To my comment box (and the people who use it)

Your presence rains on my isolation.
Your encouragement stimulates growth.
Your dissent rakes through hard-baked thinking.
Your creativity fertilizes understanding.
Your logic stakes rambling intuition.
Your new paradigm hybrids my viewpoint.

Though I must fence you against the weeds of spam
and prune vulgarity, meanness
with word verification and moderation
I would never root you out
for the sunshine of your humour
the nurture of your kindness, wisdom and wit
yield a harvest of friendship and community.

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

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This poem is submitted in response to “Writing Poems in Your Own Back Yard” – a challenge by Marcus Goodyear on Books and Culture – a Christian Review to:

“Write a poem about cultivation. When I talk about cultivation, I mean agriculture but also creativity and culture itself. I am talking about the little place in your world where you have been given a small plot to grow new things and add to the beauty of God’s world.”

She took me away with her

She took me away with her

After Norah Jones’ 2002 album “Come Away With Me”

Norah Jones sultry on the boombox
of my daughter’s Kamloops apartment
that hot weekend in 2003
says “Come away with me…”
takes me back to a 70s Vancouver basement suite

Lazy, laid back, take-a-break-from-life music
sweet as first dates
“you’ll be on my mind forever…”
sad as the realization
they are also the last
“It was just the season…”

Let this jazz be Aspirin
a wine cooler
blurring the hurt
into smoky memories
Pour piano’s liquid blue
into wounds
“Why can’t I melt
your cold, cold heart?”
Massage guitar’s rich burgundy
into all the cracks and crevices
that remain

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

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Inspired by the wonderful prompt “Music and Poetry” at Adele  Kenny’s  blog The Music In It.

Linked at One Shot Wednesday Week 51

In His Shop

In his shop Daddy improvised
like a jazz musician.
Virtuoso of rivets, solder, screws, he
repaired hinges with leather,
lengthened a steering shaft
for the tractor-drawn binder,
braced wobbly chairs with welding rods,
reincarnated metal seats
into lawn furniture.

Lightning from his welder
like brain synapses
crackled creations into being.
Pounding hammer,
tapping chisel,
whining file perfected
riffs of leather, metal, wood.

© 2002  V. Nesdoly Published at Utmost Christian Writers Poets Places.  Also published in Calendar, 2004

***************

My dad died in 1975. I miss him.

Yellow

I am rays of forsythia
to winter-weary yard
I am sunbeams of pansies, dafs and tulips.
I am basket of gold
spilling over rock wall
and bright dandelions decorating ditches.
I’m a riot of broom
along ocean cliffs in spring
and in summer a hedge of ochre tansy.
In the fall I am rippling field
of champagne-colored wheat
then as goldenrod I sway in grass of khaki.

I’m a squirt of tangy mustard
a bite of lemon pie
I am saffron and turmeric and curry.
I’m the orangy-golden egg yolk
the richest ivory cream
I am cheese and damson jam and tawny biscuits.
I’m the singing canary
the ribbon on the tree,
never shy, most tend to think of me as forward –
when I highlight your lines
mark your place with sticky notes –
so don’t ever, ever dare to call me coward!

© 2004 – Time of Singing, Summer 2004

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This is a re-post from September 2009. I am reviving it today in honor of the Tweetspeak challenge to write a catalogue poem focusing on color that goes hand-in-hand with the color photography challenge at the High Calling blog (Culture Tab). You can play too. Just read the instructions on both pages and submit your poem/photos as directed.

You’re also welcome to drop by my YELLOW GALLERY on Flickr!

 

Linked at One Shot Wednesday Week 50

Baba & Gido (a Shadorma)

Baba and Gido (a Shadorma)

Baba, Gid’
and thermostat wars
he too hot
she too cold
each June uncorked again this
rancid argument

Baba gone
Gid’ in nursing home
he don’t know
hot or cold
only knows she’s not there for
any argument.

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

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Baba and Gido are Ukrainian diminutives for Grandma and Grandpa.

Shadorma is a Spanish 6-line syllabic poem of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllable lines respectively.

This poem is linked at One Shot Wednesday Week 49

Regular, please

I feel the press
I need the perc
I have the grounds
and think I’ve urned
a dark-roast brew
and now will break
with you and cake.

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

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In a fun prompt at Tweetspeak Poetry, we were challenged to photograph something that cost $.99 and then write a poem about it.

I was surprised, during yesterday’s outing, to discover how few things were priced at $.99. I found one! My photo and poem are above.

If you take the challenge, post your poem on your blog and then be sure to link it on TS Poetry Press’s Facebook wall by June 8th for possible exposure of your poetic efforts on a future TS Poetry post.

You can also subscribe to “Every Day Poems” — a daily email (excluding weekends) with a poem from TS Poetry Press.