Poetry Corner: The World to Come

POETRY CORNER

Mountain Sunset (Photo – Stevie Strang).

– 10/25/17

Hosted by Kathabela Wilson

So many of us are anxious about the state of the world. Within the challenges, we ask what the future will bring, or rather, what we will make of it. Poets ask questions as we all do. Here you will hear their anxieties mixed with memory, concerns about what is possible, inevitable, and what we can hope for!

~ Kathabela

Beyond the Sunset (Photo – Stevie Strang).

Robert (Art) Kingston

Distant shores cry at the gate, the craving likened to standing in a puddle. I, through binoculars, see more than one universe measured in the​i​r own separate orbs.

kicking up leaves
this autumn day filled
with golden moments
I turn the corner and walk
deeper into the unknown

Robert (Art) Kingston​, of Rayleigh Essex​, ​United Kingdom ​has been ​published previously in our poetry corner and in anthologies and magazines around the globe. Visions both new and old feature daily in this poets mind.​ ​He draws on his experiences in his private and work life in an attempt to understand the pushes and pulls of today’s politics and environmental changes. An optimist, he remains focused on campaigning for a better world for all.

Ο Ο Ο

​Gayle Sweeper​

Shrinking. The world seems to be shrinking. Too many wild canons firing. I want to turn my back on it but yet I don’t want to leave. In the sixties we were told the world was out of control. Looking back, I know that time was idyllic. A time of beauty. Of great love, open and unashamed. I wish only that I had taken more time to enjoy it.

guilt and shame
that’s how we were
made to feel
in the fifties era
the world needs more laughter now

​Gayle Sweeper​​ ha​s​ been reading, learning and writing tanka and tanka prose for nearly seven years on internet sites. She says: “Along with other Japanese short forms, it has given me inspiration to live my life more fully. I reside, and have always lived, in Brisbane, Australia.”

Ο Ο Ο

Roy Kindelberger​

​I​ found a man with his hands in his face. Defeated. A former teacher, now in his late seventies. His Alzheimer’s progresses rapidly. Along with other health concerns. A list. He has trouble communicating his needs. But this is clear. As he sits on a bench. Clear, he’s emotionally exhausted. I go over and sit next to him.

deaths door
opens wider each day
a new journey
silently i put my arm
around his shoulder

Roy Kindelberger​​ is an elementary teacher and memory care manager. He lives in Edmonds WA. Roy says: “As I make my journey through a memory care home, helping residents, I feel a connection. Even if it’s only for a moment. That connection of a handshake, a hug, a tear, a story, or a laugh. It most certainly puts things into perspective.”

Ο Ο Ο

Gerry Jacobson

I’m in the roof garden. She plays around me, locking me in her world of make belief. He comes to the kitchen screen door and looks up at me. “Nan-nan!” he bellows. I know he’s calling me “Grandad!” Wants me to let him out so he can come up to the roof garden. Sometimes I feel trapped by her, the three-year-old. Clearly she doesn’t want me to play with him. She’s so jealous. But this weekend he acknowledges me for the first time (he’s 14 months), wanting my help, my protection perhaps. Well I am his granddad too.

Isaac crawls
with determination
and purpose
pulling himself up
into the world to come

Gerry Jacobson​ lives in Canberra, Australia. A geologist, now dancer, grandad, poet hiking the bush, he was born in London, UK. He helps Kathabela by invitation, posting a weekly prompt on ‘Tanka Poets on Site’, a writing group she hosts on Facebook. This most recent prompt, #79, was called “The World To Come”.

Ο Ο Ο

Carole MacRury

Haiga by Carole MacRury.

Carole MacRury​ lives in Point Roberts, Washington, on the US/Canadian border. She says: “Whenever I’m out in nature I see metaphors for life, as in these two buds…”

Ο Ο Ο

> Stevie Strang is a poet and photographer living in the beach town of Laguna Niguel, CA. Caring for her aging mother, she sees the green new growth of regeneration and speaks clearly of it in her art and poetry.