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A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi. (In front of you, a precipice. Behind you, wolves.)

Sunday, May 15, 2022

National Limierick Day--May 15--Storymakers

 

 

I went up to Provo to see

If my book was a winner Whitney

But the prize went elsewhere

I was stuck to my chair

But the conf'rence rocked radically!

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

Saturday, April 30, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day the 30th--Tyburn Poems--Dancing in the Wind

 

On this lastest day of April Poetry Month, we're doing Tyburn Poems. To learn how to write this  devilishly difficult poem, go here. Otherwise, below:


DANCING IN THE WIND

Lifting

Floating

Turning 

Reaching

Dancing lightly lifting floating fray

Flying turning reaching Gran Jette

 ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

 

 

 

Friday, April 29, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 29--Poem in my Pocket--Spurs and Point Shoes


 This is National Poem in my Pocket Day. If you want to know about it, go here. If not, here's one of mine:

Spurs and Point Shoes

When she was young she thought

By this age she would be unstoppable

A force to reckon with.

She thought she would be a ballerina, 

A successful artist,

A beloved wife and mother.

And all her muscle work and stretching out and bleeding toes 

Would pay off.

She thought she would have all the answers.

Her dreams would have gelled into a 

Cohesive Plan.

 

How little she knew.

And yet now she has fewer answers.

And fewer of them are true.

The scales have fallen from her eyes

And disillusionment takes up space in her mind and heart.

And she sees the bedraggled kitchen wench

Where once stood a proud and shining squire.

She sees layers of years and dust

Of dripping sweat and living 

Coating the once smooth skin.

Her knees creak and complain,

Back bowed in pain,

Her throat full of nodes, 

Battering the once clear voice.

Those layers and layers contain memories,

Some hard won, 

Some too easily tossed away--

 Dull pennies in a broken well.


Who she wanted to be has fled,

Betrayed her for she who came--

She who gave up and in and settled for less 

Than greatness.

She sought the truth, running it to the ground

But what, then, did she do with it?

She stands panting from the chase, a stitch in her side.

But is she who IS,

Necessarily lesser?

She is what she has done, seen, who she

Keeps about her

All the sights and places and experiences

She has tucked away in her Pandora’s box.

The corners have knocked off, the edges rounded.

Bashed and dented, 

She stands with head bowed, 

Having sometimes failed and sometimes won.

 

Wishing she could have been a Knight

But having held the stirrup cup for long, lonely years

Never having seen, done, or been enough.

The ballerina is broken,

Watching from the wings as new dancers

Take her place, 

Toe shoes all satiny pink

And unbroken.

New squires come to fight

And win, covering themselves

In fleeting glory.

She stands at the tourney sidelines

And weeps inside.

 

But maybe what is wanted is not the Knight.

Maybe what was always needed 

Is the lowly squire, ever there to help lift and light, 

Ever there to bear the cup and steady the horse.

Maybe those scars are the trophies.

Maybe even the serving wench has value

With a truth of her own.

Maybe it's simply too early

To count up the winnings

And she has merely a longer, dustier road

To tramp.

Maybe it's the lamp she holds high

That fills the sky with light for they who come

Afterward.

Maybe someday there will be

Spurs for her,

And a welcome fire and a bowl of broth.

And worth.

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

 


Thursday, April 28, 2022

National Poetry Month--28 day--Spring Senses Poems--

 


Today we're doing Spring Senses Poems. If you want to know how to do one, go here. Mine are below:

Spring looks like a haze of bright yellow, pollen-loaded blooms.

Spring sounds like the bees making the mesquites hum like a plane engine

Spring feels like a deluge inside my sinuses

Spring smells like the orange blossoms in bloom

Spring tastes like allergy medicine.

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

Can you tell allergies are kicking my rear? You can't get away from it!!!


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my ABAB poem:

A COLD OR ALLERGIES OR 

WHATEVER IT IS

How could a germ a tenth of a dot

Not even the size of a sick little chigger

Have generated gallons and gallons of snot?

