Q is for Quing

(pronounced as the male monarch’s name)

Q is for Quing

 

Lately, I’ve been wondering

If women can’t be kings

Not that queen isn’t a good word

It’s fine

 

But for many, it rudely matters that

The queen is not the king

 

We’ve had women working as kings

King Elizabeth the First

King Victoria

And if Pope Joan’s and Nefertiti’s

Reigns are believed,

They ruled as kings in their

Respective cultures

 

If queens don’t want to be kings

I understand

After all, kings actual, though

Royal, too often do not take well

To scrutiny

 

But overall I’d like to say

Hail, King Elizabeth

Hail, King Zenobia

 

 

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Blogging from A to Z Challenge

P is for Petrarchan Sonnet

P is for Petrarchan Sonnet

(Petrarch’s writing signaled the Renaissance)

 

So when I love with all I am alive

Then we are introduced as I and you

Therewith you ask me ever to be true

We press out feeling into a heart-hive

And thus you try to make it all survive

A mystery of evidence, a clue

To why you need me to pledge us anew

And wonder why we can’t in peace now thrive

 

It’s fear, I guess, and I can understand

When all is eye that cannot see around

That life before is ever in command

Until fear leaves in grace might love abound

So, love, let love become a golden band

A flex of give and strength to fright astound

 

 

[A] sonnet form popularized by Petrarch, consisting of an octave with the rhyme scheme abbaabba and of a sestet with one of several rhyme schemes, as cdecde or cdcdcd.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/petrarchan-sonnet

 

 

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Blogging from A to Z Challenge

O is for Ocarina

O is for Ocarina

 

I played one once

In school

I liked the sound it made

More than the flutophone

 

And then I saw the

Oscar Mayer truck

And it all jumbled in

My brain

 

Ocarina on wheels is what

The hot-dog-mobile

Looked like

Well, as long I don’t add

 

Mustard to the instrument

Whose true child-sound

I enjoy and wonder where

It got to

 

 

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Blogging from A to Z Challenge

N is for None (Prayer)

N is for None (Prayer)

 

Antique for afternoon, partitioned prayer

Often over memory—petition, supplication

In none lines I pray for you, intercessory

Neighbors who are fighting, maybe more

Friends who are generous and persevere

Family that grows in number, challenges

 

You who take part here to have your days

Maybe none is for infinite, three by three

And on, asking-prayers, loving perpetually

 

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Blogging from A to Z Challenge

MachinE

MachinE

 

form that serves itselF

like bureaucracy that’s lost its waY

calculation and summatioN

records of everythinG

charts everything but coursE

never showing us the waY

has credibility for the shape it iS

and because it works more efficiently than uS

 

We pioneer

We tear the paper edges even on waterproof paper

We feel the wind and rain

Spear through our layers of cotton, wool, and stronger new-made stuff

We are sturdy stuff

We try

We try again

 

the machine doesn’t threateN

but it is an alien thinG

We are not made of catalogued parts

Rather creator’s compass

It may know

To us it’s brave chaos

Risk in the unknown

 

machine doesn’t feaR

In wind that incites

We don’t fear

 

To us it is all vague before we explore

Shapeless and clock-incalculable

To which we’ll add

what gear-efficiency cannoT

 

Purpose enough

 

 

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Blogging from A to Z Challenge

L is for Lyric

L is for Lyric

 

Will you sing with me?

If I start,

If you start,

Shall we sing together?

 

The earth spins off harmony,

A jubilance of sparks—

Fireworks

In the mind

 

Our words become song

And, while orbiting,

An invitation:

 

Into our creating cups,

Ambrosia-better,

Liquid inspiration

 

Not for drinking but for

Utterance,

Music becoming

Current  in the cosmos

 

 

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Blogging from A to Z Challenge

K is for Kalliope

K is for Kalliope

 

Transliterated from old Greek,

Eldest and leader of the Muse

Sisters, Muse of song and

Public articulation—in other

Words, speech-delivery

 

She had a son, an artful maker,

Too—he was killed; and his

Mother took his remains to

Enshrine them on Lesbos, an

Ancient isle, which we might

Visit today

 

Were she to sing in our

Parlance and with our take

On life’s matters:

 

I inspire your song and speech

And go unrecognized

 

Most no longer believe that

Mortal skills come from a sacred

Start

 

I might sing again, though first

Would be the labor in mourning

For all I have lost

 

My boy, who was murdered

For envy or rage (I care not

Which) and whose grave

Molders in an island pit bereft

Of laurel leaves

 

Orpheus, as well my son,

Whose sanctioned journey into

Hell yet lost him his wife in

Petty business of Hades and

The underworld’s rule (I

Respect them not)—his life was

Left to sorrow like mine

 

And your interest? Why would

Gods matter to you?  All

Divinity is mitigated in belief,

Mostly unexpressed, that you

Shall save yourselves—

 

Foolish

 

You will need us, still

 

 

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

J is for June-Song

J is for June-Song

 

Junebug

A tune for June

The moon, a spoon

A child, mild

A child, wild

Summer’s tressed

Please, child blessed

 

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

I is for Imagining

I is for Imagining

 

(I know, I said brevity in

form; at least the lines

are short)

 

Relevant elegance

Can you imagine?

Like a poet in a tuxedo

Exchanging arctic jibes

Because the penguin

Believes the poet

Is related (and

Antarctic creatures

Always make fun

Of those from the

Warm stove top that

Is the distant North

 

Innovation intonation

Can you imagine?

Like a singer inventing

A new octave for

A new kind of song

 

Everyone might hear

No one will understand

But, known or not,

The singer sings on

 

Abnegation imagination

Can you fathom?

Like a magician who

Returns things to the

Top hat, until the rabbit

Says, “Too much!”

 

As Dorothy Sayers

Might say, if toucan

Imagine, you can, too

 

If two can imagine,

You can, too

 

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

 

(Sayers is known for co-creating

Guinness ads in the 1930s,

making rounds again, as all

good things like good drinks do)