Monday, October 18, 2010

Monday Poetry Stretch - The Moon

I've been stargazing and moon watching with my son as of late. Even though Karla Kuskin invites us to write about a radish, I think these days I prefer the moon. So, your challenge is to write about the moon. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results later this week.

15 comments:

  1. Great timing -- I was reworking this poem over the weekend:

    Steps Toward a Full-Moon Machine
    By Steven Withrow


    First, believe in glories,
    in satellites and sorceries of sky.
    Any meddler in moonstuff
    who's punched enough holes
    in night will tell you:
    Doubt's the thing to lose.
    Certitude's essential
    in cleaving the celestial.
    Nothing grounds a moon deeper
    than doomy howls of gloom.

    Instead proceed as a boy
    might shape a ball of snow,
    mittens sugared with sweet cold,
    confident it will fly.
    Remember, all that is, is glory.
    Now look up.
    See the high, bright world you made.

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  2. Midnight Snack

    Moon sits
    stoneware white
    against night’s
    black tablecloth

    Pile her high
    with wishes and ideas,
    serve her
    satellites,
    sprinkle her with stars
    and emptiness

    Eat the moonglow
    Swallow it whole
    Follow its
    lonely, delicious path
    Go

    --Laura Purdie Salas

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  3. Gosh--I wrote an entire book of moon poems "What Rhymes with Moon."

    Did I write this before for Miss R?

    The Moon and Me: A Tritina

    Looking last night at the moon,
    I thought how it resembled a stone
    Skipped by a child into the sky.

    But who would have thrown into the sky
    Something so precious as that moon,
    Such an enormous gem stone?

    I would have rather hung that stone
    Around my neck, bedecked like the sky
    With ear-stars as well as that hanging moon,
    And strolled into sky town,
    the boys whistling at the moonstone and me.


    ©2009/2010 Jane Yolen All rights reserved

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  4. tonight's
    double feature,
    starring Venus and the
    handsome Man in the Moon, begins
    at dusk

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  5. Cool poems! Here's mine:

    Moon Boy

    When the moon called, I went.
    Thirty silver days I spent,
    combing the moon's white locks,
    believing them a lass's,
    not an eldritch crone's.
    Till I came home. Now
    I can only speak
    with a long loon's cry.
    Everyone who passes
    turns aside, leaving me
    to watch the empty sky.

    --Kate Coombs, 2010, all rights reserved

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  6. We will have a full moon on Friday...


    Everynight Everywhere

    We share
    this pocketwatch moon
    hanging from a chain of stars.

    We are children of
    Africa
    Asia
    South America
    North America
    Europe
    Australia.

    And we share
    this pocketwatch moon
    invisibly holding hands
    across dirt
    and ocean
    and language.

    We look up to read its face.
    We look down to see its smile
    reflected in our streams and ponds.

    We are children
    who will never meet
    but still
    we share
    this pocketwatch moon
    this brightness
    this hope.

    © Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

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  7. Three days of rain
    tonight, Moon, you're back
    my, how you have grown!

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  8. funny, i was working on a poem about the moon over the weekend, but didn't quite finish it until yesterday. synchronicity?

    but it's a bit rude, and i'm not sure how your other readers would feel about it, so i'll be posting it this friday on my blog and will take the brickbats and bouquets over there.

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  9. Tuesday is the New Monday indeed.

    Little Boy Moon
    come into the corn
    swinging the curve of a cow’s white horn
    come blowing come lowing
    the sound of forlorn
    we went and put a Man on the Moon
    one step one hop one sleepy leap
    led to the end of the Man in the Moon

    Now we wait in the meadow
    We wait with the sheep
    for the cat and her fiddle, the dish and the spoon
    it’s udderly suddenly up to you
    to make the cow leap
    to make the moon blue
    Little Boy Moon
    please make it true

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  10. The Man in the Moon

    The man in the moon
    is a woman,
    second best to brother sun,
    not as big, not as strong,
    and yet . . . .
    who cares to stare at the sun?
    He will only blind you.
    But the moon . . . .
    she will look back
    and smile.

    And who would visit the sun,
    who burns if you get too near?
    But the moon . . . .
    The moon beckons,
    she invites,
    she welcomes you
    to her bosom,
    offers all she has,
    begs you to stay
    and invites you back.

    The sun shouts.
    See me.
    I am here in all my glory.
    Take me as I am.
    But the moon . . . .
    The moon doesn’t boast
    or brag.
    She doesn’t demand.
    The moon accommodates.
    Her aim is to please.

    One day, the sun will burn out
    in a rage of bluster and bravado.
    And the moon . . . .
    The moon will try a new style.
    She will change
    and adapt.
    She will survive
    into eternity,
    because she is a rock,
    because she is a woman.

    ~~~Barbara J. Turner

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  11. Fianlly, I get to play. Here's mine:
    http://deowriter.wordpress.com/2010/10/22/poetry-stretch-moon-poems/
    Loved the Kuskin poem.

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  12. Perspective
    by Liz Korba

    Bend down and look between your legs
    And see the moon contract.
    It’s true. The moon will minimize.
    I love this lunar fact.

    On clear nights when the moon is full
    My neighbors may see me
    And whisper, “She’s a lunatic.”
    Moonstruck, I must agree.

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  13. I hope two things now: that I'm not too late for the party, and that I am not double-posting this due to an unexpected browser glitch!

    Early fall evening
    A narrow airplane contrail
    Punctuates the moon.

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  14. Just found the Poetry Stretch, through David Elzey, via VCFA Forum. Great stuff, all these, thanks. Here's a few:
    The Dark of the Moon

    Poised
    between death and conception
    the moon rejoices
    quietly
    that emptying has ended.
    Her invisibility
    satisfies her.
    She rests
    from the gaze of her children.
    Yet she teaches us:
    Empty your heart.
    Imagine no weight in your heart.
    It will make you happy.
    It will make it true.


    Invoking the Moon

    Reach your radiance into the recesses
    where shame clings like an old scent.
    Kindle second sight in my frightened eyes.
    Let your glow teach my tongue
    to speak the truth of my body.
    Loosen my tight throat,
    bless resonance through my vocal cords.
    Lick my hardened heart with your softness.
    With your brave blush, expand my lungs.
    Hold me in your moonlap, Mother,
    Push your roundness into mine.
    Bloom clear in my confused belly,
    the bright yellow-white of you.
    Bathe my body with your silver shimmer.
    Beam into my feet so I walk with sure instinct.
    Allow me to follow your lunar path,
    through safety, oh my Mother, into ecstasy.
    Between my legs let me feel you,
    tumultuous and female,
    the light and the dark of love.

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