Saturday, December 31, 2011

No regrets! (For Six Word Saturday)

My six words for today:

Nothing's in vain,
Crack that champagne!


Happy New Year!
Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

New


This week's prompt from Carry on Tuesday is the first line from Elinor Wylie's charming poem The Church-Bell
As I was lying in my bed
 


As I was lying in my bed,
I watched the shades of color red,
The Sun would use to paint my room
With scarlet roses in bloom,
That live and die in such a haste…
I rose a brand new day to taste!


Happy New Year!
Live for the Love of it.
The Happy Amateur

Friday, December 30, 2011

Happy New Year Russian Style


 
2015
is here!
In Russia
New Year's Eve
is a very big holiday:
family, friends, food, toasts!
Kids get to stay up late waiting for 
Ded Moroz and his granddaughter Snegurochka
to bring them presents. Something like this would happen:
around midnight the door bell would ring, kids would rush to
open the door, but there would be no one there...just a big bag
filled with
goodies!!!
Happy New Year!  







Live for the Love of it,
Sasha A. Palmer (a.k.a. "Happy") 

Thursday, December 29, 2011

I sure am prolific! I wish they were terrific... (More Limericks)

In response to a limerick writing prompt from Mad Kane.  This week's opening line is,
A fellow (woman) who'd stepped on some toes...

A fellow who’d stepped on some toes,
Confessed to his spouse of his woes,
“They think I aint sweet,
But I just got big feet!”
“Oh, yes! And a really big nose!”

A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Received a big punch on the nose.
In business folklore -
As in love, or in war -
Things get bloody, and anything goes.

A woman who’d stepped on some toes
Recorded the shrieks.  Recompose
This tape helps her now:
When she’s down somehow,
She plays it, and blooms like a rose.

A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Tried super hard not to disclose
The steps that he took,
But he was on Facebook,
And so the whole world knows.

A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Retorted, “How else you suppose
A loser like I
Can ever get by?
Grow up! This is life, and its prose."

A woman who'd stepped on some toes
Found it hard to maintain a cool pose,
When youngsters galore
Got a foot in the door,
Whereas she got veins varicose.


Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

'Blessing'

I posted this on Poetic Bloomings earlier today.



'Blessing'


‘I’ll feel the distance if you move away,
Please, think again…again…again…again.’
Now when she’s having night, I’m having day,
And when she’s having snow, I’m having rain,
And I can never get to her by train…

With eyes too dry from holding back the tears
She watched me leave, wrapped in my doubts and fears,
And eased the burden of a looming choice
With words unsaid that help me through the years,
‘Amen to you, be happy, and rejoice.’



Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

Monday, December 26, 2011

'A Natural History of My Room'


In response to a prompt #86 from We Write Poems.



It’s
Really
Not a room,
An apartment,
But I will call it
A room in a sense of
Something that represents an
Indivisible living space.
It indeed witnessed a lot of life:
Four generations sharing the same roof!
Too crowded, too much into each other.
It has been years since I left that place.
I have a family. A big
House, my kids consider small.
My life is full, but I
Find myself in that
Apartment each
Time I dream
Of home.
Weird?



Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

Memory


My response to a visual prompt from We Write Poems.



City,
Old, gorgeous,
Distant, and near,
Forever in my soul,
Is that you? The rain
Is playing tricks on my eyes.
Please, let me see you once again,
Take me back if only for a moment,
Allow me to walk along your narrow cobblestone streets
Ghosts of the past keeping me company, smiling at me.



Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

Dreaming of a White Christmas...

My six words for today:


No white? Try good old bright!


And my six (!) words for any day:
Live for the Love of it!

Bright and Merry Christmas,
The Happy Amateur

Sunday, December 25, 2011

"All Is Calm..."

Six Word Saturday (6WS)


"All is bright..."
I can write.



Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur


 

Christmas Day

Here's a new set of words from the Sunday Whirl:

heart  decree  afraid  heard  haste  manger  pondered  shepherds  tidings  joy  angel  peace


Afraid no more, the shepherds bid farewell      
To Bethlehem, and making no haste,              
They journey back, heart left behind,               
Inside the manger.  Poor souls,                         
They pondered all night long                           
The tidings heard, the                                       
Angel’s joy at                                                  
Lord’s decree                                                 
Of peace,                                                       
Christ.   

                                                         
Have a beautiful Christmas Day!


Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur 

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Ode To Joy

The prompt comes from Carry On Tuesday, today it's the first line of 'When A Child Is Born.'
A ray of hope flickers in the sky.


A ray of hope flickers in the sky -
A single star that brightens up the night,
Eternal love shines through its soothing light,
An ode to joy - a newborn baby's cry.


Merry Christmas!

Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

Friday, December 23, 2011

Haiku Happy


The haiku challenge came from The Purple Treehouse blog.  The first two I wrote some time ago, the third one was born today.



