Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge
Okay, I’m a bit of an oddball myself. But, this is one pea in a pod.
Photo Challenge: Cee’s Oddball
Win or Go Home
Game Five
Washington…one-run lead
Max Scherzer posting strike after strike
Risky send…out
Werth…Dodgers
Four-Run Rally
Chris Heisy’s two-run
Within one run
Half of the seventh…Jensen
But Kershaw – yes, Kershaw,
Slammed the door on the ninth.
It would have been
Game 1 against the Cubs
In the Style of Haiku
Leaves changing red, yellow,
Falls, life blood carelessly thrown
Away in cold gusts
Strings of thread, twisted,
turning, cut, wind pulling to
find a high-strung kite.
Dogs bark, sun rising
Stretching my legs, my soul up
Breakfast time is here.
World Series 2016, Cubs vs. Indians
Black baseball
players
Scoring
on a field of honor.
In 1925,
would
not have been
allowed.
Times have
changed.
The Eagle’s Rush
It was there, over my head in the swamp,
That I met the dancing wind.
With a speed that rushed the world past
as I stood still, I was inspected, rejected,
Passed over as a dinner treat.
Who was I to walk there in another world?
Who was I to seek secrets?
I spun on my heels looking for power.
Turned quickly to spy the motion I felt,
more than saw.
Dancing on my tip toes, I tried to follow.
Not for me, the race through the trees,
Not for me, the freedom to fight, to fly.
Oh, but envious eyes I did cast
after the lord of the sky.
Small Bites
He said, “You can’t put that here.”
“Watch me,” she replied, and learned
He had the censor’s button.
Courage and Corsages
Can’t remember his name
Only the argument
Roses on my wrist
Said he’d paid for dinner
And getting a dance wasn’t
Good
Enough, I walked home alone.
Freshmen year in college is never easy as young adults try to find out what they believe and deal with insecurities. It uses two tools, the acrostic and the line ending in the next line, giving two or three meanings to simple words.
Bards and Poets
Poor, they may have seemed,
overcome with the task of bringing
even-handed news.
The bards of old, the pipers,
reeling from victory or defeat,
yet wrote the lines without fear of rebuke.
Another in this week’s study in Acrostic poetry. I wrote it as a rebuke to the censorship I experienced on a poetry page. They didn’t notice.
Music Lessons
Part of a series of exercises in the use of the Acrostic Poem.
He gave me my first baton.
Endured the fact I knew no theory,
Never lost his temper.
Rigorously teaching the passion of
Young composers with free tickets to see
Conducting Copland, Hanson, Ives.
Soothing nerves as we met our exam, conducting
Minnesota orchestras musicians while
Instilling lessons that gave straight spines and gentle hands.
Those he gave changed lives, the downs, the losses, the ups.
He gave joy, and I, his student remember 41 years later.
My Father Lost His
Engines crossed the yard that day,
Increased business sent the extra engine early,
Got in the way, they said, when they found
Him still alive, steamed between two Great Northerns.
They sent for his wife, drove her to his side,
Youngsters left in Dottie Jean’s hands,
Each shivering from the tales
A round of train folk told, of the pain, of waiting,
Roasting slowly to his death. His little
Son sat on the steps of the speak-easy, waiting
Only his father never came. He cried, to him his
Loving father was a God, immortal, tall, tanned
Dead a week later, the cortège a mile long
Sitting in the front row, scrubbed and clean,
Old timers passed murmuring their sorrow.
Now life would change, penniless, six mouths left unfed.
Acrostic poetry is one of the styles that children learn early in their studies. It gives a framework for a student to get beyond. It gives the stability that lovers of poetry like, that binds them to something in a personal way. The difficulty is to make the poems original. The message that you sent as you mature depends upon word use, punctuation, and the background of the poem. This is a true story of how my grandfather died. I wasn’t there. Dad was eight years old and lost in a sea of loneliness. If it hadn’t been for his oldest sister, and his mother, he would never have found his happy again. It did make for difficult years as he had no role model to rely on as my brothers became teens.
Ann WJ White 