Barbara's Meanderings

Prompt: Write a postcard about where you are now.

My Home Now

A few steps from my door
I see the abandoned pool
Covered now, but soon it will
be filled with the sound of
raucous voices and the water
will lap at its sides
Beckoning me to lay on the
chaise lounge and sun myself
until the sun warms me forcing
my heated body into the cool of the
Water.

Behind the iron gate, is the path
following the shore and the sand
beach reserved for the egrets and
water birds who flock there each spring
and summer and the ducks and swans
who raise their young among the tall reeds
growing there too.

Last year I wandered over the boardwalk and
beheld a mother swan giving lessons to her
brood and the surprise blew away the feelings
for which I had walked to the shore
bringing peace to my mind and erasing the
source of distress for a few moments

This place is now my home with its twin
four story apartment buildings and small patios
where some go to smoke.
I love the freedom to walk outside any time
I wish, and at last the spring has arrived
Soon I will walk the paths to observe maybe
a rabbit or perhaps another mother swan.
The serendipity of such a moment leaves me
Breathless.
copyright 2011 by Barbara Ehrentreu

April 3, 2011

Write a poem in which you imagine the world without you.

Would you miss me?

If when you went to Joanne’s house I hadn’t been there
would you have found another
whose lips fit perfectly with yours?
Whose mind twisted in the same patterns?
Whose soul intertwined with yours and
who considered you home no matter where we landed?

Would you have found another dreaming wanderer
a thin skinned crazy person who continued to
feel you were the one way past the time another
might have left to find a more sedate conformist?
What would have become of the unborn children?
Maybe they would have been happy born to another
success laying across their 2 piece suited lives.
Happiness etched across their faces.

What would the countless children have done
without me?
How many would have trudged through school without
my help?
What about the ones who hovered on the edges of passing?
Would they have found the teacher who really cared like I did?
Or would they have lost out and fallen to the wayside?

How would your life have been without me?
Perhaps you would have found the woman who
took care of your needs and then walked away leaving
you to enjoy your own company.
Maybe you would have stayed unmarried for the lack of a
kindred soul – forty-six years nonexistent
For you would not have stayed with someone like that.

And what of the joy we shared? Would you have found this
With another? Or would you have gone through your life
constantly searching and wondering why you hadn’t found
the one?

Meanwhile, I have been writing poetry and tending to my own self. I went to the opthamologist and found out that I have to have a cataract removal operation in August. I don't really have that much trouble seeing, but the doctor said that it should be removed. When I do get it removed they will replace the lens with a new one that will let me see things at a distance. That is something I haven't been able to do since I was 11.:) I will let everyone know the date when it gets closer. It is only a few hours of my time and you get to go home that day.

As for the writing poetry part I am posting all the poems I have written in these two weeks. You will see that some of them are different from my usual style. Enjoy and let me know your comments, please. As always my poems were written to the prompts on Poetic Asides, the website for Robert Brewer who also thinks up the prompts each week. It's hard to write just one poem for each prompt and the people who post there are prolific and excellent poets. Each week we all post and discuss each other's poetry while coming back day after day until Wednesday rolls around again. You could say I and many others are addicted to the website. :)

I wanted everyone to know that one of my poems has been published on the website for Poets for Living Waters. It's called Earth and you need to look for it by title, because they left out my byline. Just click on the link for the poem and scroll down. Though they left out my byline it is in the right alphabetical order on Open Mic (D-G). I wrote to the editors who wrote back and said they would fix the error. However, tonight I went to check on it and they hadn't done it. So I wrote to them again and I am still waiting for an answer. I will let everyone know if I do hear from them in the comments for this blog. Poets for Living Waters was created to use poetry to bring attention to the effects of the oil spill on the Gulf's waters. Poets submit poems that apply to this topic and you can submit by email if you are interested. They are still accepting new poems. You can submit 1-3 poems each time. I am very happy to be in the company of other people from Poetic Asides who have their poems there too.

So here are all the poems I have written since the last post:

Prompt: Write a poem for any of these titles:

• Spectator falls from 2nd deck
• Life under melting Arctic ice
• Disheartened by the disaster
• The Many Voices of Lauryn Hill
• If You Can't Take the Heat, Use Fewer Jalapenos

Life Under Melting Arctic Ice

The ice formed around you
Clinging to your chest
Centering around your heart
And it formed a barrier
Shutting me out as if I were
suddenly stuck under the ice
Searching for a hole in the melting
glacier as I swam blindly shoving my
arms up toward the clear frozen
shelf reaching the flat surface
unable to push through the layers
as your words built more
And I floundered gasping for air
The energy to keep pushing sucked
from me in the vacuum of your
disinterest and disdain

And as I swam in the distance between
us my heart cracked thinking of this
formless existence without you
A tiny hole appeared, a pin prick only
Yet I fitted a finger through and
realized it was melting as I poked my
head through the larger hole and your
arms surrounded me in a warm apology
copyright 2010 by Barbara Ehrentreu

Spectator falls from 2nd Deck

A few hours out of port
he spied a figure in the water
beckoning as she rose revealing
her tail swishing behind
Mesmerizing him

He leaned over the
railing confirming her lustrous
locks trailing in the azure water
Blinking his eyes the image
remained taunting him singing
a strange high melody, and he leaned
further to hear as the notes hit his ears

In the dark no one saw or heard the splash
But a passenger on the first deck saw a
blob pass the porthole
Too late the announcement came over the
ship’s loudspeaker.
copyright 2010 by Barbara Ehrentreu

Disheartened by the disaster

He sorted through the mounds
of clothes finding pants six sizes
too big barely worn, creases crisp
Swimming on his smaller body.