The volume of tissue just grows ever bigger.

 

My nose feels as if I'd been eating ghost peppers.

I drip and I sniff but the snot just keeps comin'.

I'm out of TP thought the best of the preppers

Getting on top of it simply feels bummin'.

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This tiny foul bug to my knees now has shoved me

I can't do the things I'm required to do

I hole up in bed with the tissue and hot tea

And hope this debacle will shortly run through.

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 27-Alliteration Poem--The Chocolate Castle Caper

 

We're doing Alliteration Poems today. To learn how, go here. Et voila:

The Chocolate Castle Caper

The key keeps me coming. 

I currently call to the crusty kid

Crunching through the canes

Crows cawing caustically 

Can I creep cautiously?

I can catch a calliope calling me from

The cabin of a caravel near a caen stone castle.

A choir cants a cajoling canticle

Keeping me coming complete with key

Cadets call a cadenza in a cheery cadence.

I creep to the curtainwall 

And climb up cautiously 

Calculating the costs of collaboration.

Careful of cads, cacti, cuddly copycat cowboys,

And creepy caimans

(Kindly kill those cruddy crocodilians.

'Cause they're in cahoots

With the cabaret cabal.)

I crawl. Then clamber over.

The crusty key cantilevers,

Completing its counterclockwise

Circuit, connecting completely cattywampus.

The cabinet creaks creepily

I count to a cabillion, crashing like a cadaver

Then crawl like a caboose into the castle.

CRUD! It's a room full of cuckoo clock

Crunching cadgy cadette caddies

In cable-stitched cardigans 

Chewing chicken and chocolate!

I have no cache with this choir of

Cuckoo cutting cats and their

Cacophony of chortles.

I can't keep up with their concatenations

And cataclysmic clamor.

I crazily caper out of the castle

And into the caravel while avoiding 

Caffeine and catapults full of cats and cows.

Carumba they cut! Quit!

I'm careening and capering.

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

 



Tuesday, April 26, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 26--Bookspine Poems

 

 We're doing bookspine Poems today. If you want to learn how to do these, go here. And now for a big explanation:

We decided to have the rule in our family (after remembering the shenanigans we and our sibs got up to in our youths) that after the kids turned 12, they would spend the night in their own beds unless it was with parents home, that we knew WELL, or some kind of church thing like scout or girl's camp. Our youngest daughter was utterly disgusted with that rule and wrote a whole angry diatribe book about how she hates Mom and Dad and THE RULE. We found it hilarious and keep that book in our box of memories along with other fiance blackmail pictures and items. So this poem is all about what I think my privateer (so pirate with permission) forebear might have been thinking since he NEVER (that I know) mentioned his parents or even the country of his birth.

By the way, the author of the angry diatribe book has grown up a LOT and is no longer livid about spending the night in her own bed...;)

So I suppose this poem would read something like:

I hate Mom and Dad

I'm the eldest rebel

A soul so rebellious

Now seeking the Spirit

As my inheritance

John McKusick
 ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

Monday, April 25, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 25--Diatelle Poems--To the Temple

 

So  this is a difficult poem to write called a Diatelle. If you want to learn how to do one of these, go here. Mine is below:

TO THE TEMPLE

Home

God's space

Father's place

Eternal peace

Serving the human race

A delightful spiritu'l feast

I spend one happy day a week at least

To the Temple with anticipation I roam 

Letting go of world's problems--such release

Helping Grandma, Uncle, and Niece

I go before God's face

Blessings increase

Lineage trace

God's grace

Womb

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

 

 

Sunday, April 24, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 24--Haiku Poem--Horned Toad


We're doing Haiku today. To read about Haiku, go here. Here's mine:

Grumpy toad, blood in your eye

So tiny and fat

Run away if you can, Chub.

