"Keep an Eye on Summer"

A quick posting today to celebrate the fiftieth year of the Beach Boys. Fifty years?! On this blog of poetry, prose, memory, and musings,here is memory and material for musing, "Keep an Eye on Summer." Ah, youthful yearnings and days gone by...

Music, Memory, Moody Blues

For Open Link Monday on IGWRT, linked by the little froggy button on the right, I offer this selection. I included my favorite Moody Blues song,"Go Now." It always takes me back to 1965 when I was a sophomore at Michigan State University. Sweet memories. This poem, though, is fictional.

"Reaction"

It's snowing here,
and I recall the poet Frost,
his easy wind and downy flake,
appropriate, pretty words.

In speaking, though,
my words fall leadenly to the floor,
bits of ice edged in gray
as you look away,
pulled in directions I don't see
to some invisible point
way
beyond
me.

"For the Architect: a Work Order"

"For the Architect: a Work Order"

Design a space in pure blue air,

reflecting stars reached by a stair

and moonlight lamps along the hall.

Be generous.  We'll use it all in beauty there.

Design a space in darkness now,

where whispers reveal every vow

and too little thinking takes me

from present to past quietly, no light allowed...

For Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads Sunday challenge, I offer this florette, a form designed by Jan Turner.  For more information on this challenge and for more florettes, click on the little frog button on the right.

Photo from publicdomainpictures.net.

"Old Voices"

"Old Voices"

Farmers with gray-gravelled voices

and soil-sculpted faces

buy their cigarettes and sell their talk

at the Williams store

where smoke-soaked walls

and paper-bagged produce

somehow prove that the rhythm of the plow

and the smell of diesel fuel

give their lives

true credence.

For "Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads" challenge, "Poor Dirt Farmer."  Click on the little frog button to the right to read more about this writing prompt.

Ennio Morricone - Gabriel's Oboe (In Concerto - Venezia 10.11.07)

Sometimes all we have to do is listen...

Oboe

Sonorous, so rich -
here is the music of dreams,
and such is my heart.

"Moonlight Blue" - Inside the Envelope

I made this little collage awhile back, basing it on the memory of a dress I wore to a college dance in 1965.   The poem is written in envelope quatrain:

xxxxxxa

xxxxxxxb

xxxxxxxb

xxxxxxxa

For the Sunday challenge in "Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads": Click on the little froggy button on the right for more information and for more poems written by these talented folks.

"Moonlight Blue"

In distant, fragrant clouds, times past,

I learned to dance as shadows fell -

with stars to dress my hair as well,

the night around me, time too fast,

I wore a dress of moonlight blue.

With faintest footsteps, dancing deep,

I had a memory to keep,

and through the years I can't see through

the distant, fragrant clouds at all.

The toll, the knell of time that's gone

is what remains when I'm alone,

when Cinderella's left the ball.

"Endings"

This evocatively beautiful photograph was taken by Susie Clevenger; I'm using it for the Sunday challenge on "Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads."  Interested in seeing more?  Just click on the little froggy button on the right.

"Endings"

Goodbye.  I'm going to stand here for awhile,
let the perfume of smoke and engine oil stick
     to my skin a bit longer,
let the small waiting crowd peer through
     my dark glasses once more,
and then permit  memory
to sit here on my shoulders
and whisper stories I no longer treasure but dread,
of the terrible tearing away
from the intimacy we pretended
in our sheer desperation and foolish youth.