Poets Salon: Hopeful Tidings

POETS SALON

– 03/25/20

Hosted by Kath Abela Wilson

low tide
a driftwood monster so scary
I throw it back

out of the blue
they arrive in an instant
angels and monsters

~ Kath Abela

Empty train (Photo – Stevie Strang)

ai li

i sit

in
a deserted piazza

hear
the fountains
hoarse from singing

Ο

i love

the breath
of flowers

when they open
when their world
is new

Ο

blossoms

in
my hair

and
on my face
another april

Ο

i’m closer to god here

the mesopotamia
of dreams

where ancient artefacts
bury themselves
in desert sand

The above poems can be found in ai li’s new book of cherita and haiku: keepsake.

Ο Ο Ο

Daffodils (Photo – Kath Abela Wilson)

Jules Leigh Koch

late afternoon beach

and a child is burying with his bucket and spade
the last scraps of sunlight

about him waves are collapsing
onto the shore
with the weight of continents.

(…it is a beautiful thing to watch a child play. In this science fiction we are all living in , we need to have hope.)

Ο

Each evening on her eighth story balcony

she replaces the flowers
next to the Stone Temple
then begins her meditations
while her night fills with origami stars and a rice paper moon

Ο

woman buys a bunch of daffodils
in the shop’s doorway we brush against each other

her yellow scented smell and stringless kite-like smile has tangled around my heart
long after she has passed by

Ο Ο Ο

Snowbound writer (Photo – Stevie Strang)

Stevie Strang

six days into lock down
..morning meditation
……and a glimmer
………..of hope

mountain road
we drive into the fog
back into ourselves

winter mountains
the many shades
of wind

Ο

breathtaking sunset
not one passenger
on the train
corona virus

Ο

snow moon
he puts another log
on the fire

Ο

free to write
the day away
snowbound

Ο Ο Ο

The bees and I (Photo – Mrynm Prym)

Mrym Prym

After two weeks of home quarantine due to the wide spread of Coronavirus, I finally decided to go out for a walk. The big park was silent and empty of people; In acres and acres of land, I could only see maybe five or six -10 at most- people. A kind of heavenly silence was upon the grass which were slowly slowly growing out of the cold grim soil, and the place was so silent, I could hear the buzzing of the bees from meters away and the sound of cracking of the delicate branches under the crows’ feet. It seemed like the silence had even made the smells sharper, like I could smell the small patches of the clouds in the sky, and the cold dew on the ivy leaves.

winter day
enjoying the same air
the bees and I

Ο

Hopeful heart clouds (Photo – Stevie Strang)

Hopeful Tidings: Quotes and Credits

ai li: “Finding the mountains in the city over the years, writing and reading good haiku, tanka and now cherita, has kept me grounded and made me even more mindful of all living things around me. These poems continue to help slow me down during times of stress and chaos and enable me to safely retreat to a sacred place within, my spiritual oasis, to heal. I found my mountains in the city, an inner room to go to and be still in when the going gets tough. I hope you will find yours. I have edited this book to be experienced two ways, as a storybook and as an anthology of individual poems. This book belongs to a collection of life journals written as contemporary haiku and tanka poems. The cherita has now joined the ranks of these life journals. These poems are touched by zen, loss, joy, the surreal, temps perdu, the erotic, humour, truth, the everyday, and dare i say it – the sublime.”

ai li explains: “Cherita is the Malay word for story or tale. A cherita consists of a single stanza of a one-line verse, followed by a two-line verse, and then finishing with a three-line verse. It can be written solo or with up to three partners.”

The cherita tells a story. It was created by ai li on the 22 June 1997 in memory of her grandparents who were raconteurs extraordinaire. See more about cherita and its variations here.  ai li publishes a monthly journal: the cherita.

Jules Leigh Koch: “It is the tiny moments of interaction that keeps us human.” Jules lives in South Adelaide, Australia, and has published four collections of poetry. He also has worked as a mentor with writers from the Richard Llewellyn Arts and Disability Trust. Koch works as an educator in his local primary school.

Stevie Strang: “This morning I was a bit down because of it all and opened the back slider and saw a heart in the clouds. I take that as a bit of hope. (My dad sends me hearts when I think of him.) Hopefully we will get out of this sooner than later. We will be a whole new country when we do.”  Stevie Strang​​​ lives, writes, and photographs in the beach town of Laguna Niguel​, California.

Mrym Prym lives in Iran: “I sometimes write a little something- haiku etc, and take nature pictures. I’m living the 32nd spring of my life; an absolutely weird spring the like of which I had never seen before. I hope these hard days finish sooner, so that once more we can walk in the open and feel the sun without any worries.”

Kath Abela‘ s haiku above can be found in her collection Driftwood Monster, Haiku for Troubled Times (Locofo Chaps, Moria Press 2017).

♣ Send your submissions by midnight Sunday, Pacific time, on the theme: “thinking Out of the Box in troubled times” or suggest your own theme. Send short poems, haiku, senryu, tanka, cherita haibun, tanka prose, short prose poems, etc., or your own unique approach, to Kath Abela by Facebook message or click here to email her directly. We can feature your work again after five months. Multiple Submissions can be saved to appear later:

1. Send a short bio, comments on the theme.
2. Send photos or artwork by you, if possible.
3. No attachments except photos.

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