SALT CITY VERSE – Page 10 – Mostly Poetry for Children

TRIOLET: Morning Walk

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Susan, on her blog Chicken Spaghetti. Thank you, Susan, for hosting!

What is Poetry Friday? Find out here. It’s a great way to get to know other poets and others who love poetry.

Yesterday I was walking and saw this very common winter sight:

A barren forsythia in winter.

A bare tree. But since it is January, I began to think about spring and how everything will change in a few months. It’s not too early to start to think ahead. After all, days are slowly getting longer and there is no going back.

So since yesterday I tried to capture this bare shrub in a poem, and chose a French form known as the triolet. Some examples can be found here, including examples by poets Laura Purdie Salas and Amy Ludwig Vanderwater. If you are not familiar with this eight line form, it’s described nicely here, at a Masterclass site.

Below are the characteristics of each line. The first two lines are repeated in the last two lines.

Writing a Triolet:

1. The first line (A)
2. The second line (B)
3. The third line rhymes with the first (a)
4. Repeat the first line (A)
5. The fifth line rhymes with the first (a)
6. The sixth line rhymes with the second line (b)
7. Repeat the first line (A)
8. Repeat the second line (B)

After a few tries, and several hours, after discarding “tree” and “bush” for for “shrub,” which seemed more interesting, I came up with this:

Morning Walk

By the road a flowering shrub,
branches cold and bare,
in wintertime, ignored and snubbed,
by the road a flowering shrub.
Like a member of a dormant club
that seems without a care,
by the road a flowering shrub
branches cold and bare. 

© Janice Scully (draft)

Here’s a picture of the direction we are headed. You get the idea. I don’t know what kind of flower this is. Does anyone know? I don’t believe it is forsythia.

Happy Winter to you all from cloudy Upstate New York!

Your Wondrous Liver

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Catherine Flynn Here. Make sure you stop by and find out what she has up her sleeve for us this week. Thank you for being the first host of the year!

What is Poetry Friday? Learn more HERE.

I’ve had a reset with the new year. I’ve have returned to a few manuscripts that have been dormant for a while, with new eyes. One is a manuscript of poetry about the non-fiction topic DIGESTION, of all things.

My plan was two years ago to write a poem about “Team Digestion” that is, all the organs involved in this important endeavor. I was thinking perhaps that kids about seven might like to know where their food goes and that I might have fun writing about it. Also, no matter where you live or who you are, what happens to your food is always the same.

It was fun.

Anyway, I wrote poems, in several different forms, some of them I really like, some not so much, along with non-fiction notes to go with each.

But with this new year, I decided a prose picture book story about digestion is more suited to the topic, not to mention, way more publishable. I’ve revised and written a manuscript that I am much more excited about, more fun to read, and it captures the teamwork involved in digestion.

You’ll have to take my word for it.

But I have poems that I can share. Below is an etheree about a very important part of the team. It’s the mastermind, the liver, that takes all the thoroughly digested nutrients from the busy small intestine, and puts them together to make all the proteins and other things the body needs to grow.

An etheree is a ten line poem that starts with one syllable and ends with ten syllables. Each line grows by one syllable.

LOOKS DON’T TELL MY WHOLE STORY

Red
silent
sentinel
never asleep
lord of the belly
lounging like a walrus
in the right upper corner
Some things do not look impressive,
yet do the unimaginable.
Such is the case with the wondrous liver. 

© Janice Scully 2023

I’ll close with short two liner about the Gall Bladder. Have a great Weekend!

WHAT IS A GALL BLADDER?

This organ is the pear shaped bin
your liver stores its bile in.

© Janice Scully 2023

Human liver with gallbladder, duodenum and pancreas isolated vector illustration

Rocks and Socks

Welcome to the last Poetry Friday of 2022, this week hosted by poet Patricia Franz Here. Thank you for hosting, Patricia! Make sure you check in and see what Patricia has for us this week!

Because of a car trip to our relatives, and idle time in a car, I have been knitting a pair of socks. Because it’s small, a sock project is easy to bring along. What does this have to do with poetry?

