Daniel’s anniversary. Three years this year. He should be sixteen, pushing the teenage boundaries and beginning to blossom into the young man he would become. He should have beaten leukemia a childhood cancer with a very high recovery rate. He, like many other young children this year, should not have got cancer. It’s not the way life should be.

It’s difficult to go through this week without replaying Daniel’s final days three years ago. The phone call to say he was coming home. The fear he would not be strong enough to make the journey. The joy at seeing the ambulance bring him in the gates of his home. The happy smile on his face when he saw he was home at last.

As the month passes I think it’s also important to…

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7 actionable strategies to attract more readers to your poetry blog

Business in Rhyme

Did you know that the roughly estimate of number of blogs on the Internet is over 150 million?

And no doubt we as writers do want to find new, interesting ways to attract readers and popularize content. To cut through all that noise of useless information, spam, adverts…it comes especially hard for poetry blogs, since traditionally we are more accustomed to read poetry in books and magazines. But more and more social media networks like Instagram are taking place and becoming a great resource for finding fresh and inspirational poetry – and you do want to take advantage of that.

Today I want to share with you some actionable ways that I have observed to work (especially for some popular poetry blogs here on the wordpress.com platform) and you can easily apply in your blogging scheme to attract more readers. But first of all, be aware that it takes time…

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Gift giving and the golden rule

Mind of a Mouse

“Do unto others…”

If I gave to you what I would like to receive, you’d be getting an NES Classic Edition for christmas this year.

Obviously, that’s not going to work.  First of all – they’re sold out everywhere, and second, what if you don’t love it?  What if you don’t dream of playing Legend of Zelda the way I do? What if you’re not obsessed with the idea that maybe, now you are so much older, you can actually finish Super Mario Bros. for real, instead of lying about it for all these years… decades?

The rule should be, do unto others as they’d like to have done to them.  I guess it doesn’t sound as nice that way, but this is why we write wish lists.

Many years ago – I was asked, by someone who will remain nameless, what I wanted for christmas. I said I wanted…

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The Orbit of Poetry: A Prose Writer’s Thoughts–guest blog post by Kristen Figgins

Trish Hopkinson

1–

I am at a party, sitting in the middle of someone’s bedroom floor, holding a plastic cup and crying, because being a writer is a lovely, terrible thing, and I cannot articulate, to myself or anyone else, why I want so badly for my stories to be read by others.  They are, maybe, nice art.  But I sob and wave my fingers around as I struggle to explain what value my writing, my writing, adds to the world.

My friend rubs my back and tells me, “Maybe that’s why you get published.  So someone else can tell you that your writing has value.  Since, you know, you clearly don’t believe me when I tell you it does.”

2–

Reclining in a black box theater, I watch a drama student mouth the words of my one-act play, Meatless, a thirty-minute farce about the factory farming industry.  After the play is…

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Inspiring pictures for writers – breakfast by Bertha Leonard

BRIDGET WHELAN writer

I love the detail of the table (what’s going on with the sugar bowl?) and the background. At first sight it seems to be a conventional domestic interior until you realise that the perspective warps and forces you to focus. The slice of water melon is about a third the size of the odd-looking cooker and while it looks right where it is, surely it is pretty sloppy housekeeping to leave it in the middle of the floor. I’d love to get close and study it in detail, but this is all we have and, as it stands, it is an invitation not to take the ho-hum of everyday routine at face value.

I haven’t been able to find out much about Bertha Leonard, except that she was a popular artist in the Philadelphia area since the 1970s. Born and raised in Atlantic City, New Jersey, she was quoted as…

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Organic Colors

Poesy plus Polemics

“Watermelon” by Lutz Baar

the melons are finally in bloom

laden with slaking refreshment

in this overhot season of conflict

parching forbearance of citizens

green and red in sublime coalition

yield sweet fruit all thirsts can enjoy

while the blue and red give forth

with nothing but dry barren vines

(originally posted June 2013)

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