Poetry Corner: Fantastic

POETRY CORNER

– 8/29/18

Hosted by Kathabela Wilson

I think we all have the feeling that life is fantastic in one way or another. We feel ourselves stepping outside of ordinary experiences in many different ways, and for different reasons. Almost all are challenging, some blissful, some difficult. This gradually changes our way of perceiving what is normal, and opens up our lives to many new possibilities. This certainly is the story of my life. I think we can all hold hands along the slippery edge of existence.

~ Kathabela​​​​

Michael Rehling

just my imagination running away with me

i feel like i will live forever. i am not looking for or anticipating the end. i think i will just keep listening to the music of the clouds and pick a few stars from the sky for dinner later on…

at the waterfall
adjusting
the pace of my life

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Pravat Kumar Padhy

painting contest
the child puts a drop of water
on the Mars surface

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Susan Burch

a paper towel
absorbing a spill –
the days I can’t write
but just take in
everything

food network –
we agree
to move to Mars
when they open
an Olive Garden

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Natalia Kuznetsova

reflections —
surrealistic but …
still reality

a wind gust —
feel someone’s presence …
yours

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Kathleen A. Lawrence

Head over heels
me standing sideways
next to you falling upward
lands us together.

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Deborah P Kolodji

gray in our love
boot prints
on the moon

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Gerry Jacobson

Summer days that melt into each other. We share the lives of two Viking princesses. Getting to know the Green Line (tube) between their dwelling places. Lately we’ve been picking Emilia up from school, stopping nearby for an ice cream before taking her home on the tram. She’s a dreamer, often with nose in a book when she should be paying attention to tram doors closing. But she’s not the only one.

somewhere
beneath Stockholm
on a city train
a gypsy plays
a passenger dances

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kris moon

the flowering
of stones
lichen

my inner eye
follows the new map
what has emerged
so clearly

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Wendy Bialek

letting go

not a dry eye
on my face

this one turns
a universal spigot
of the heart’s soul

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Christina Sng

emerging
seemingly unharmed
from a wormhole
part of me wonders
am I still me

still biting me
the moth-sized mosquitoes
on Mars

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Vince Gotera

curlicue necklace
of lights swings across the bay
— stars playing leapfrog

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Cb Crane

not sure where I am
but poetry seems
the language of wow

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Fantastic: Quotes and Credits

Michael Rehling, an inspiring poet, editor, and publisher of Failed Haiku, lives in Presque Isles, Michigan. He says: “a night alone/i find the worm/in my apple”.

Pravat Kumar Padhy feels his haiku “epitomizes the science in space and time, the resonance of senses that express the distinct feeling of aesthetic ecstasy of a tender child beyond imagination.”

Susan Burch lives in Hagerstown, MD, with her husband and daughter. She muses that “some days writing comes easily, while other days it’s hard to write anything, but I like to think that these are the days when I’m observing everything and taking it all in. I like to think zen or when that doesn’t work, go outside the lines to spark my imagination.”

Natalia Kuznetsova lives in Moscow, Russia. She says: “Daydreaming, imagination, creative spirit and, what Wordsworth once called, “pensive mood” may produce something nice, e.g. a haiku, a painting, a photo…”

Kathleen A. Lawrence lives in Cortland, New York. She loves “the routine and the boredom of the fantastic that we take for granted, the color of the curving sky, the sweet smell of memory, and the shock of new love and sorrow of loss. “All things in nature, all things in our everyday sphere have the capacity to be boring and stupendous.”

Deborah P Kolodji has had a lifetime love of fantastical literature which led to a tenure as the president of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association. She founded a local group called “Southland Poets of the Fantastic” which used to meet in inspirational places like the Griffith Observatory and write fantasy and Sci-Fi themed poetry. She was the first Dwarf Stars editor back in 2006, and has returned to that role for the 2018 edition, ‘Dwarf Stars: the best short speculative poetry from 2017’.

Gerry Jacobson lives in Canberra, Australia, dotes on four grandchildren, two live in Stockholm where he is currently visiting them. He has a nod to the Beatles in his tanka prose. Imagine!

Kris Kondo lives over a small river in a mountain village, Kiyokawa in Kanagawa, Japan. She says: “My inner eye, or muse if you will, follows the map that emerges from images I create , or photos Intake or photo’s by friends that call to me. Many of Tom Clausen’s photos bring out that voice and I just listen and add it to the images…”

Tom Clausen discovers treasure with his camera and his creative spirit in the woods near Ithaca, New York.

Wendy Bialek says: “everyday is a birthday and i want to share my gifts just as soon as i unwrap them…everyday is mother’s day and i hear the cries and feel the joy of every new born living species.” She lives in Arizona, USA, a transplant from NY, via a short pit stop in Colorado…

Christina Sng lives in Singapore. She says: “Wonderment brings such joy and awe to my life. It takes me places I’d never go and imagines a world much better and more terrible than the one I am in.”

Vince Gotera, a Professor of English at University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, is the editor of Star*Line.

Cb Crane lives in Tehachapi, California. She says: “Right now I’m eager to go out and wander around beneath the this crazy moon” and quotes Jean Paul Sartre “everything has been figured out, except how to live.

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♣ You can add your contribution to our Poetry Corner in the form of a poem, in our comment box below​.