Reach for the Elusive

A new you rises with the dawn.

The struggle and worry of yesterday gone.

If so you believe, so it will be,

Reach for the elusive and you shall see,

Within the mist of cool mountain rains,

Spirits singing harmonious refrains:

Joy, misery, or lie down to quit.

Lessons repeat. Choice or habit?

Poetry written waitin' on the therapist! Hmm. 

Shall I Write

Wordle 36 - The Sunday Whirl

Leave it to me to turn the words of the season into a lament!

Shall I Write

Shall I write

Shall I heed the decree

Put forth by heart at birth

The simple directions to me

Shall I write

I’ve pondered the mystery

Of the chains which bind

And hinder the journey to me

Shall I write

Or is their fear of pending joy

Peace in the familiar

‘Fear of success’ theory employed

Shall I write

Of shepherds calling the lost

Glad tidings whispered in the darkness

The heard forgotten – at what cost

Shall I write

Or stay in the cold, straw manger

Deny angels presenting clear proof

That ease need not be a stranger

Shall I write

For me or publication

I shall, however

The ‘will’ needs motivation

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Andre

Lenny and Justice

This is what was sent in my Christmas cards this year. Now to the world!

Dear Family and Friends

From a Blue Ridge Appalachian mountaintop,

in a year filled with joy, fear, and adventure,

I send you Seasons Greetings

From the midst of wilderness, where crow and hawk shift unsullied air;

where deer graze easily, and bear tracks crunch early morning frost;

rivers burble white, mist hangs low, and porch rockers roll slow.

This year, familiarity left behind and the great unknown embraced, where

strangers opened homes, shared lives, enriched me with the new. I got lost

4000 feet in the clouds’ flow and emerged whole in the dazzling road show.

Leo and London

In 2011, grandson Andre battled and conquered 

the curse of adolescence.

Bright and strong, he maintains. Lenny quarterbacked, 

turned 13 amid reports

of stunning grades. Leo is class president. 

Justice and London are boundless joys.

Lenny and Lizzie married in October with the entire family 

in happy attendance.

Kim started KeKe’s Kitchen Caterers with immediate success. Vanessa sports a bike club logo (mom’s footsteps?), 

and life is full of grand noise.

Lola, Rocky, and Mello

                                       Last but not least, 

addition of the super Mello dog complete with glorious fleas.

        Rocky met a wolf worm in the        yard beyond,  and Lola is still the resident bitch.

      Rid of all buggers, they’ve settled nicely, 

and reward me with unconditional love.

         2011 was a triumphant year. 

Whispers of 2012 float on the mountain breeze

         A novel in the works; vegetable, flower, herbal gardens, chickens, and bee hives which,

        with a milking cow, will enable steady removal of the capitalistic glove.

So,

From a Blue Ridge Appalachian mountaintop,

in a year filled with joy, fear, and adventure,

I send you Seasons Greetings!

Love,

Donna, Rocky, Lola, and Mello

Review of poetry book: Dimensions of the Kaleidoscope by Mark Lee

Recently, I wrote a book review on Shvoong and would like to link here, however, Shvoong added an image of the wrong book. So, until that is corrected, I'll not link. Below is the complete review. 

Dimensions of the Kaleidoscope. Mark Lee. Georgia: The War Book Company, 2011. 69 pages.

“The remotest discoveries of the Chemist, the Botanist, or Mineralogist, will be as proper objects of the Poet’s art as any upon which it can be employed.”  Coleridge and Wordsworth: Preface to Lyrical Ballads.

In Dimensions of the Kaleidoscope, MarkLee embodies this statement, mingling and co-mingling science with Romantic poetry.

            A googolplex is no closer to infinity

                        than is the number one,

            Just as we are no closer to unveiling the truth,

                        with all the madness done.

And

            Supernovae are remnants of exploding stars,

                        stellar winds are the color of primordial scars.

            A black hole does appear as a great spinning eye

                        in the regions of space where physics defy…

Throughout Dimensions of the Kaleidoscope, Lee compares, contrasts, and melds space, dreams, time, and love; science and emotion; and past, present, and future hypothesis into lyrical medleys.

Since I find it terribly difficult to write in quatrains, metre, and rhyme, I appreciate Lee’s ability. I personally enjoy more alliteration, and slant rhyme, yet I understand there are various schools of thought on this subject, and the jury is still out as to whether good, modern poetry should or should not rhyme. In most instances, Lee does it well.

The poetic style Lee uses in Dimensions ofthe Kaleidoscope is pure canonical Romanticism, albeit with not quite the vocabulary of the great ones. Words, images, and concepts repeated frequently and often back to back, interrupt the rhythm and flow. For example, the word “realm(s)” appears 17 times in a 65-page book, which translates to an appearance every 4.5 pages; “hue” appears every nine pages. This is not to say, however, that the some of the pieces inside Dimensions of the Kaleidoscope that words appear repeatedly in are not piercing and thought provoking.

            Above the law is a realm all to itself

            Man’s wicked capacities fueled by wealth

And

            From tempestuous skies in the blackest of night,

                        the finale of destiny neared.

            From distorted hues of black-purple light,

                        a message, though latent, appeared.

Cliché’s appear often as well, in Dimensions ofthe Kaleidoscope. “Sands of Time” and “Time and Space,” are just a couple. I would have like to see Lee use more of his own words, yet these are Romantic phrases, which is why they’ve become such clichés. One used in a poem that touched my soul was in the piece titled “The Sands of Time”:

            And then we see through the portal’s past

that nothing created was ever meant to last —

all that has failed were not the ‘dreams sublime’

but the symphonies of destruction within the Sands of Time.

I’m not sure if anything else would have worked as well. Additionally, the cliché didn’t take away from the sorrow at the realization of man’s disposability. The main theme of Lee's poems is of useless striving, or the wonder of the universe, or the minuteness of humanity. Lee explores the great questions in Renaissance style.

Among Lee’s musings on life, the lines that speak of love, lost love, and lost lives are the most powerful:

            Two lovers through a meadow dance

            like petals in the wind.

And:

            And yet still now, how real it seems:

                        your countenance glows in moonlight beams,

            Reflecting eyes, so crystal clear,

                        your voice — sweet laughter, in the winds I hear.

“In The Blink of an Eye” tells the story of two men whose lives cross and end in tragedy. The entire piece is solidly written and emotionally striking. “The Vindication of Chaos” is current and relevant in today’s political landscape, all told in metre and rhyme. In that same vein, “Average Joe” and “The Designated Hero” could be any of us.

Lee closes Dimensions of the Kaleidoscope with “Moments More To Go,” which lets us know there is more Romanticism to come:

           

            “’All the world’s a stage’,

            so let this player roll,

            off the hook of Inspiration,

            with still moments more to go.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a modern Romantic poet, and Dimensions of the Kaleidoscope was quite enjoyable. A bit repetitious and clichéd at times, however the lyricism and perfect metre balances it nicely. For a first publication from a new poet, Mark Lee's Dimensionsof the Kaleidoscope does not disappoint.