Again standout poet Yasmin Khan (Yassy) delivers impeccably. Such a wide range.
Starry night brings delight
How I love the stars’ light
Shimmering, glittering, bright
Twinkling like sapphires
Scintillating and shining
Like lanterns glowing
Through the darkness igniting
Dreams that keep showing.
# Trochee
while trying to reblog Natural English, Or: Sidespin by David ben Alexander this is what I managed to find. Some pretty impressive people…plus the posting of the Ukrane’s national ensign in solidarity.
Be yourself
with egg on your face;
in the dark;
naked by the pool.
Be yourself
under the stars
on the wings
of Falkor.
No one else
has that same
dimple on their
left cheek; no
one else’s freckles
spot the same.
So be yourself
in Mossflower
Wood, or with
the Gawtrybe,
misunderstood,
helpful in
the end. You are
already
worthy–it was
determined
before birth, your
heart written sure.
Be yourself
at doctor’s of-
fice, or in
grocery store,
coffee shop
counting out change
in your hand.
Only yourself.
For you can’t be
anyone else.
strive to see your world as picturesque, yourself as worthy, and your life's circumstances as plenty; shatter ex- pecta- tions set by others; gift yourself love
View original post 5 more words
(May 16, 2023)
I anadvertantly sent Yassy “Yaskhan, Yasmin Khan’s poem “Aglow” to my blog ‘richwrapper’ and now WP will not let me sent it on to Commentary, Outrages, Prose And Poetry. As soon as silver shekels my sore palm’s purse I shall I so vow, pressers of words, but in the mean(est) of times please slip into richwrapper to read Lady Yassy’s important work: Aglow, and let it join the other fine foursome I did manage to sent to commentary… J Richards
You scribe such thoughts as would incite a burning in Salem, m’dear. Delightful, clever word-choices build the flames. Must share now. Be back soonest.
Irises gleam
A moonbeam falls
Jasmines sashay
Scenting the air
Lush blooms bare pale
And flare in gloam
Crepuscule fire
Burns sapphire bright
Desire ignite.
# Than-Bauk
(<au 2-. 2-23)
nickle-dime the date
nineties broach just past noon
chug a modest milk
and graze ‘pon early bluets*
not ’nuff for pie, but sure sweet
*(Bluets: fancy ‘frog’ word for blueberries: theirs mostly commercial, mine wild, sometimes a mite smaller and almost always tons more sweet. There’s a University of Florida agronomist who is supposed to be working on a hybrid of wild Florida High Bush and commercial strains to emphasize the superior sweetness of the wild strains. We’re taking Nobel Prize not just for biology or agronomy but for World Peace, people! Originally typed World Peach, vice Peace, and was tempted to leave it at that.)
(found in the discard stack and reduced price bin at the Sanford (Florida) North Branch Library_
(<au 15. 2023)
By J Richards
What’s wrong with this picture? Suburban guy lives at home he grew up in with his mom. Coaches boys high school basketball. Unmarried. No mention of girlfriend. Maybe because this is a book about a bunch of guys, Black, from all over Boston who commute mostly to Charlestown High School. And win championships by the legendary Naismith peachbasketbull.
The Assist: Hoops, Hopes, And The Game of Their Lives is so much more than the questions it does not resolve. This nut gets kids into colleges all over the place. And drives them to the schools to see and say: gosh, no, Coach. Or Hot Damn. This is me. He molds kids who sometimes take a city bus almost 90 minutes – each way – to go to Charlestown High and not just for the basketball but for the education.
After reading the Prolog, Epilog, Research Notes, and Acknowledgements I knew tis book I had hid in my to=read stacks (two piles over ahead of the Will Read Someday stack(s), I had to share this find with friends Greg Ganas and his lovely, charming and supportive wife the former Elizabeth Sweeny. The book, again, by Neil Swidey of The Boston Globe’s Magazine was withdrawn by the Seminole County Library and I found – stole – from the bargain big at the North Branch in Sanford. It ‘s ISBN is 13-978-58648-469-9. Published by Public Affairs ™, a member of the Perseus Book Group, copyright (c) 2008 by Neil Swidey.
Much of the story is based in part by Swidey’s stories published in The Globe’s magazine. The few photos cry for more art. A picture of the coach dust-mopping the hardwood court is so evocative. One day Real Soon Now I promise to go back to read where I left off in Chapter Two and the damn coach’s name. Yeah. It was that important a book I didn’t go back to my notebook to record his name: what was more important was what the book said.
It still may be in print. Elizabeth and Greg get it first, and they perhaps Ernie, a compulsive Boston RedSox fanatic – and perhaps more widely all things Boston, whose surname I, too, have found useful to ignore may get the book to read on loan next. That’s right: Loan. Means I want IT BACK! I want to find another source for this book: it deserves to be read by Coaches Chris Marlette and Bill Klein, former Sanford schools coaches of whom I think the world. Why? Read this book and you may glimpse a big of why.
(April 30, 2023)
ladies went to sip
sherry, secrets while the men
growled behind cigars
genteel of course suppers’ done
and single-malts meet their end*
*(Now I suspect the term Drawing Room actually had a silent “With” preceding that passage where well-brought-up ladies withdrew from the men after a dinner – supper to some – and the men hit the den or the cave as it presently may be known, to pass on the day’s events with smoke and fine whisky (or whiskey) depending on the origin of the splash of course. Now the gentler sex puffs cheroots and spits and cusses and them menfolks allow as how a little equality sure does seem to go a long ways. Neh?_
richwrapper 