I actually found today a challenge more because of distraction and tiredness than anything. When I first read the fortune, I wished I’d gotten it on the 30th, but I came up with something anyway. It’s a type of renga, although it was written all by me, and renga are traditionally written by multiple people.
Hope you enjoy!
Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
It is most gratifying when a goal is achieved through one’s efforts.
Goal! By Michelle Garren-Flye
plant the seed in spring and watch the leaves poke and spread lofty emergence
the farmer watches proudly life’s devotion gives returns
run hard down the court heart pounds as focus sharpens shoot the ball and score
player doubles over, bows content in success for now
poetry fills page an ache in each syllable captures dreams within
poets appreciate goals when wild dreams are at their heart
Welcome to Haiku Sunday! No matter what the fortune is, I must turn it into a haiku.
Not to downplay the difficulty of this one, but do you know the one famous haiku where the last line is “refrigerator”? Well, I sort of did that with this one because the first word that popped into my head was a five-syllable word. Procrastination.
The other two lines weren’t that easy, but I’m fairly happy with the result.
Hope you enjoy!
Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
Make serious decisions in the last few days of the month.
Seriously By Michelle Garren-Flye
opportune timing is everything this month procrastination
As soon as I read today’s fortune, I remembered one particular night. You see, I love to laugh, but sometimes I think I’ve forgotten how. Then I have a moment when laughter lights up my heart again. I know this fortune is true, but I don’t always know how to make it true for myself.
Maybe that’s how we all are, to a certain extent. Surviving day to day.
I can say that nine times out of ten, when I find myself in that warm light of laughter, it’s with my kids, the human beings I love most in this world. And that’s what this poem is about.
I chose to write it in haibun format, which was invented by Matsuo Basho, the master of the haiku. A haibun is a prose poem and a haiku smashed together. I’ve attempted them before. I think this one works, to a certain extent.
I hope you enjoy it, anyway!
Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
laughter shall fuel your spirit’s engine By Michelle Garren-Flye
They dragged you out, these children who have grown into friends. You’re usually bathed and in bed by now. Tomorrows are always full. You have to be ready. But they want to have fun. They want you to have fun, but fun is not something you practice. There are too many tomorrows ahead, too many yesterdays behind.
The golf place is full, but you have a reservation. They serve beer, so you have some, hoppy smells tickling your nose hairs. The lights are bright, and there is a heater nearby so even though you’re outside in January and there will be snow tomorrow, you take off your coat. Frustration mounts with every golf swing, until your oldest son misses the ball entirely and yells, “Fun!”
And there it is, bubbling around you, the energy needed to fuel your spirit, as first you and then your children who are now adults and friends—your yesterdays and your tomorrows—shout it together, hurl it into the night air with the white golf balls hailing onto the astroturf:
giggling bubbles burble in your life spirit laughter is your peace
Welcome to Haiku Sunday! I’ve decided as an extra challenge to designate Sundays for haiku. No matter what the fortune, I must write a haiku inspired by it. Today’s was very difficult but I finally settled on my double-edged sword idea. The idea being that you’re likely to judge yourself either more or less harshly than you’d judge another person.
This is not my best haiku…and it even has a little joke of an extra syllable. Definitely not my best effort.
Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye.
It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others.
Double-edged Sword By Michelle Garren-Flye
double-edged sword cuts for and against self-judgment you wilt ‘neath its edge…s
Poetry continues to be my main objective in spite of a couple of ideas I’ve had about novels. If I hear about a new form of poetry, I have to try it out. And then I have to stretch it. Remember Stretch Armstrong? How you would stretch and stretch him to see how far you could stretch him and he’d still go back to his original form…until he didn’t.
I sort of feel like I did that with haibun. Haibun is the combination of a haiku and a prose poem. Matsuo Basho wrote them. I discovered them relatively recently and decided to give them a try. And stretched the form a bit. What do you think? Is it still a haibun at its heart?
Silence
By Michelle Garren-Flye
it’s awkward, silence,
because it wants treasuring
and I reject it
laying too heavy on my ears in the dark, begging to be broken, shattered against the brick wall, revealing the death of sound ringing in my ears, spilling out like the yolk of an egg until the utter madness is stunned by a brief click in the wall behind the thermostat as the furnace breathes life into our emptiness…
don’t rejoice too soon
complete silence verges on
total perfection
you will seek it again, want to crawl into it, feel it envelop you in velvety warmth as if it can never break because it always always bends and that’s why you can never make friends with silence, why you can’t love it even if you want it, you will always seek release from it, but…
the birds will ghost you
the wind and waves will give up
leaving you…awkward
Sorry to be a bit late with this one, but I wrote it literally an hour ago. Had to let it sit for a bit to make sure it’s not too bad to share. I don’t think it is. What do you think?
Wanna?
