Ric's Poetry Mic

Hello fellow poets, inspired wordsmiths,

August nuzzles in closely to July’s foggy afternoons and evenings, well before summer has danced fully upon our ocean shores.

The relief from searing summer inland heat contrasts splendidly with sharp cool haze along the coastal band of salty brine-soaked air.  Plump ripening tomatoes, bulbous blood red beets with tops upright and glistening and bliss-sweet tasting carrots tell us that a season is maturing, waning, and that time passes in its perfect unfolding.  Sunflowers face towards the light unmistakably when the sun shines.  And when the fog holds it at bay, they stand still, waiting.

My bicycle’s chain and thinly plated metal parts rust beneath the grayed veil making what once was new and shiny, discoloured, textured with pits dislodging slivers of decaying metal.  Sheets dry slowly on the line in the misted foggy daytime-- the heavy cotton flannel that never made it to the cabinet to be replaced by smooth high thread count Egyptian cotton for those anticipated sweaty hot summer nights.

The seasons pass marked by wildlife birth and growth, garden plant's maturation and ultimate harvest.  Our need for sunshine and barefoot experiences on sandy beaches.  Everyone is changed in the presence of the seasons at the ocean. Her majesty winds into our pores, our nostrils, changing our physical composition. Our minds shift, our mitochondria register the messages she brings on a cellular level.  And those ripening scents of lavender blossom, honey-laden hives, maturing honeysuckle and browned tipped field grasses mix into her briny caldron casting spells upon us all.

To some, it registers joy. To others, sadness. And every possible variation between these extremes. The stories, brought to one another, determined by what we know, what we choose to see, feel and believe. The impact of a force great and encompassing as the ocean herself, promises transformation. This is the water's edge after all, and we precariously walk along her bounty with all her gifts before us.  Nestled in the continuum of the seasonal unfolding.

Kat
26 July 2018
Mercury retrograde

Ric's Poetry Mic

Hello fellow writers, inspired wordsmiths,

Tardiness is a curious word.  Brushing closely up against delinquency, which bears a heavy-handed connotation.  Both share a similar place at the table for the writer who dines on words from a wordsmith's perspective. Although the former, an adjective and the latter, a noun, they describe my behaviour of having missed my usual obligation of getting the timely call out to all of you regarding our upcoming writer's "Ric Poetry Mic."   I am trusting that regarding the delay, you will be able to attend even at this short notice, and accept that I have equally good reasons to have skipped a beat, as my heart is doing just that these past few months.  Falling in love can have profound impacts upon one's heart and responsibilities.  Sigh.  Smile.

The quality of writing, the camaraderie, the sheer magic of our gatherings with full-packed quarters at the enchanting setting Winecraft offers us perched on the old wooden pier outlooking the glory of the Columbia river add up to an experience, rich and satisfying.  While our gaze is fixed upon one another and the poet at the mic, I must admit, I peak a glance behind me now and again marvelling at the beauty of this provocative landscape.  Often the ocean-going barges overlap in a stream of backlit sunlight.  Creating an expansive image well beyond their normal massiveness.  Roll on Columbia.

I want to take this moment to thank fellow poet, Florence Sage, for making this venue possible. Not only is this location beautiful, but in my experience, it is in large part the reason the calibre of our presentations each month have risen exponentially.  There is beauty in poetry.  There is beauty that supports poetry.  The landscape around us can nourish the delivery and the substance of what is created.  Context matters, and the place we meet to share our stories and poems adds a supportive foundation to the words we creatively weave together.

With the forth of July soon upon us, we are about to begin summer with a blast again.  It is my pleasure to know that we will be gathering to read our writings to soften the world with our creative juices.  Let us again bring forward all we can muster in the delight knowing that words matter.

Come join us and share your creations at our 23rd "Ric's Poetry Mic".


Kat
26 June 2018

Physical Bliss

Sarah and Serre rode those peaks of physical bliss higher and longer and more divinely than most peaks dared to rise to receive such attainment. They tipped and topped and rode them into thin crisp clear high mountain air of that box canyon's mesa rims.  Their breath deep, shallow, short, long, full, soft and sweet.  Taking delivery of their souls' flights and journeys with  breathlessness  and awe of their spiritual journey. 

The peaks remained breathless.  The canyons deep and cool in the heat of passion.  Sweetness basked in their hearts as they held onto one another in the waning light.