He mourned their loss
as the pile to give away grew larger
Pain showed in his face
A remembrance of the waste of a life

Not sure why he bought them all
Confused by the emergence of
the man he’d hidden all these years
who no longer fitted these “clown pants”
as he called them

The loss of money, time, and fashion
too much for his recovering body
he grabbed the bag and tossed it into the
metal charity box hoping somewhere there would
be a man to fit all these oversized disasters.
copyright 2010 by Barbara Ehrentreu

Prompt: Write a poem using the title: After the rain

Shoreline after the rain

The water fled leaving bare rocks
Brown mud pocked with broken
shells normally hidden by the water
lay empty devoid of its usual occupants

My sneakered feet squeaked on the wet
boards of the boardwalk
as I passed the space where the blue heron
usually stood regally searching for prey

Searching for their hiding place i
walked along the shoreline
feeling the rain softened humid air
stick to my face as water dripped
in a fine mist as if sent through a sieve

Even the fireflies
toned down their show
after the rain.
copyright 2010 by Barbara Ehrentreu



Waking after the rain (Inspired by a newspaper story)

Warm from sleep they rubbed their eyes
remembering the fury of the rain pelting
their windows and banging against their roof
They had feared the new shingles replacing old
rotted ones would not hold and cause dripping
Creating a need for holders for the drops invading
each sacred inch of their pristine home

Elated the ceiling above their bed had held
they hugged and reaffirmed their love
Preparing for work, he came downstairs
whistling. Feeling ten years younger
as he took the stairs two at a time
a smile on his face

Debris covered the living room floor
bits of tree bark and pieces of leaves
Did the storm blow them through the door?
Confused he moved down one more step
past the protruding wall that had blocked his view
of the ceiling and the hole containing two large
tree branches poking into his living room
So the bang he had heard was not in his dream
after all.
copyright 2010 by Barbara Ehrentreu

Life has a way of punching you in the gut when you least expect it and that is what happened this week. After taking my husband home two weeks ago we had to take him back to the hospital. When he went to the doctor his calcium level had gone up so high the only place for him was the hospital. He could barely walk and talk and he was so confused he wasn't sure about anything. I am happy to report that since he has been in the hospital the calcium level went down, but the doctors still don't know what is wrong with him. That is what the first poem is all about. So that is why I haven't posted anything since Tuesday. He went into the hospital on Wednesday night. But I still wrote poetry each day and posted it on the Poetic Asides website with Robert Lee Brewer's prompts. I am in awe of the talent in that community.

Here are the poems I wrote since Tuesday:

Poem for Day 21

Poem for Day 23

Okay I know it's Saturday and this is late, but hey, I was giving out awards.:) Until the next time, probably soon, thank you to all my readers and for Shirley again for her award. Happy Weekend! It was fun writing a happy poem at last!

More about this picture at the end of this post. All I can say is I love it!!! Who knew the Queen was so warm? I've seen her my whole life and she appeared cold and distant. This is a real switch!!

This is going to be a short post, because I'm not so happy with my poem today, but didn't want to change it too much.:) After yesterday's assault to your senses as many have commented, today's is pretty bland, but I hope you enjoy it. It's all about my existence on this blog and maybe this poem expresses it best.:)Take the phrase "The problem with (blank)" and replace the "(blank)" with a word or phrase. Make this the title of your poem and then write a poem to fit with or juxtapose against that title."

The Problem with Being Unemployed

The first day is exciting when you have no alarm
and you can sleep as much as you want
But when you get up the house
is empty, and you have to clean up
everyone’s mess because after all
you are not working. So you hit the newspapers and
Monster.com and Yahoo Hotjobs.com and
Craigslist.com and you spend hours
revising your resume and cover letter
You apply for all the jobs you find that fit you
and wait for the call or the email
that never arrives. Instead you find too good
to be true offers of money for not doing a thing
and how you can type and money will roll from
your fingers. So you read the omnibus letter
to the end and find all you need pay is over one
hundred dollars for the kit. Disgusted you go
back to the free job offers of Monster.com’s alerts.
Still you don’t hear a thing
You imagine your email floating
in computer land or sitting
in someone’s email box unopened
or worse discarded immediately.

Dust settles on the clutter you accumulated
with wages now gone. You’ll find time tomorrow as the
tomorrows pile up until getting over the knotted lump
becomes gargantuan.A malaise surrounds you as you
become everyone’s servant. It settles into your body until
all you’re doing each day is grabbing a non-fat mocha
latte after picking up your daughter from work.

Anxious for validation you turn to cooking and baking.
Why not bake if you have the time? But that requires
shopping and spending money and you love your
own food, so you eat too much of it. Then you are
left with the dishes to wash - alone.
Writing is done at night for the quiet and solitude
you need for thinking, but you spend too much
time on Facebook and find ways to procrastinate.

Writing at night keeps you up too late so you sleep
until afternoon and miss morning with its breakfast
and first of the day’s sunshine peeking through
your window. Your life is not like others in the house,
and you find though you like being alone at night to write,
you are more alone since no one is on your schedule.
If you try to change you get jet lagged with the time difference.
You want to scream, but it wouldn’t help.
You are stuck in a maddening circle and find it
shrinking until you feel all the life squeezed
out of you and you want to go running into the
street screaming Give Me a Job!!!!
copyright 2009 by Barbara Ehrentreu