Poetry ~ Waka
rendezvous
terrasse du café
sous la nuit
des étoiles
ce soir, sont engagés
pour s’aimer toujours
~
rendevous
at café terrasse
underneath
the night stars
that night, they made their promise
forever to love.
© Tournesol ’14
Mind Love Misery’s Menagerie – Bastet’s Shadorma Photo Prompt
When I saw this photo taken by Georgia at Basket and Sekhmet’s Library, I had to smile. I had taken a phto of 2 pay phones in the Métro last Spring. The fact that these are near such a lovely green space stirred contradictions…beauty, ugliness, pleasure and pain and this is what my muse came up with for Bastet’s Shadorma Prompt at MindLoveMiserysMenagerie.
(shadorma)
Assaults lurk
In the dead of night
behind trees
far from phones
cyclists never heard her screams
would have dialed for help.
(senryû)
predators always
study their territory
and their prey.
(shadorma)
phones by parks
gives false illusions
of safety
late at night
listen up! one`s never safe
when monsters still breathe
© Tournesol ’14
Now to make this fun a little and give me more of a challenge, I am adding my photos of these phones in the Métro. Having looked at them, my muse seems fixated on sad affairs.
(shadorma)
unused phones
ever see someone
actually
Use a phone?
subways are sometimes seedy
all’s in the open
(senryû)
people make believe
blind to sordid actions
“I ain’t seen nothin’”
(shadorma)
Unless there`s
a Samaritan
does good deeds
calls for help
shouts out loud scaring monsters
back into their hole.
(tilus)
Wherever you go, bring
along a
friend.
© Tournesol ’14
Originally posted at Tournesol dans un Jardin, by Cheryl-Lynn Roberts
Photo credits: Julie-de-Waroquier@DeviantArt
Better late then never, I say with this interesting photo prompt. Photo challenge #20 Time Goes by like a train, at Mind Love Misery’s Menagerie awakened my memories of living by the train tracks near my grandmother’s home. I used to run across as the gate was just coming down, bells ringing and the man in the tower shouting at me to stop but a few times, I still took a chance. How lucky I was not to end up like this though I just wrote…
railway crossing
yesteryear’s tragic loss
her ghost still walks
© Tournesol
But this prompt’s title also inspires thoughts about time and we have had several haiku prompts from a few different blogs on “time” in the past weeks. This is what the photo with the title inspired…
summer days crawl
forlorn, waits for her lover
but time has stopped
© Tournesol
Thank you, Yves, for this interesting photo challenge! I am slowly transferring all my short form poetry under the nom de plume, Tournesol @ Tournesol dans un jardin.
© Clr 14/08/11
knock knock
emptiness so hard to fill
death.
(c) Tournesol
life’s a miracle
death is inevitable
time will tell
(c) Tournesol
Submitted for Heeding Haiku with Ha, at Mindlovemiserys Menagerie
Photo credits: Clr ´14
sunflower sways
billowing clouds overhead
wind chimes.
scorching night
sleeping naked on the cot
cicadas sing
© Tournesol ‘14/08/02
Submitted for: Haiku with Ha – Summer Kigo
The prompt at Heeding Haiku With HA this week is rather unique. No guidelines on nature or emotions…This week, HA would like you to analyze everything that you can at this very moment of time and write a haiku or tanka or both to commemorate these few moments of this day of your life. Write/Right NOW!
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Here is my moment described on the
Hazy Day (Tanka)
My first day back at work today and the weather was still quite hot and humidity still high. Walking slowly to the Mall to renew my bus pass, I stopped by my favourite sushi bar to say hello to Angela. We’ve become friends after only two or three visits. We are quite friendly with merchants here in Quebec especially outside the city. She and I both agreed we missed Ontario. I moved to Ontario for work for thirteen years and fell in love with it. She emigrated from Japan to Ontario and also enjoyed her experience there. We both came back to be closer to our immediate family in Quebec. I can tell she is struggling adjusting and I empathized her pain. She asked me how I was when I purchased my shrimp Spring Roll and I mentioned my disgust with our health care system here compared to Ontario and she nodded in sympathy. So few words were shared and yet I felt a connection and as she wrapped my rolls with peanut sauce, I knew my lunch was somehow blessed.
Walking to the bus terminal very slowly, I noticed my bus leaving. I can’t run anymore with my bad leg, so I just took a deep breath and told myself, “Breathe, take your time, you’ll only get all hot and sweaty.”