By Michelle Garren-Flye
Warm sun burning skin,
wind’s touch cools, swirls sandy beach—
but I am not there.
Wanna come with me?
We’ll watch the waves crash ashore,
feel peace for a while.
Wait, though, I’m not sure…
Waves, wind, and sand are precious.
Do I wanna share?
More Beach Evening Primrose. Aren’t they just so pretty? Photo and poem copyright 2023 Michelle Garren-Flye.
Good morning! I’m feeling kinda good this morning because I did something last night that I haven’t in a while. Instead of firing up Netflix after my shower, I pulled out my computer…and wrote a poem.
It turned out pretty well, too.
I’m not going to share it here, though. Sorry. I’m not being coy, but I do want to save something for my book of love poetry, and this one fits.
However, I am going to share a poem. I write a haiku to post on the message board at my store (I own a bookstore). I write a haiku every month for that message board. Of course, they’re promoting reading/books, but it’s fun and keeps me in the 5-7-5 practice.
Anyway, I finished my April one a bit late this morning, and thought I’d share it here for my daily poetry post. It’s something a little different to keep things spicy! 🙂
Photo and Haiku copyright 2023 Michelle Garren-Flye
If you follow my writing at all, you know I am fascinated by different styles of poetry. I’ve written haiku, sonnets, villanelle and am now tackling the dreaded ghazal. I’ve often said that if I have writer’s block, I will write haiku to break it.
So when one of my favorite e-newsletters arrived in my mailbox featuring an article about Oulipo, an organization of French novelists and poets, I was intrigued. These writers believe writing with certain constraints actually inspires creativity. For example, very restrictive forms of poetry as far as rhyme and/or length and even more daring constraints on works of fiction. Like writing an entire novel without using the letter “e”. Some of these works have been translated from French to English…also without using the letter “e”, if you can believe that.
What would it be about restricting yourself that actually inspires creativity? I can’t answer this, but I know that historically adversity can lead to great works of art. The Renaissance, for instance, was conceived during the darkness of the Bubonic Plague. Amazing works of art resulted from the pain of the Aids epidemic. Wars have always inspired great art. And the Covid-19 lockdown released a flurry of works of art, literature, and music that we are only beginning to appreciate.
Is it because we as humans have to hope that adversity creates great work? And following that, do we as artists create artificial constraints on our work just so we can burst out of it? Does restriction force something else out of us? Or is writing a sentence without the letter “e” just silly? (Or: Is it silly to try to show our thoughts without using a common symbol?)
I can only really answer to what works for me (and it’s not not using the letter “e”). Although I don’t totally agree with Robert Frost that “Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down”, I do believe that I write good sonnets…and haiku…and villanelle. Not sure about ghazal yet. What do you think?
Star Falls
By Michelle Garren-Flye
Recite poetry in a husky voice—I hear your calls!
Tell me the story of the world and the star that falls.
How is it okay to whisper it all in my ear?
Count every moment from now to when the star falls.
It won’t matter anyway, I won’t let myself care.
I’ll run away—I swear I will—run ‘til that star falls.
But wait!, you say, are you sure that’s really okay?
The moments don’t pause, though, no, not until the star falls.
You’re silent at last, peace surrounds me and I will stay.
Last chance to wish on my whisper (sun’s rising!)…and star falls.
This Sunday, November 20, I get to do something I don’t often get to do anymore. I’ll be just an author selling her books.
I’m not totally certain I remember how to do that…
Running a bookstore was a dream of mine for a long time. I used to haunt the two little bookstores in my hometown. The Book Nook was my favorite because it was used books that I could actually afford. (I did buy my first new hardback book there, though. Black Beauty and Other Horse Stories. It cost $15 and I still own it.) Highland Books was where I went to dream. I didn’t have enough money usually to buy the books, but the owners were tolerant and didn’t say anything if I curled up in a corner with a brand new science fiction novel they knew I couldn’t buy. I wonder how many people bought books there that I had already read?
But I digress. I dreamed of owning my own bookstore for a long time but I didn’t realize that when I got one, I couldn’t just be an author anymore. Yes, I write in my bookstore. And sometimes I sell one of my own books. I’m on the bestseller table here, so I do sell some here and there, and it’s definitely exciting when I do. But I’m mostly here to sell other people’s books.
On Sunday, however, I will be at the New Bern Farmer’s Market from 1-4 p.m. with a slew of other authors, all selling our own books! I’m planning to take all the books I have here at the store (well, maybe leave one copy of each on the shelf) and hope to sell them and maybe get some people reading my poetry.
And still I won’t be able to resist asking what kind of book people like to read. And I know enough of the other authors there so I’ll know if their books are a better fit than mine. And I won’t hesitate to send them that way…so it might not be that different from being in my little bookstore at all. 🙂
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 