Antietam to Las Vegas

 

We travel the banks of Antietam Creek

by car listening to horrific radio news,

not far from a day in 1862 –

the bloodiest in American military history – fallen

bodies, battles that end in a draw.

 

 

In the Church of Cinema

From our padded pews in the darkness,

incense of popcorn heavy in the air,

light flickers figures before us, not gods,

movie stars in this half-life heaven where

sins are forgiven and whispered prayers unanswered.

Ophelia

 

Ophelia was only twenty-two.

They say she drowned in a small brook.

A branch broke and dropped her.

Unlikely – both the branch and the shallow brook.

She was sad. Perhaps, mad.

The brook, to the river, to the sea.

Not death but part of something larger.

Fresh water. Salt.

Poetry 101

WordPress offers an Intro to Poetry 101 freebie online “course” to inspire you to write 10 poems in 10 days. Really, it is just a very brief one-word prompt and some poetry suggestions.

Day One: Haiku, the Purest of Forms
The sashimi of poetry. Seventeen syllables channeling the essence of sound and meaning. Haiku.
A traditional Japanese form now popular around the world, Haiku come with a preset structure: three lines containing five, seven, and five syllables, respectively (or, in more modern haiku, three lines following the long-short-long pattern)

I don’t normally need much prompting to write, but it is good to get poked into writing once and awhile.  And though this site is devoted to ronka poems, a few haiku and other forms might slip in now.  Poems for this little side project will be tagged #poetry101 here, and you can see poems by others as part of this project at wordpress.com/tag/poetry101

Here is my day one water haiku.

Rainfall, petals fall
Water returns to sky
Plants back to earth