The next bus arrived within less then ten minutes. I took a seat near a window but no air was moving. The bus filled up and finally we were moving. A faint breeze came in but nothing to write home about.
Finally we crossed the bridge and I could feel that nice cool breeze…not cold but still it was refreshing and I noticed the woman next to me closing her eyes and enjoying the feeling. I closed my eyes and let soaked up the moment for as long as it lasted…
This is how I felt a few moments after the bus pulled out on our trip to Montreal. I scribbled these in my notebook to remember that feeling.
hot sticky bus
open windows bring relief
river breeze
eyes closed I relish the moment
puffs off the St-Lawrence
© Cheryl-Lynn 2014/07/02
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General guidelines:
She looked up at the sky and saw only grey clouds. “Again, only grey poop on” she muttered. That’s what she thought of those grey clouds…pooping on her life, her mood, her heart and her soul. There was no longer any light in her life. She sighed, giving herself a bigger push to swing higher. “Maybe if I swing high enough, I’ll be able to kick one of those clouds and see rain that will wash away all the bleakness in this land.”
“Watch it, little one! You may fall and you sure as heck don’t want to fall way down there!!”squawked the black crow above, settling on a dried up tree…no leaves, just branches..
Elaina looked up at her friend. He had become her friend in the past year.He had given her the idea to braid long strips of cotton to hang from the twig that was her only seat outside her birdcage. She now had a swing which gave her a sense of freedom.
She had been disgusted by this huge black crow, at first when she was brought here by “him” but she realized over time, that Cornelius was a product of “his” master plan. Anyone who defied him or tried to escape only fell into the den of désespérance or Des-Spa as Cornelius jokingly called it. It was the bottomless pit that lay below…a sort of limbo but Elaina felt it was a hell created by “him”.
“I suppose you’re right, Cornelius, even if you are not a wise old owl,” she giggled and for a brief moment, the clouds separated and a hint of glow shone from the skies. Whenever Elaina sang or laughed, this occurred. But it never seemed to last more than 2 to 3 seconds.
Somehow, somewhere far above there was a positive force of goodness and beauty that was trying to communicate to Elaina. She felt it in the soles of her feet. Well, not really soles but she had been stripped of all her clothes. She had made herself a make-shift dress from the veils that covered her cage/home and with the long strips leftover, braided it as per instructions from daring Cornelius.
“He” had stripped her of her clothes but had the decency to jail her in a veiled insulated cage she could use as bedding or blanket on cooler nights. She didn’t mind sleeping without bedding. She felt less trapped this way. And Cornelius could keep her company when she was lonely and spread his wings to keep her warm on cooler nights. He always enjoyed her giggling and especially her singing in her soft soprano voice. She sounded like an angel in a celestial choir. Perhaps that is why the clouds separated briefly…maybe angels thought she was a lost sister.
Somehow she knew if she could sing long enough or the right harmony, the skies would be unlocked…finally breathe hope and compassion…she would just have to be patient.
patience unlocks skies
heavens unleash goodness
beauty of the soul.
© Cheryl-Lynn 2014/04/01
Written for MindLoveMiserysmenagerie Photo Challenge #15 – birdhouse
months of drought
scorching sun kills
the soil
~
mother earth weeps our folly
for causing global warming.
© Cheryl-Lynn 2014/06/19
Written for: Heeding Haiku with HA – Consider the Soil
Hauntingly
seeks reconnaissance
echoing
brilliance
sun reflects on golden pond
unlike empty eyes.
Insights, comprehension
forever
gone.
In a daze
strives for some semblance
hesitates
contemplates
who is this old face who gapes?
where has time escaped?
rouses from a deep sleep
spots her, in
me.
Is this fate…
reality bites
I shall change
destiny
cast off all senility
inhale lucidness.
Embrace reflections on
this pond…see,
me.
© Cheryl-Lynn 2014/05/27
Submitted for: Mindlovemiserysmenagerie Shadorma Photo Prompt #9
A shadorma is composed of six non-rhyming lines (sestina or sextet) and the syllable pattern is 3-5-3-3-7-5. It can have as many stanzas as you like, just as long as each stanza follows the syllable pattern mentioned above . You have a week to create you poems so be patient and let the photo inspire you! Or use your own photograph or art work!
Tilus – the poem is divided into two parts, the first consisting of two lines of 6 – 3 syllable count. The second is composed of a single one syllable word. The goal of the tilus which must not be more than 10 syllables is to contemplate the world of nature and how it can open the door of understanding life.
Tournesol dans un Jardin 