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy




 
 


Saturday, April 23, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 23--Tetractys Poem--

 

Lost

Foggy

Mind missing

Head full of smoke

Neverland claims it's own soul once again 

Until its grip relaxes, pushes off

And I drift home

To the place

Where love

Lives

 ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy



 

 

 

 

 

 


 


Friday, April 22, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 22, 22--Acrostic Poems, Silences, Camping

Today we're doing Acrostic poems. If you can't figure out how to do them (there are a couple of ways) go here. Otherwise, below:

SILENCES

Secrets building behind her lips, explosive, corrosive, thrusting at the bars.

I have nowhere safe to let them free, she said, quivering. He doesn't want them.

Listen without judging, without defending, she begged. I could smell her fear.

Embrace instead of attacking, without forming me into a paper doll. Snip. Snip. Snip.

Need to trust the person with whom I've built a life, but can't.

Can't bear to break the silence, hoping to change things for the better, only to fail.

Enticing--the impotent reticence. It looks safe, but rots from the inside out.

Someday....

 ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

 


CAMPING

Creating home away from home from a couple of canvas walls and a torture cot

A sleeping bag the size of a coffin

Marshmallows stale enough to pound nails with

Peeing in a hole in a board that smells like a bog--if you make it

Itching from something you picked up tromping through the forest

Night sneaking animals and insects that can bite or give off incredible stench

Great fun and I'd do it again in a minute!

  ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

Thursday, April 21, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 21--Cinquains--Patience

 


Today we're doing cinquains. Here's the explanation. Here's my poem:

PATIENCE

Waiting with grace

God employs it often

Handy coping mechanism 

FOREBEAR

 ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy


Wednesday, April 20, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 20--5 W's Poem--Kilt kilt--AABBA Poem--The Highlander's Lament

 

This is my 5 Ws poem. However, I didn't go strictly by the exact order because it didn't work that way. If you want to learn the order, go here. Otherwise, my kilt poem: 

KILT KILT

Granny once went to Scotland fair 

When the world was young and bare

She asked me what she could buy me there

 Hoping candy would be my fare

"A Kilt!" I said with a great deal of care



When at last my gran came home

Never to Scotland again to roam

She gave me a doll. Said "Hair to comb!

Kilts were $100 a foot, you gnome!

Next time just ask for a finger of foam." 


And so I lit instead on another path

To earning my kilt, instead of wrath

Became my clan's editor-in-chief I hath

With words I won my kilt plus math

Because $900 bucks plus is completely daft

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

 

Here's my other poem for today:

 

THE HIGHLANDER'S LAMENT (written as Johnny McKusick)

(A titch naughty but inspired by the Great Moth Influx of '22--a horribly real occurrence)

My kilt has been chomped by a moth

There are teacup-sized holes in the cloth

The holes there and there

Causing lassies to stare

I canna just ignore them both.

 

I might have to cut them away

But then too little fabric will stay

It'd be a tight skirt

Covered up by a shirt

I'd have no cloth leftover to play

 

At one hundred bucks a foot

I don't have the dollars to boot

On the front there's a patch

And the back has a match

I no longer my bagpipes will toot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For sporrans in front give a cheer

But for patches things might appear

I'm happy to say 

By the end of the day

I've had plenty of offers for beer

 

So if you should find it's your lot

That moths hole your kilt like a pot

Better take heart and mind

And a lassy you find

Who treasures what jewels (and patches) you've got!

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy



 

 

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 19--Rhyme Royal--When You Live in a Desert

 

Today we're doing a Rhyme Royal. If you want to tackle this more difficult form and don't know how, go here. Otherwise, here's my poem: 

WHEN YOU LIVE IN A DESERT

Living in deserts without drifting snow

Your winters are full of unbearable heats

Ice won't paint flow'rs on your frosty window

No ice for skating in thick enough sheets

Rolled socks for throwing must be snowball cheats 

I want to move somewhere the snowflakes fall

No dangerous poisons and stickers tall

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy




Monday, April 18, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 18--Brevette Poems


 

 

Pluto

N E E D S

Indigo

Exhaustion 

B R E E D S 

Carelessness

Imagination

B E C K O N S

Awe

If you want to know what a brevette poem is, go here.

