Minerva’s Cloth

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21

Angels dance upon points of needles
that poke up through Minerva’s pondered cloth.
They twirl out trajectories of tidings
toward shepherds and bleating beasts
whispering wisps of frozen December air.

Hearts open without decree.

While ewes and rams forsake the manger
to make fallow fields frolic,
shepherds bed beneath the brightest star
their eyes have ever seen.
The star’s white blue illuminates
mounds of sheep undulating across December’s
breeding fields fashioning a river of sheep
that flows into spring’s leaping lambs.

Minerva works without haste
tenaciously seaming stories of joy and peace
while reality unfolds in silvery threads
weaving wonder through winter’s white expanse.

Brenda Warren 2011
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This piece took three days to come; now that it’s here, I like it. The wordle words over at The Sunday Whirl were provided by Magical Mystical Teacher from the biblical Christmas story in Luke 2. Check out the whirl for more pieces using these 12 words: heart, decree, pondered, joy, tidings, angel, peace, afraid, haste, shepherds, manger, and heard. I used all of the words except heard and afraid. It may have required another three days to get those in there. 😉

Super Purple Rhino Boy

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17

for Purple Dude

Happen upon it,
upon it he did
flying so high in the sky,
a snappy hap- happening there up high
unfolding before his eyes,
his eyes,
unfolding before his eyes.

Purple on purple
the rhinos they flew,
lines upon lines of them,
smiles upon smiles of them,
miles and miles glided by
right in front of his eyes,
reflected their light in his eyes.

Luck, luck, lucky he knew he was
to witness the purple procession
every one hundred years they flew
(they flew for his grandfather Lendon).

Misting themselves with lily white clouds
the rhinos, they smiled as they flew.
With their horns up high,
they paraded by
before the young citizen’s eyes,
oh my!
Before the young citizen’s eyes.

One small rhino lagged behind
as trouble invaded his flight
the youth on the ground
saw him circling round
the same as he did in his dreams,
his dreams!
Circling as in his dreams.

The young hero’s heart beat drums in his chest,
‘twas the moment when matter changed states,
molecular magic in circular merging,
circular merging
and purp, purp, purpling,
boy became beast,
and beast became boy,
joy joy joining,
rhino boying
(the same as it did in his dreams
his dreams
merging as in his dreams).

Horn pointing up,
merged power gained,
a new purple champion appeared.
This was the moment he lifted from Earth,
the moment of Super Purple Rhino Boy’s birth!

His dreams played out like games on that day,
when he flew in the ranks of a Rhino Parade,
his very first Rhino Parade
hooray!
His very first Rhino Parade.

Brenda Warren 2011

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Process Notes: I wrote this piece for a specific student. In a written assignment, his superhero was Super Purple Rhino Boy, and then, this past week in his hopes for 2012 he wrote that it would be amazing to see purple rhinos fly. While he may not see purple rhinos fly, he will have this poem. Where there is a boy, there is a story. Purple Dude inspires me to be a better teacher. This piece was inspired by his writing. How cool is that?! I’ll read this poem to Purple Dude and his classmates on Wednesday, so it can cast a purple light on their holiday break.  LOL

Lendon is my husband’s name (and his grandfather’s). I used it because I liked the off-rhyme with procession. Having a grandfather witness the same event as our citizen anchors the story in family history.

Visit The Sunday Whirl for more poems using these 12 words:

Plenty

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“Weightless and alone, an enigma, a wrinkled spasm of time sent tumbling elements,
rapid pulsations, a rare stone heart following sacred spacious paths—wormholes leading to this…” Dappled Ackley paused, and swept his arms in wide arcs across the sky, “this planetary atmosphere.”

“Witness prophetic talons grip glass, melted metal, when released power transforms everything into what it used to be, before the Oil Rationing Riots, when kindness prevailed and fear disappeared shining into a living color labyrinth beneath your very fingertips ushering in a time, once again, of plenty.”

Brenda Warren 2011

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I used this week’s Sunday Whirl wordle words to write the words of Dappled Ackley’s prophecy.  Dappled Ackley is the blind seer in a short story I’m working on about a superhero named “Thundercaws,”  whose quest is to locate a meteorite that her friend Crazy Dave will use to repower the world, after an energy crisis renders televisions useless.  I’m sharing the story with my students, and they are providing me with feedback.  Dappled Ackley’s words came at the end of the second installment.

Thundercaws was born from a superhero formula.  All of my students created superheroes, too.  Thundercaws will meet at least one super villain JE, a student, created in my classroom.  I’ll post the installments here each week.

a season for trees

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25

Cold’s white mission frosts unfolding hills, muting the vanilla valley.
Crusted ice crystallizes prairie grasses into ivory luminescence
as darkness genuflects with subtle inklings toward dawn’s precipice.

Soon, Daystar swallows the moisture of night,
and flocked conifers melt, trickling wet rivulets
between bark’s incongruous trivets waiting for
the murderous onslaught of humans,
who arrive each year laden with hatchets and chainsaws,
chomping at the bit, eager to usher in December.

Brenda Warren 2011
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Process notes: Len and I had a roadtrip through Montana yesterday. We started early, and I wrote most of the piece in the morning, after driving through the Helena valley. Later in the day we drove through the Little Belt Mountains east of Great Falls, and saw vehicles laden with pine and fir trees, as families harvest them for Christmas. I finished the piece this morning.