A year ago, I was thinking of possible writing projects and considered using pairs of words that rhymed. Socks and rocks were two of the words I thought of. What did they have in common? Was there a poem there?

Would these two rhyming words yield humor? I had no idea if anyone but me would see opportunity here. Anyway, about rocks and socks I came up with a poem. I revised my initial attempt and like it better. I hope we all find ideas to inspire us over this new year.

ROCKS and SOCKS

Two words rhyme, 
four letters the same.

Rocks--hard, 
scattered on beaches and trails,
spewed from volcanoes
in a hot molten blurs.
I wonder:
What is Earth made of?
What are fossils?

Socks-- soft.
Who invented them? 

Perhaps the first knitter
walked on rocks
stole four letters 
and made two socks. 

©Janice Scully 2022

Happy New Year! Until at least April, I wish you all a sturdy pair of socks. Thank you Patricia for hosting!

Carl Sandburg’s PHIZZOG

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by the lovely talented poet, Irene Latham HERE. Make sure you stop by to see what Irene has for us this week.

Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Get your questions answered HERE.

Because it’s the holidays and I recently traveled, I found myself looking at too many pictures of me and deleting many. I thought of being human and our personal relationship to the ever present and ever changing face we each carry around.

There I was, smiling in front of ancient buildings, at a Thanksgiving party with relatives, posing with my son in California. It’s surprised me how much I look like both my parents. It’s difficult to describe, but a variety of emotions welled up.

I discovered Carl Sandburg wrote a poem that resonated. It was in this book, and the poem was originally published in 1930:

PHIZZOG
by Carl Sandburg

This face you got,
This here phizzog you carry around,
You never picked it out for yourself, at all, at all--did
     you?
This here phizzog--somebody handed it to you--am I 
     right?
Somebody said, "Here's yours, now go see what you can 
     do with it."
"No goods exchanged after
     being taken away"--
This face you got.

This poem is sweet and funny. No goods exchanged, indeed!

Happy Holidays to everyone!! Hopefully the arctic weather doesn’t preclude my family from traveling four hours to see my husband’s sister for Christmas. We’ll all take our phizzogs with us for photos and celebrate Christmas and the end of 2022. We are lucky we have the freedom to do so. God bless the people of Ukraine.

An Amazing Holiday Swap gift

Welcome to Poetry Friday! This week we are hosted by Karen Edminsten HERE. Thank you Karen, for hosting! Drop by to what she is sharing this week.

Look HERE if you would you like to know more about Poetry Friday.

It is fun to get a mystery gift in the mail! So much fun, it really should happen more often! When I received my holiday swap gift from Linda Mitchell, I was busy and had forgotten, I think, that Christmas would be here soon. I’d forgotten swap time was near.

I puzzled over this bulging envelop that appeared in my mailbox for a moment before I opened it. What could this be?

Inside I found a so called “Junk journal” with all sorts of treasures spilling out from it, which made it hardly junk.

I found a package of cut out words to be used as “poem seeds,” various collage pictures, such as stars made of paper,

and, of course, poetry.

This acrostic poem by Linda came with it:

And another wonderful poem was also inside, entitled “Today’s Poem Offers”:

TODAY'S POEM OFFERS

A bumper crop of stars
fresh from the fields
of Falling Star Farms

Stars heaped up high
sparkly with dew
fresh-picked by me
ready for you

Fill a bag, fill a basket
your pockets too
with all these good wishes
my star harvest holds for you

by Linda Mitchell, 2022

My new little journal, put me in the holiday mood, so I wrote this in response:

CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

comes from the heart,
arrives in December-
a surprise when it starts.

You think you aren't ready
the Grinch has your ear,
but when it takes hold
it can light a new year.

© Janice Scully 2022

Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas! And may the holiday spirit last well into the New Year.

Portugal and a Portugese Poet

Welcome to Poetry Friday! This week we are hosted by Catherine Flynn HERE. Thank you for hosting, Catherine. I look forward to what she will be sharing this week. I saw her and Patricia Franz who is another Poetry Friday blogger, and other poetry friends last evening on line. We are attending the first week of a Georgia Heard workshops. The topic? Poetry collections!

