Author: soul mary

Writer, poet and reader

Endings To Beginnings

Another Sunday, another interesting prompt on the Poetic Bloomings website. The topic of endings and beginnings, and their interrelation is really intriguing. Is the beginning of something the ending of a process or a state of things? How do we decide whether an event is the end or the start? I suppose, it depends of which side of the river we are on, figuratively speaking. So, here are two poems I penned on this prompt, and the second one is a Shadorma.

Endings to beginnings

Night ends the day,
Dusk cuts the light,
A wrong will destroy the right.

But the beginning of healing
Isn’t the end of all disease.

Are endings more powerful
or it is a trick of false beliefs?

The End – A Shadorma

The end starts
Only when we quit
Beginning.

The end comes
Uninvited in our hearts
Through their gates ajar.

© 2024, soulmary

Cascade

Another Monday prompt comes from the Ragtag Daily, and it’s – Cascade. To write it, I went back in time to a cascading fall I visited and the emotions it evoked. That was a magnificent view and experience, naturally, and one I cannot forget. Despite the grandeur of the site, crowds were particularly potent in ruining the moment. You know how it is – you wait in line to stand on that special photo spot. You have to accept all the noise produced by the rest of the world who are there at that time. Music, commentaries, arrogance, even barbecue smells are invariable companions to such trips. If you can, you ignore it. If you cannot ignore it, you try to forget it.

Cascade

One step, a waterfall,
another step, a pond.
But can you see the tiny bridge
arching over the wet turmoil?

The sound is deafening,
the scenery inspires awe.
The green and blue and white
of the violent stream,
studded with those random stones
coming into view from time to time.
All that stops my breath
and then I lose it.

Cascading falls sing on
their unending song
of a world that is passing by –
a world so careless and so divine.

© 2024, soulmary

Am I Confused, Or What?

I love the worlde prompts, so today I wrote a poem in answer to the latest Sunday Whirl post, appearing as Wordle 673. Because I also love following the pensitivity101’s blog, I included the three words prompted at their site and called TTC #M833. When writing to wordles, I usually start with one or two of the given words and then simply try to follow wherever they take me. With most wordles, I can see a pattern and closeness in the words’ semantics, but at times I attempt a different angle. That is why these poems are not always my best. Still, I love the process of letting your key words do the lead. The result is below, and I see this as a mightily confused narration.

Am I Confused?

the lates wordle prompt from 29 sept 2024
“It’s always unwise to jump
to conclusions,” she pushed the door.
“It’s also bad to spit lies like fire,” I pulled
away from her.
A plague that lashes every time her
secret arrows at me.
Closing my eyes, my head in a wet towel,
I shoved the empty plate to the corner
of my dream.
Glimpses of my past flickered,
while I caught my breath.
Who was she? I was alone.
Myself, the towel and the plate.
No door, no bed and no one else.

© 2024, soulmary

Falling in Love with Autumn

This week, we have seen the grand entrance of autumn – the golden queen of harvest, beauty, solitude and softness. The leaves in my home town haven’t started their whirling dance downwards yet, but their colours are glowing more and more, blinding us in sunny afternoons and lighting up the nights. As if fairy lanterns have been installed to add intensity to our narrative.

Several prompt sites have suggested the falling season as inspiration. One is dVerse on Tuesday, another is Poetic Asides with its Wednesday prompt. Despite the plenitude of poems I have penned (and penciled) down over the years, I have every intention of giving it a shot.

Fall

I look to see if alleys are deserted.
Tree tops, ablaze with glow,
Wait in silence for the final swirl –
The magic dance of tiny pieces
of their souls,
Tearing effortlessly from the branches
in a wild ballet towards the soil
Where they will stay, transform, and be reborn
To live, and glow, and dance again
Next season of fall.

Then, here is a new rendering of the short poem I wrote a couple of days ago:

**
Oblivious to change,
rhythm of the leaves equalises all souls
in just a sigh, time is of no importance.

**
© 2024, soulmary

What Do We Mean?

And this is the RagTag Daily Prompt from yesterday, 24 September – Meaning. Now, that is an interesting topic, indeed. There are ‘mean’ girls in high school. There are also old ‘mean’ people who try not to spend any money extra. Plus, statistics know the ‘mean’ value of certain variables. Wow, such a plenitude. To think that this important notion will have such a rich variety of semantic incarnations is mind boggling. So, here is my RDP poem.