This is a piece for the Sunday Whirl. The words were challenging this week, be sure to check out the work of other poets over at the Whirl.

sister wind whistles and spins

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A fulcrum of momentum,
she wraps her wings across her breast
until she spins out brave new worlds
where long necked geese rise through ruddy sunshine.
Thrumming a rustle of feathers on air,
they become a subliminal one with wind,
riding on her smug untidy currents.

Urging migration, sister wind eradicates
the gullibility of yesterday’s unmoving mellow air,
twisting the shallows of the lake
into crystallized shudders.
A rush of ice forms and forces this wild congregation
to hoist their voices, unfold their wings, and sweep circles
over the freezing wet cycle of time.

Sister wind whistles and spins
as silver and black flutter and flash
imprinting seasonal patterns,
migratory gyrations that weave feathers
through the shimmering spokes of her spirit’s fierce wheel.

Brenda Warren 2011

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Process Notes:
After spending some time watching Canadian geese rise and fall across the expanse of Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge, I wrote down twelve words for The Sunday Whirl. Check the Whirl every Sunday for a new wordle.

This morning, I morphed the words into this piece, which at first would not come. Once wind developed into “sister wind,” the piece flowed freely.

Sister wind whistles and spins for the geese. May they journey for many centuries across the prairie potholes that dot their North American migratory routes. May water fill these potholes each spring. May they flourish and flash with sister wind, reminding us of our relationship with the earth.

hope is a small thing with feathers

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Selling souls for diamonds
he peddles to the fleeting rich.
Blood smolders in his fiery eyes.

Buy more!
Hoard more!

Build an army to gather and protect
the last food left upon the planet
after oil runs dry and ambition
drowns the mindless
in wanton desires
oblivious to the insidious nature
of the upper one percent.

Man your stockpiles!

He jacks up the price of his diamonds
muttering about his preacher daddy’s
trapped words
unheeded ‘til the end times
when the upper one percent
will send out their armies
killing all remainders.

One by one families will succumb,
gunned down in an oblivious search for sustenance.

He rants about sparks, trapped within
set free at time’s beginnings,
superseded by greed,
while centuries fell from the sky
like iced lightning
stabbing jagged sticks
through the eyes of the wicked
one percent.

Soon they will falter beneath the weight of diamonds,
drawn from blood that nourishes
the ginger-orange soil of Africa.

The clarity of diamonds belies humanity’s greed.

Centuries from now, goodness will rise
in the form of a young girl laughing.

Emerging from the fecund clay of everything that went before,
she will spread her wings and fly, engendering new beginnings,
fresh, beneath her finely feathered soul.

Brenda Warren 2011

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Process Notes:
My fears for our planet’s future play out in this piece. I imagined the “he” character as a street peddler, muttering prophecies, largely ignored. Left in the background to rant, pieces of truth fall from his mouth, dissipating in Earth’s dying air. Initially the piece ended with humanity’s greed, and that left me wanting hope. Emily Dickinson’s poem about hope sparked the last stanza, and gave the savior wings. The title is an adaptation from the first line of her poem, which you can find here.

Visit The Sunday Whirl

The Cleaning

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When human beings are wiped from the face of the earth,
perhaps the eloquence of bees will buzz a balance
back into time’s swiveled fabric.
Slowly pesticides will dissipate and
buildings will crumble into cinder gray coral
that rises in pillars like fingers
ringed by soft hairy pillows of emerald moss.
The bees will dance from color to color
hovering as motionless yellow black points
to replenish the strength of their bumbling numbers,
basking in the glory of a rapidly blooming fresh new world.

Oh honey! Oh golden viscosity!
Let mama bear find you and feed her furry family
as they rumble through the safety of human remains.

Brenda Warren 2011

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Visit The Sunday Whirl.

delirium’s sweet breeze

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14

Delirium swished her dappled colors against dawn’s clear sky
blue air pleated seemings like a god’s strident breath
reigniting dappled rays of sunshine
pitched in place by swirling seas
breaching the shell of delirium’s sweet breeze.

Brenda Warren 2011

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This piece was inspired by this week’s words at The Sunday Whirl. Check out the whirl for more pieces incorporating these words.

Caught

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21

The colonel twitched
bloodied to a pulp in media gutters
he longed for a bottle of water
sitting at a sidewalk café
looking always looking
anywhere he wanted
glasses dark
fear flickering in everyone
who knew who he was
as he thumped his fist
against the side of his crooked legacy
carved out in bloody revolts.

He tried to control
the viscous gurgle
filling up his throat
and died sounding
like a weak man vanishing
while cell phone cameras clicked.

Brenda Warren 2011
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I wrote this piece from some words pulled from Mike Patrick’s poem, Singing on Murkle. While the gory ending certainly evokes the spirit of the season, it didn’t come out as a Halloween poem. It is what it is.

I used one of the 12 words this week in the title. To see more pieces comprised of words from Mike’s poem, visit The Sunday Whirl.

Redemption Island

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6

for Ozzie

I wonder what kind of food
is served on Redemption Island.

Plates of regret
garnished with olive brances
followed by a chorus of Coaches singing

Alleluliahs!

Give it your best shot, Oz.
Rise on up out of those
shit stank tantrums
that scream echoes
through everything you
wish you never would have.

Peacock your way to tribal glory.

(or lose face and break something)

Either way, we’re starting
to get your number.

You cannot equalize.
You blow, dude.

Big time.

Get some help.
Redemption rarely happens
on reality TV.

Brenda Warren 2011

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Okay, I’m a bit embarassed that I watch Survivor, but this season has me hooked. Last night will go down in Survivor history. This poem is for Ozzie. If you watch Survivor, you know what I mean. Either way, I think you can get the picture.