My husband and I returned a week ago from a long planned, covid delayed, trip to Spain and Portugal, both countries beautiful,

The Duoro valley in Portugal, where they grow grapes for their famous Port wine.

with gorgeous cities and art such as the architecture of Antoni Gaudí. In his masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona, still being built, have windows that make the inside spaces glow with extraordinary color, like it was, I swear, radioactive.

Here’s a selfie of me with the city of Toledo, built on a solid granite hill, a river on three sides and buildings full of Jewish, Arab, and Christian influences. Behind me, far below, is the river and the city rising above.

People were friendly everywhere we went.

This young man named João in a university town called Cuimbra, (pronounced queem-bra) was happy to discuss the famous Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, suggest a book, and chat about Portugal.

I bought the following book from Joao, and in it I sought to discover who Fernando Pessoa was. He baffled me. According to the editor Richard Zenith, Pessoa was known for writing from the personas of many people that he created, that were part of him.

“His point of view was eloquently expressed by his . . . self-multiplication, into dozens of literary personalities whose names signed a large part of his sprawling output.” Richard Zenith

FOREVER SOMEONE ELSE; Selected Poems by Fernando Pessoa, edited by Richard Zenith

So in this book, you will find poems written by names Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Alvaro De Campos, poets all created by Pessoa. He was like a playwright writing characters who speak from their own separate selves.

Pessoa wrote about his created characters, “The Author . . . cannot affirm that all these different well-defined personalities who have incorporeally passed through his soul don’t exist, for he doesn’t know what it means to exist, nor whether Hamlet or whether Shakespeare is more real, or truly real”

So what small piece of the work can I share that might interest young people as well as adults to know more? Pessoa wrote the following accessible and beautiful poem through the poet, Ricardo Reis:

To be great, be whole: don't exaggerate
       Or leave out any part of you.
Be complete in each thing. Put all you are
       Into the least of your acts.
So too in each lake, with its lofty life,
       The whole moon shines.

I love the image of a moon in a lake that make the poem come to life.

It would take a while to get to know the many sides of Fernando Pessoa.

Below is my husband, Bart, with a sweet 19-year old waiter in a small lunch place. It’s easy to tell who is who. Everyone we met seemed to love their families and country. This young man said he wouldn’t leave as he would miss Lisbon, his family and especially, it seemed, the food. The grilled octopus and Bachalhau (codfish) were delicious.

I hope everyone enjoys the holidays. Thank you, Catherine, for hosting.

A “Cool” Restaurant Poem

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by artist and poet and champion of poetry, Jone Maculluch HERE. Thank you for hosting, Jone.

Thank you also, Bridget Magee, for sharing my poem today, THE FLOATING WATER STRIDER in her newsletter. It’s from her fabulous 10 * 10 POETRY ANTHOLOGY: Celebrating 10 in 10 Different Ways which is full of wonderful poems for kids by many talented poets.

THE FLOATING WATER STRIDER

Skates on the pond;
it never sinks.

Water is helpful
to bugs when you think

hhow molecules huddle
together to float

the six legged strider
like a little bug boat. 

© Janice Scully 2021

Hope springs eternal that someday I will complete a series of poems, which I think of as a picture book in verse, about a day in the life of a kid who lives in a family restaurant, from morning to night. I’ve posted one poem previously Here about a noisy metal dishwasher, one of my favorites. Here’s another about our walk-in-cooler.

I'M THE WALK-IN-COOLER
and just what you’d want

center stage
in your restaurant. 

Kettles of soup
I keep icy and cold.

Lamb chops and bacon
stay chilled in my hold 

Would you like a few turnips?
Parsnips, green beans?

Then slip on a sweater,
wear your long jeans

because the cooler is chilly,
you’ll shake and you'll shiver.

But it keeps our food fresh,
from parsley to liver.  

© Janice Scully 2022 (Draft)

This is an old photo from the nineties of me and my two boys in front of the restaurant. Phil and Matt thought it was cool to visit Uncle Mike at work in the kitchen where they could find unlimited French fries.

I’ll be away from my blog for a few weeks out seeking adventure. I will be searching for more ideas and poems to share. Happy Halloween! I’m voting early this Saturday and can’t wait!!