Sunday, April 17, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 17-- Free Verse Poem--Faceless

 

I got this picture for Christmas. While it is beautifully done, and I enjoy it, it profoundly bothers me. In fact, all pictures of this sort bother me as I feel it reduces a person to their surface details, while ignoring the deeper qualities reflected in a person's face. With Christ, that problem is magnified a hundred fold.


 FACELESS

Why

Would I know You

By everything You

Are not?

You were never

About clothes or hair

Surface detritus

Nothingnesses

They do not matter to You, 

Those details lost in other

Importances

 

You are all about

Depth-less, Boundless, Eternal Eyes

Full of Eternity 

Lit with the Light of your Creations

Awash with All the Love

All the Caring,

All the Infinite Longing

To see your younger sibs once more

Crowded around you,

Filling your arms

Clambering to be close.

 

You are those eyes

Full of infinite sadness 

And hope

For the Lost,

Those who, 

Cut and bleeding, forge their own path

Through broken glass

And broken hearts

Feeling forsaken, but not,

The takers,

Their own lives chasing

Will-o-the-wisps 

Of power

Who think they Know,

But do not care

Those who may never turn their gaze

Back to You.

 

You are those ears

That hear us calling out to You

In the night,

Offering our fears

For You to allay. 

You hear our agonies 

In the small hours

Beseeching, begging

Clambering for blessings

Answers

We rarely earn or heed,

But still beg of You.


You are those Eyes

Which See each of us,

Full of light,

Lantern-bearer

Seeker of the recalcitrant, 

The stubborn

Those who think we are our own, 

The mistaken, the clueless,

Finding us out in the stickers and rocks

Leading us back

To the safety of Fold,

Our little faces raised in Trust, 

But still distractable. 

You are there to guide

In perfect patience.

 

Yours are those lips which,

Utterly Guile-less,

Say the words we must hear.

You whisper of enduring,

Of doing and finding

Of serving, and growing

And realizing.
 
You speak

The Comfort we crave

Those magic-seeming,

So simple,

Difficult Words

That show us how to

Pick our way

Back Home. 

 

You are Your all-engulfing arms

Those havens from darkness

Those deceptively strong 

Pillars of strength

That hold us to Your 

Limitless Heart

That remind us we are Loved

With such billowing, blazing, 

Boundless Love

That we can never comprehend it all.


You are those Eyes.

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy




Saturday, April 16, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 16--Naani Poem--

 

 Today we're doing Naani Poems. To find out how to do those, go here. Mine:

LOVE AND LIGHT

 We come down to this world

Knowing nothing but love

Leaving with slightly more

God's precious light's a trove   

 

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

 

Friday, April 15, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 15--Octopoems--Spelunking

 




Today we're doing Octopoems. To find out what that is, go here. Mine is below:

 SPELUNKING

I sit in the dark with my headlamp off. The black is so dense I can barely breathe.

No season matters in this Stygian place of silken draperies, chocolate ribbons, buttery bacon, and crazy-shaped Helictites

Beneath, a watery floor who knows how deep, puddles full of cave pearls and blind fish

For weather, only the drip drip dripping of seeping water hitting my helmet and a breathe of passing breeze

My grubbies are mud from the bottoms of my ragged shoes to the top of my head lamp

I sit on a stone stool to wait for my following son, who is chimney-ing down the last of the narrow crevasse.

I'm so glad I have my helmet on, or I'd have M*A*S*H-ed my head a hundred times.

Might as well have the sandwich I didn't want to leave in the car to give me food poisoning. Yum. Dirt.

These are 5 of our 6 children.
  ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

 

 

Thursday, April 14, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 14--Pyramid Poem--Humans--Orange Blossoms

 

We're doing Pyramid Poems today. If you'd like to learn how, go here. Otherwise, Ta-dummmmmm:

Beings

Human beings

Human beings having  

Human beings having spiritual

Human beings having spiritual moments or spiritual beings having human moments?

  ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

 Blossoms

Orange blossoms

Orange blossoms smell

Orange blossoms smell heavenly

Orange blossoms smell heavenly as they drift to the ground 

  ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy


 

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 13--What if Poem--Wide Open


 

Today it's What if Poems. Here's how to do them. Here's my poem: 

WIDE OPEN

What if I didn't let others' imaginations limit what I could do with my mind?

 I could break out of the box and into the wild blue beyond.




What if being able to do that only needs letting go of preconceived notions.

I could do anything in my head or out of it.


 

What if all I needed was something to light the way?

I could ILLUMINATE the way for a myriad others.



What's stopping me?

 ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy


Tuesday, April 12, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 12--Quinzaine--So HOT!!!--plus

 


We're doing Quinzaine Poems today. If you want to know how to do one, go here. Otherwise, mine are below: 

Sunny oven in summer

Why is it so hot?

Grow more weeds.

 ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

We recently had a General Conference for our church. One of the leaders got a note from a little boy who had had it with all the boring sitting around listening. These are their words:

Why is conf'rence so boring?

Why do we do it?

Salvation.

Monday, April 11, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 11--Tan-Renga Poem--Friendship

 Today we're doing Tan-Renga Poems and I'm doing mine with my friend Janet DeSantos. The Tigger is an inside joke. If you want to know how to do one of these, go here. Otherwise, here's our poem:

Friendship is priceless

Seeing life through others' eyes

Equal give and take 

Caring, sharing life on Earth

Friendship is a gift from God

 ©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

Sunday, April 10, 2022

National Poetry Month--Day 10--"ING" poems--Tardigrade, Doggy--Free Verse--My Mom

 

Tardigrade

Existing

Toodling

Drinking

Swimming

Breeding

Monstering


©2022 by H. Linn Murphy

Today we're doing "ing" poems (plus I did a free verse one). If you want to know what that is, go here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

DOGGY

Fetching

Sniffing

Barking

Protecting

 Herding

Sleeping

Gnawing 

Racing

Flying

Catching

Peeing

Burying  

Grinning  

 



My Mom

From when I was tiny

You were my mirror And my lantern,

Holding aloft an example

Of what it means to become

A woman of God.

You are the woman on her knees,

Twice the missionary

You are the most patient,

The kindest, the busiest,

The most creative,

Curious about nature,

And about the world around us.

Mom the trouble shield

Though supportive wife

The go-getter-est, most intrepid

Person I know.

More than that,

You were always SERVICE.

You were there when

You wished to be anywhere else,

Making it work for the rest of us.

Because it was what you do.

You build 'HOME'.

You build the future out of

Snips and smidges

And things others left behind.

You believed in a clumsy ballerina

And a squeaky violinist

And a writer of books

You, the ebullient,

Player of Scrabble

With a twinkle in your eye,

Who hopes to win,

But gladly acclaims others' wins.

The creator of art and life,

The cork who rises to the top,

The water off a duck's back,

The 'This-too-will-pass' person.

You taught in spite of not knowing

The language where you lived.

You the globe-spanning teacher,

Cleanser of hospitals, bedrooms,

Mistakes and hearts,

You bloom where planted.

You, a fearsome warrior

For the righteous.

You who take meals to the sick,

Bake bread for the hungry,

Make dolls for the world,

You, the erstwhile debutante

Give clothing to children

IN Africa, You who work in hospitals

And orphanages,

Who walk though lame,

Who digs up the past,

You who hunt relatives

Like a coursing hawk.

You who care fiercely

For her young,

Who taught us hard work didn't hurt,

My mother who remembers

The little things,

And gives them back

As big things.

You the sentinel of the broken,

Who dragged me around the world

When I was too young to appreciate

All you sacrificed for me

And for our family and

Everyone you know

You, Mom, are my HEROINE. 

You are my world.

©2022 by H. Linn Murphy