 Kat
20 January 2015

today is spring

a master puppeteer and his marionette

he danced me about the stage 

            I, wooden bodied and jointed

gracefully matching his skill

            to dive me effortlessly to and fro

rhythmically upon the ethers in fine costume of old

            brocaded skirts full with golden trim and tightly waisted

I smiled permanently under the spell of the strings

            that moved me

and the spring scent held upon my lips

from dawn till dusk

            until he gave me rest

today I breathed in spring

briny ocean droplets

fresh cut grasses

            harkening ancestral toil with teams and ploughs from dawn till dusk

wild blossoms tenderly sweet

            young love’s lips on clear complected faces

this wafting tea, light complex, pleasuring my senses

            lifting the corners of my lips

Kat

25 April 2018

I was that, today I'm this and a bit more

I used to clean with abandon

today I love, abandonly

my house, a reflection of my knowledge

Jung’s dreams taught me that metaphor as Self

every blade of grass swept and neatly cut

now randomly sprouts seed balls in the llano

weeds once eradicated and composted today

nourish my body with their healing DNA

irritation at disorder thinned my lips, tightening my gaze

chaos abound, my mouth opens in laughter

            sealing my eyes near shut

I gathered objects of beauty reflecting form and impression

those that stole my heart hold it mightily

beauty has no expiration

loss revealed that abundance is in the heart and mind of the beholder

less is more and more is less and

beauty lies in the details

loss becoming beauty in the awakening

my mind churned to find solutions, even near perfection

today knowing I am my own limit to my own being now

            leads me free, to be

I follow my path

unafraid in love 

Kat

27 April 2018

Waxing

Daniel Lynch Waxing Moon 2018

 The wind has picked my chimes up, stirring music into the air.  The grey skies, now blackened, show no new moon or stars.  What gave me light last night, is not there now.  I find that I hold hope for those glimmers at tomorrow's eve.  They hearten me.  And I miss their brightness when they are away.  I became fixed upon their presence while in the land of enchantment.  And yet I readily moved on, to new adventures, new landscapes, knowing that I would yearn for them. And I do.

The dryness of the desert, chafing skin and ridged heels, endless skies replete with constellations— polar opposite to the Northwest’s monsoonal moisture and ever-present gray veil, whose bland wash defiantly declares an opacity that won't lift or shift. Until it does.  A permanent dye upon the land, sea and air finally giving way when we breathe our last breath of acceptance in a moment of surrender to its power.

Landscapes hold their yin and yang longer and today, appear to be establishing regional personalities rather than seasonal affairs ranging from sunshine to rain and in between, smoothly sustaining flora and fauna without stress. 

Droughts and floods, extremes concretizing polarization, bear harm on micro levels.  And that harm telescopes like a bump under linoleum.  Pushing upward, revealing discord in what otherwise could be mistaken for normal.

This shift in reality, the Mandela Effect, now topsy turvy, disrupt our knowing with early budding, late blooming, year round calving and molting.  It is good for the soul to look up.  Way up.  To notice those constellations.  The moon in her cycles.  That is real. Those glimpses through broken clouds lighten the heart.  And we remember. 

Kat

20 April 2018 

Ric's Poetry Mic

Hello fellow writers, inspired wordsmiths,

With snow, hail, sleet, wind and rain, we sally forth with words that tumble upon our pages.  Regardless the climate.  Often in spite of the weather, inside or outside.  Our own temperaments paving the way for metaphors that tickle our imagination.  The desire to share them with others whose appreciation match our own.

I took a brief detour from the Oregon coastal climate and basked in New Mexico blue skies where the sun arose daily over the Ponderosa pine tops casting a red glow onto the sandstone mesa. While not hot, it was reassuringly joyful to see the size, colour and brilliance of that sphere each day.  And to know with near certainty, that those skies would hold it again upon my awakening the next day.

As my skin began to turn from silky soft to sandpaper dry, lips chapping in the arid breeze, I could feel myself leaning evermore to the west.  Toward the ocean.  Listening for seagulls screaming over the Necanicum as they chased bald eagles up and down the tidal flats.  The absence of the ocean's roar filled the vastness with abject silence.  Sweet scent of high mountain pines, llano grasses, dried to tinder brown mixed together in a gentle wafting fragrance, stealing my heart once again.

The tear between the inland and the edge.  The yin, the yang.  The polar opposites of climates, communities, dearths and abundances.  I left New Mexico wondering how such extremes between the coastal Oregon and this inland place could both occupy my heart with such equal intensities and allow my sanity, intact.


cheers
Kat
3 April 2018