'Change'

Cling not to past, for
Autumn lies in wait, with nights
Long, and mornings crisp.


'Perspective'

The storm is over.
The rainbow stands out brighter
Against the dark cloud.


'Light'

Our burdens - weightless
Hay, lifting us off the ground,
A hand of a child.



Merry Christmas!  Happy Holidays!  Peace to everyone!


Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

Thursday, December 22, 2011

More Limericks? Yes!

This is rapidly turning into a limerick blog...  The 'box theme' is in response to a Wednesday prompt from Poetic Asides.  Here I go:


'Boxed In'

A heavy weight champion Gox
Once tried to think out of the box:
He went, 'Peace and love...'
While unlacing his glove,
But a whack knocked him out of his socks.

A tiny and fragile Miss Ox
Has lived all her life in a box.
She let no one in,
And kept everything clean,
And she never did get chicken pox.


Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

It's Limerick Time...Again!

 'Twists of Fate'

A woman was planning to back
A fellow who called himself Jack,
But (what a sly fox!)
When she peeped in the box,
He popped out, and gave her a smack!

A woman was planning to back
A hunter who launched an attack,
But no such luck:
She was hit by a duck
That fell from the sky with a 'quack!'


Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

It's Limerick Time! 'On Loyalty'

On a quite different - limerick - note: this week's writing prompt from Mad Kane reads, 'a woman (a fellow) was planning to back...'  Here's a couple of limericks from me under a common title.

'On Loyalty'

A woman was planning to back
Her man who was clearly a wrack,
"For better, for worse...
But vows disperse...
Oh, well," and she went off to pack.

A fellow was planning to back
His gal who was clearly a wrack,
"For her I would die,"
He said with a sigh,
"Alas, she was bad in the sack."


Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

Monday, December 19, 2011

Fearless

This week's prompt from Carry on Tuesday is the opening line from Eric Clapton's 1974 hit 'Let it Grow.'  Here's the line: Standing at the crossroads.

Here's my attempt.  I hope you won't mind another etheree...

 
Standing at the crossroads of a new year,         
Like a Russian fairy tale warrior,
Eager to choose any pathway,
I despise the stone warnings,
“Turn right…find happiness,
Turn left…lose your horse,
Go straight…perish…”
Watch me now -
Here I
Go.


Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

Children

I wrote this poem a while ago around the same time of year.  I want to share it with you.  If you feel a bit (or quite a bit) frazzled right now, maybe have trouble sleeping - I know I do - I hope it'll help you relax a little.  Enjoy the Season.

'Children'

The anxious mind
Breeds demons.
Leave your worries,
And walk upstairs.

Savor every step
That brings you close
To where the angels dwell.

They now rest,
Exhausted from the day,
With dreams caught up
In their tousled locks.

Small hours. Keep still,
Do not disturb
Their sleep.
Just stand and watch,
Amazed,
Until it hurts to see,
And every tiny line is taken in.

Then bow your head,
And ask for nothing more,
And share in the dawn of life to come.


Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur


              

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Nostalgia

Here's my response to a writing prompt from Sunday Whirl.  (The words in bold were supposed to be used in a poem.)  I cannot get enough of etherees!

‘Nostalgia’

In my dream, a citizen of the world,
I fly, below me the Earth rotates,
Another year away from home,
Someone’s luck is my trouble,
United States - my land,
Stranger things happen.
The game is on,
“Go, purple!”
Do not
Lag.


Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

Focus

Here’s my etheree response to a writing prompt from Poets United (The Thursday Think Tank #78.)  The challenge was to write Off the Cuff. 

Some fine day I will learn how to focus,
Without being distracted by odd
Superficial things - like a bug
That chose to wake in the cold,
And treading the white cloud
Of my windowsill,
Wonders if he’s
Alive or
Dead…  Poor
Guy.


Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Black and White

Real people, not cardboard figures,
Working their black and white magic,
Living their imperfect lives,
Filled with overbearing loneliness,
Loving, and breathing, and dying,
Destroying themselves,
And rising from ashes.
Oh, the forgotten glory
Of watching a good movie.


Inspired by  The Hustler, a 1961 drama directed by Robert Rossen, with a star cast featuring Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, and George C. Scott.


Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur




Thursday, December 15, 2011

Happy Hopper Days ('New York Movie')


She used to listen to music,
Responding with every pore,
Now all she hears is sounds
That speak to her no more.

The voice is distant, though near,
Someone, not her, is on stage.
She wasn’t meant to be here,
It’s not her time, not her age.

It’s somebody else’s theater,
It’s somebody else’s life.
She’s merely a spectator,
She’s somebody else’s wife.


This painting - 'New York Movie' by Hopper - is one of this week's writing prompts from Margo Roby (Wordgathering.)


Live for the Love of it,
The Happy Amateur