HIDE COO

Posted on September 18, 2020 by elainedanforth

Screen reach for people. . .
news, music, stories– anything
fridge bare as before.

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MERE DAYS AGO, AN ORANGE SKY

Posted on September 13, 2020 by elainedanforth

Mere days ago,
the sky was dark, mid-morning
very orange, with a strange and brilliant glow.

The hue
made you
wonder just on which planet you might be.

Distant fires
wafted smoke
hundreds of miles
to everyone around,
including me.

Charts seen on line
showed not orange
to describe the sky
but sometimes red,
and later purple. . .

The air turned into hazardous,
where once the giving of life
was clearly there,

and we must find
a brand new path for us,
but for now, it’s best to stay inside.

Although
we might like to move around,
it isn’t always very nice–
I’ve tried.

Posted in Autumn, Medium Length Poems, Poetry, Summer | Leave a comment

LONG HAUL HAIKU

Posted on September 7, 2020 by elainedanforth
Heat. Smoke. It’s no joke.
Far strange world breathed here and now.
Strong peace called to grow.
Posted in Poetry, Quick reads, Summer | Leave a comment

NEVER A MOMENT WITH NOTHING TO SAY

Posted on September 4, 2020 by elainedanforth

There’s never really
such a dull moment
or a day
that I have
absolutely
nothing
to say.

But it’d be silly
and furthermore,
beyond even me
to blurt out every moment
or yea,
even every
livelong special and precious day,

for,
if I’d use every moment
something to say,
not all that I’d utter
would contain any brilliance
or value
or be a somewhat coherent,
functional comment,
or even worded
in my personal, own special way,
conveying just what
I would want to convey.

And besides,
to speak all the time,
would rob me of force
and of my own inside peace,
sense, rhythm
and rhyme.

So, sometimes,
the trick isn’t just to form words
to write or to speak,

but to tell
when it’s time to reach out
and speak up,
in style uniquely mine,

and when
just to do stuff,
or still and quiet to sit,
and let the watch tick,
notice my breath
and my body a bit,

and maybe,
if I’m lucky,
and the hours
and minutes
align,

to hear in my ear
when the grandmother clock
on the shelf
shall sound its next round
of the famed Big Ben chime.

Posted in Life, Medium Length Poems, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

JUST A MOMENT. . . JUST FOR ME

Posted on September 2, 2020 by elainedanforth

Just a moment
just for me. . .

although I take it
far from perfectly. . .

I sit and tap
a tiny comment,

and think what
measured baby step’s
best to take next,

to move forward
in a mode hopeful,
although tentative, exploratory,

and dream
of all the brilliant hues
that tend to come
with low-slung sunlit
bright fall skies,
up toward which
I let gravitate
the wet, reflective, shiny globes
that are my eyes,


which there high glimpse
a time display of sights
that fill me
with a sense that,
considering even
my happiest moments of the past,


they can spur me
to spark a life
that’s filled with even greater love and light
than during
any bygone season’s
magnificent and ever-changing glory

Posted in Autumn, Medium Length Poems, Poetry | Leave a comment

WORLD, BE HERE FOR ME

Posted on August 30, 2020 by elainedanforth

World,
be here for me. . .

oh, and please let me
be here with you. . .

through hope, sadness, fear
and all else
that inside I feel here,

please help me see clear,
to do what I do here,

and prove
that you are an ether
through which I can move,

for though I might try
I can never steer clear
of you,

you are a way
that I must go
if I choose to,
or no–

I can’t skip over,
slip under,
work around
or confound
the solid and vast bounds of you. . .

And, who knows?
This inevitable one way
may prove to be a fun way
but perhaps, at times again, no. . .

But, the one thing
I can say
for sure
is
that you are a way–
be it high or low
broad or narrow,
duplicitous or true–
the way–
that, come pestilence, fire,
heaven, hell,
or high water,
ready or not,
from which I cannot
to weasel out,
but simply must go through.

Posted in Life, Poetic Musing (Longer Poems), Poetry | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

THE HEART BUBBLE

Posted on August 26, 2020 by elainedanforth

The heart bubble
where the love
was perfect,
was original,
was unconditional. . .

was flesh to blood,
was blood to flesh,
and went down to the bone. . .

But then, the brain,
BUT THEN THE BRAIN,
that hid things in the elder flesh,
it harbored so much,
SO MUCH pain,
it mixed it in
with the love–
the perfect love– it gave. . .

It did not know
the things it knew
the things its flesh knew,
when it itself was scarce more
than a loved and frightened child,
a child flesh and blood
who learned, who learned
what it felt like
to be at once
cherished so dear,
and yet so dear
disdained, corrected, misunderstood and scorned. . .

The heart bubble
in the atria
and ventricles
where heart closed up
in hope to hold the love,
shut out the hurt–
the very threat
to its inborn, profound knowledge
of its worth.

The question,
put poetically,
is not so much
“To be or not to be,”
but how to take the courage
of that very coeur
to open, let new love rush in
while safeguarding at the self-same time
that the hurt
that pressed the bubble into being
will not upon its exiting
also cause that sturdy, steadfast muscle
called the heart
with one fell swoosh
to burst.

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HIGH TIME HAIKU

Posted on August 23, 2020 by elainedanforth

Ah! Fresh air again!. . .
windows open for a stretch
ere smoke drifts back in. . .

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CRICKET SONG

Posted on August 15, 2020 by elainedanforth

Cricket song. . .
hot evening inches on
scorching, heat-warning level heat
bakes yet the house,
though the sun’s full down
and daylight gone. . .

the jingle bella noise
rises in the air so strong,
fills up my spirit
and my ear. . .
the feeling grounds me
in the now and here,

but also pulls me
in the direction of deep laze.
and groping for some
keep-up-able pace,
full knowing that
more of the same
is forecast for
the coming days.

All one could ask,
as we shelter here in place. . .
a space in the aft of our space
where we could sup
simpatico, al fresco,
while a little waning daylight
still was up.

And yet
my somewhat restless
mind and heart still wander
to places far and wide,
elsewhere from hither,
and kindle still a yen
for some other
general thither
and/or some specific yonder.

The inside-outside body-spirit
craving coolness, shadow, water. . .
and I will drink of it
and splash on a little as I need it,
and wish the weather soon
will settle down,

though, when it goes,
’tis like
I’ll miss
the peaceful, gentle cricket sound,
that, with the constant rush of highway
blares airy through my open windows–
quite seemingly from all around.

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YOUR SENDING

Posted on August 1, 2020 by elainedanforth

Weight. . .
the mind. . .
the world. . .
the cares. . .
the fault that’s always there to find,
and be multiplicatively unfurled. . .

but, if only you WOULD
approach it and unfurl it,
then, let it rise, re-shuffle it
and swirl it. . .

you’d find a creature
and a life
of your own design,
and of a very different kind,

if you but breach
what by you has been shrunk into
or been declared
forbidden turf,
and love it for what it has been
and brought you,

before you set it free
to live where it was born,
back in the cherished, frightening past,

and then you’ll
expand
the way you’re meant to,

and naturally set on to do
the things for which you have been made,

and though you know not yet
just what they are,

they are the very things
for which to do,
the one, unique, inimitable you
to this very earth
on that momentous day
so long ago were sent to.

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