Another Halloween Poem

Welcome to Poetry Friday! This week we are hosted by the clever Bridget Magee HERE. This week she has been posting a different poem by a different poet from her anthology: 10*10: Poetry Anthology Celebrating 10 in 10 Different Ways. It’s been great reading such wonderful poems for kids, many from Poetry Friday friends.

Halloween is on my mind. I particularly love that on this holiday, dreadful things that visit and scare the daylights out of you, simply disappear the next day. Like these scary dudes, who once on a Halloween night pretended to be my children.

Gone! Whoosh! They disappeared on November first.

What an emotionally satisfying holiday and I have never, ever, appreciated Halloween more than I do this year! Maybe others feel this, too.

And as usual in Central New York, the pumpkins are amazing. Who could resist smiling in the midst of such a frightful holiday when standing amongst hundreds of bright orange pumpkins?

So, next weekend I anticipate the knocks on my door and the trail of dreadful visitors, anticipating the relief I know I will feel on November 1st when they are gone.

IN MY DREAMS

bare trees
spiders
leaves
on doormats

ghosts
tombstones
pumpkins
cats

cold wind
big moon
owl eyes
bats

I can’t go to sleep!
Witches careen! 
It seems like forever
until Halloween. 

©Janice Scully 2021 (draft)

Have a great week! And thank you Bridget for hosting!

Pre-Halloween Poem

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Matt Here. Thank you, Matt for hosting! Be sure to check out what he has for us this week.

It’s starting to look a lot like Halloween, and I’ve begun thinking about an anticipating witches and brooms.. On my computer, I have several versions of a poem inspired by a hard-working porch broom that, in autumn, was especially busy what with everything “falling.” As you can tell, it is an epistolary poem.

DEAR PORCH BROOM, on Halloween Morning


Fallen acorns 
twigs and leaves 
sticky spider webs
tired old moths.

Patient and tall,
you sweep them all.

Praying Mantis
says he’s grateful
you let him be,

and thank you 
for not chasing me.
 
So have a spooky 
night off!

Your Friend, 
Squirrel

©Janice Scully 2022

Happy fall. Have a great weekend.

Our Lucky Outpost

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Sarah Grace Tuttle, Here. Thank you, Sarah, for hosting! Be sure to stop by to see what she has for us this week.

I was browsing in a book store today and saw a book I already own by Bill Bryson, “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” I had used this book in a previous post on supernovae HERE. I sat with a coffee and read a chapter entitled “Lonely Planet,” that begins:

"It isn't easy being an organism. In the whole universe, as far as we yet know, there is only one place, an inconspicuous outpost of the Milky Way called Earth, that will sustain you, and even it can be pretty grudging." Bill Bryson p. 239

Lucky circumstances make it possible for us to be alive and thrive on Earth. Importantly, we are just the right location from the sun. Any closer, we’d burn up. Any farther we’d freeze.

Earth also has the right elements, such as oxygen, sodium, potassium, iron, and many others that we need to survive.

Our molten liquid interior apparently is a big plus. First, it helped produce the gasses in our precious atmosphere and it creates a magnetic field that protects us from cosmic radiation.

Our large moon, a quarter of the diameter compared to Earth, in it’s close proximity keeps Earth from “wobbling like a top.”

The perfection we see all around us in nature is the result of all the above fortunate happenings.

I have been writing a series of Villanelles to become more familiar with the form. So here’s one inspired by Bill Bryson and Planet Earth.

A PERFECT PLACE

Earth has been perfect place,
not too cold, not too hot,
because of where we spin in space.

Mars next door is a frozen waste,
and Venus is a fiery dot,
but Earth became a perfect place.

It's possible we could be outpaced
by "others" who gave life a shot
outside this place we spin in space,  

but so far we haven't found a trace
of oxygen in a temperate spot,
in another leafy perfect place. 

Celebrate! Embrace!
Luckier to be alive than not,
to think and feel and spin in space.

Oh, we could use a brilliant plot,
a failsafe way to save the race.
The Earth has been a perfect place,
because of where we spin in space. 

© Janice Scully 2022

Thank you Sarah for hosting. Have a great weekend everyone.