These are all so great!

I will think of you all - pillow therapy! - when I hit the hay tonight.

KS/Stan 

Greetings, Poets!

Anyone want to have another go at a 10-minute poem, posting sometime on Monday again as we did last week?

If so, here's a possible theme (and please do feel free - anyone! - to propose themes anytime):

Fox.

Happy writing, everyone.

KateSinging 

 Hello Writers!

    I got up early this morning and wrote this poem about Fox - which is really a poem about the nature of friendship, pleasure, and acceptance.  I must admit that it is NOT a 10-minute poem, mainly because I just got into a groove and went somewhere I didn't anticipate going, led by the charming Fox into his world.  But that's the point, I think:  those 10 minutes can open or shut, just as you please, and as long as something happens -  some wind blows - we have every reason to be pleased and proud.

    Happy writing, friends.

    Foxily,

    KateSinging

Being Friends with Fox

Fox gavottes about the kitchen making tea,

laying strips of field mouse on wheaten crackers. 

Since we became friends I’m intimate with his kitchens:

the one in the blackberry hedge,

the mossy one flush against the crooked stones,

the tunnel that muddies your coat, going down.

He takes me into the dusk

as though it were a room in his house –

an early star a lamp he pulls alight,

the wide field carpeted in golden rod,

the pines in shadow cousins who rustle

warning or encouragement.

He is dubious about the moon,

captain of neighborhood gossips,

who stays up all night with her curtains open,

but courteous, tipping his sleek tapered head

in thanks for a vole she shows him.

He is:  private and gallant

master of paths that run you unscratched through bramble

epicurean of brook water and grass-tasting creatures

a spy unraveling a hundred codes in a single instant

friendly with the wind in autumn

impatient with the last of the snow

respectful of owl and headlights casting their

hard golden eyes over the road

I would trust him to take me anywhere

I would trust him with all my secrets –

but not with my chickens.

Being friends with Fox means

pleasure and discretion,

sympathy from teeth to tail

and over the spectrum of hungers.

So I lock up my chickens

and win dusk, night and dawn.

Gaining a friend like Fox,

who wouldn’t make such a trade?

Kate Chadbourne

3 January 2008

Kate, your poem Being Friends with Fox is too wonderful!  I'm reading a book from the Redwall series, and your poem is just like reading the book.  Thanks for sharing it.

KateSinging:

 

 Hello Writers!

    I got up early this morning and wrote this poem about Fox - which is really a poem about the nature of friendship, pleasure, and acceptance.  I must admit that it is NOT a 10-minute poem, mainly because I just got into a groove and went somewhere I didn't anticipate going, led by the charming Fox into his world.  But that's the point, I think:  those 10 minutes can open or shut, just as you please, and as long as something happens -  some wind blows - we have every reason to be pleased and proud.

    Happy writing, friends.

    Foxily,

    KateSinging

 

 

Being Friends with Fox

 

Fox gavottes about the kitchen making tea,

laying strips of field mouse on wheaten crackers. 

Since we became friends I’m intimate with his kitchens:

the one in the blackberry hedge,

the mossy one flush against the crooked stones,

the tunnel that muddies your coat, going down.

 

He takes me into the dusk

as though it were a room in his house –

an early star a lamp he pulls alight,

the wide field carpeted in golden rod,

the pines in shadow cousins who rustle

warning or encouragement.

He is dubious about the moon,

captain of neighborhood gossips,

who stays up all night with her curtains open,

but courteous, tipping his sleek tapered head

in thanks for a vole she shows him.

 

He is:  private and gallant

master of paths that run you unscratched through bramble

epicurean of brook water and grass-tasting creatures

a spy unraveling a hundred codes in a single instant

friendly with the wind in autumn

impatient with the last of the snow

respectful of owl and headlights casting their

hard golden eyes over the road

 

I would trust him to take me anywhere

I would trust him with all my secrets –

but not with my chickens.

 

Being friends with Fox means

pleasure and discretion,

sympathy from teeth to tail

and over the spectrum of hungers.

 

So I lock up my chickens

and win dusk, night and dawn.

Gaining a friend like Fox,

who wouldn’t make such a trade?

 

Kate Chadbourne

3 January 2008

 

Thank you, Billizetti!

I haven't read those Redwall books yet but have often noticed them.  Is there a favorite you could recommend?

And are the foxes of Redwall gallant but susceptible to chicken-hunger?

blessings to you and all your own foxes -

KateSinging 

I admire your skillful writing, KateSinging.  While I am short on words but long in the world of visual art, I am enthralled by good writing that puts me in the middle of the adventure and takes me away on a journey to other worlds.  Thank you for sharing your gift, KateSinging. 

- chameleon

 Thank you SO much, Chameleon!

I am loving Artella as a way to lead me into the words that I love, the thinking that's fun and nourishing, and the sharing that makes me feel happy and connected with people like you.

On that note, I am learning tons about the visual arts by looking at your work and the work of all the talented artists here.  Here's me in poetry-land, completely unaware of even the idea of altered books, digital ephemera, art journals...  All of this is new and exciting to me.  I see a journey across that bridge in the near future!

 flyingly yours,

KateSinging
 

Those are such nice words, KateSinging.....Fly high, Fly free, Fly Far

- chameleon

KateSinging,

Hey!  I'm back in the county after a week of travel.  I'm up for a 10 minute poem.  What's the plan, Stan?

Bo 

 Hey, welcome back,.Bo!

    In honor of your recent adventures, would you like to write a 10-minute poem on the theme of cruising?

    Or, some other theme?

   And should we say post our poems by Tuesday 5 pm?

 
Hope it was a marvelous, restorative, fun, and creative time for you -

Stan
 

It's a plan.
10 minute poem, in by Tuesday at 5 CST.

Theme:  CRUISING. 

from Bo,

who has a lot to say about cruising and will have a hard time stopping at 10 minutes.
I may never leave my house again. 

This is not a happy, I loved vacation poem, but it’s been on my mind, and the words were ready to be written.  Sorry for no sunny sky visions of sugarplums.

A Week-Long Cruise

On the sixth day
His only clean clothes were two pair of socks
And of the full-of-promise four hundred dollars he’d stuffed in his bag
The blackjack dealer had won all but ten
Which he spent on a fifth of cheap rum
That he drank in ragged gulps as he paced the Lido Deck.

He can't take his eyes from the open waves of the sea.

 
Bo

 

 Bo, my friend, that is one powerful poem.  Yow.  I've read it half a dozen times and it keeps its punch.

 No apologies about the dearth of sugarplums.  Raw and honest trumps sticky and fake anyday.

Thank you so much for sharing this.

Stan
 

Here's another cruise - definitely riffing off of yours, Bo. 

Cruising

Checking out chicks in the Camaro

Big Gulp jammed in the cupholder

Hip hop a blaring watchdog against thought

Drunk without a drink, half a mind

flung sideways from the car

and the pleasant oblivion of lobotomy

No plan or destination in the wild sea

of streets – just aimless dead reckoning

of summer by one young and wondering

if something will happen sometime soon

When does it all get started?

How many blocks and chicks until then?

KateSinging

9 January 2008

Hey, Stan,

Pretty good writing there.  You sure know how to make the most of 10 minutes!  What happens when you spend a day or two? 

Shall we do another 10 minute poem?  Let's go back to Friday, there's enough time.  You call the time, I'll throw out a subject.  Let's go with

CONFIDENCE

All you poets out there - join in.

Bo