Wild Card Farewell: “ARS POETICA” for April 30, 2019

Posted on April 30, 2019 by Leslie Schultz

Ars Poetica
  
 A poem slips open into your hand
 like a cracked egg falling, wobbly but whole,
 into your old blue china mixing bowl,
 nascent but complete, soon to be transformed—
  
 new matrix binding chance observation,
 puzzled memory, and flash points of insight
 with enough artistry to draw attention.
 Some few go deep, bring a bright steel rivet
  
 to strengthen the battleship of the brain;
 platinum threads to reweave a broken heart,
 mending its weary net. Where there is pain,
 we cry out to our old mother art.
  
 Cake or bread? Confection or contusion?
 A poem serves up its startling fusion.
  
 Leslie Schultz

Thank you for joining me for this circadian exploration of words and pictures during April! Wishing you a season filled with exciting discoveries, poetic, pictorial, and otherwise!

LESLIE

Wild Card: “Weathering” for April 27, 2019

Posted on April 27, 2019 by Leslie Schultz

Weathering
  
 What is raised up in a storm of bright hope
 lifts the heart, too. We work together
 to make dreams come true. Can we make them stay?
  
 We tend, cultivate, patch, paint, and repair—
 year after year after eventful year—
 and our dreams support us, provide a roof
 to shelter honorable, essential work.
  
 For a while. For the winds of change decree
 nothing lasts for always in the same way.
 Cathedrals can combust in Gothic flames.
 Prairie storms can derange the upstanding beams
 of barns that have held our generations.
  
Demolished dreams clear the ground for different seed, 
 those new chapters we mightily resist, but need.
  
 Leslie Schultz

“Zebras” for April 26, 2019

Posted on April 26, 2019 by Leslie Schultz

Zebras
  
 I fashion zebras
 however I can. 
  
 Each one is distinct,
 printed with 
  
 patterns decreed
 under her skin.
  
 I know that the wild
 herds in my mind
  
 will not stampede
 across this page.
  
 They are fierce, free,
 run where they will.
  
 Each zebra is shy 
of reins, contains 

whole rainbows, 
has no need of me, 
  
 but still I sing to each.
 I summon them by
  
 stroking black ink
 on fields of blank 
  
 white. Maybe they
will turn, catch me 
  
 in nets cast by
 their bold stripes.
  
Then, just 
 for a moment,
  
 I can stand near, 
 breathe alongside.
  
 Leslie Schultz

Photo: Felix Broennimann, polygon-designs (pixabay)

“Yearning” for April 25, 2019

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Leslie Schultz

Yearning
  
      for Peanut 
(February 22, 2008-April 25, 2019)
  
 for things to be
                 different,
 for life to be
                 always
 knit onto beloved bones,
 for farewell to be 
      ever
                      in the offing.
  
 Leslie Schultz