*** The Meaningful Poem ***

Is ‘meaning’ what our thoughts and words contain and carry?
Does ‘mean’ describe a person nasty, or one who wouldn’t spend a penny?
And does it show a value somewhere in the middle?
It feels as if we know but little
on this subject grave and serious.

Why is the word so mysterious?

© 2024, soulmary

Equinox – a haibun

Of course, I needed to check how to write a haibun before I started. Then I wrote the haiku and checked again. After I put together the two paragraphs, I checked just to make sure I had done things correctly. And, wow – I had done it all wrong, so I re-wrote it. I, however, like the original two paragraphs, so I added them here, after my haibun.
This is a prompt given by my great friends, dVerse, and there are plenty of other haibun on the site to enjoy.

Perfection in subtlety

 

I look at the trees in the park and see leaves softly fall to the motley carpet on the alley. The sun rays peek joyfully through the branches. No clouds today. It is the autumn equinox and this day is the last of the long ones. Tomorrow will be shorter. Then again and again. Shortening, it will give away its minutes to darkness until the solstice.

Nature welcomes the night. Night brings sleep. Sleep comes with dreams. Dreams awaken our creative forces. My imagination will believe that.

Night is equal to the day today. The last of the short night is coming. Tomorrow it will be longer. Then again and again. Eating minutes away from daylight, it will grow until the solstice.

Nature welcomes change. Rhythm of the natural cycle beats on, soft and subtle. A moment is a sigh in the life of time.

Oblivious of change
rhythm equalises all
in just a sigh.

***
It is hard to say anything new about equinox and the thoughts it evokes. We, people, are prone to pondering and getting immersed in speculations about what is and what can be. That leads to the saddening revelation that most ideas have already been formulated. Nothing is too new, no words are left unsaid. We are at the same time happy about this wholeness, and disappointed to realise there is not much we can contribute to progress or the depth of human ideas.

Nonetheless, let me say what I have prepared on the topic. The day when light and darkness rule for an equal number of hours marks a moment of balance, equality and stability. It is the Ying-Yang in the circle of the year. A state of harmony that only lasts for 24 hours. Why so short? Perhaps to reflect the brevity of perfection in our lives.

© 2024, soulmary

Water Brings Life, Water Takes Life

Such a long time has passed again, but here I am, drawing inspiration from my dear friends at Poetic Bloomings web site. The prompt is interesting for me right now, particularly because so many places near my country recently suffered extreme weather. Of course, water is part of life and a source of life, indispensable to us all. Still, it can go to horrifying ends.

water picture
Image by Gerhard B?gner from Pixabay

WATER
Makes up our cells
Gives life a running cause
Brings joy to lonely fields
And so much more…

Until it floods all places
And we run in horror,
Screaming, grabbing things
We think we need
Forgetting what and where and who
We are…

Ironic that the sad dessert
Will not hear of the floods
That drown our homes
Off their cozy safety.

© 2024, soulmary

Quadrille Poem – Vampire

Hurrying through the ages of reason,
Considering the dark dreams of seasons,
Any creature will get tired.
But not a vampire!

Trying to see without gazing,
And catch without chasing,
Any life can be bored.
Except for cruelty’s sleek lord.
Time and time again.

© 2024, soulmary

Written on the amazing prompt suggested by dVerse – a poem consisting of 44 words, containing Vampire in its body, no further rules. Check their website to read some awesome pieces!

September Poem

Trope Poem – Day 21 of April PAD

Today, Writer’s Digest offered the prompt of writing a trope poem. I checked the list of Horror Stories tropes and chose two of them.

***
On a dark, starless night
we were reading a horror story
about a lab where nerds did find
a way to paint our town red – so gory.

The trouble was that dead won’t die,
and they won’t bleed more, either.
The chance for us was just to hide
but where – hey, we’d lived together.

Another trouble – double pain
the bad won’t die, they’re just unbeaten.
All we could do was futile pray
although none did believe it’ll deliver.

So, dawn did come
With it, the light
They brought naught
We slipped away
in slumber
for our prayers
were not duly answered.

I hope this text survives
to get into your hands
and be read aloud,
to honour our attempt to fight.

©2024, soulmary