Zitch

Stanzas	3
Lines	8 = 24 lines
Syllable/Words	12 syllables/line
Rhymes	2/stanza
Repeat

Crystallization

1              Glacial frost sparkles on the leaves and flowers

                Crystallization capturing their true colors.

                Leeching the color into the frost’s very heart.

                As the sun warms the surrounding, melting frost

5              It drains the condensed color of the plant away

                Storing and saving it for the new shoots in the spring.

                When April rains come again so will the colors

                Shifting and maturing through spring, summer, and fall.

                Fairies with butterfly wings paint on the colors

10           Touching up each leaf and flower to show its’ best.

                Lady bug warriors defend against vandals

                Who would deface and destroy Mother Nature’s works.

                Peonies could not burst forth without lots of help

                From the strongest of insects, the blackest of ants.

15           While hard working bees transform nectar to honey

                A gift with healing properties fit for the gods.

                Children always seem believe in all these things,

                While adults become increasingly more cynical

                Needing proof from science to determine the truth.

20           The grace of whimsy is granted to few adults.

                Adults can recapture it from time to time

                By looking through a child’s eyes for a moment

                But soon it is lost again to adult burdens.

                Oh how I wish I could have stayed a child longer.

Beth Ellen Cook               

11-20-2011

My Glorious Torturer

            Zea-ching

Stanzas	4
Lines	7/stanza = 28 lines
Syllable/Words	Alternate 6 words then 13 words
Rhymes
Repeat	Line 7

My Glorious Torturer

                My poems are stuck in ether.

                There is a fog in my brain that will not let them gel.

                I catch a hazy glimpse

                Then away it swirls into nothingness behind the thick, gray, vaporous cloud cover.

                Again and again this always happens.

                A gauzy fabric enshrouds my mind keeping my poem just out of reach.

                Oh my Muse, my glorious torturer.

                I wait for her to come,

                To change this opaque landscape to a translucent, light filled meadow of wildflowers.

                Her crystal bell laugh I hear

                Muffled through the shifting haze of the perpetually seeking I must go through.

                She is a cruelly loving mistress.

                When finally I gain on her voice she darts away in the demesne.

                Oh my Muse, my glorious torturer.

                You wander away and I long

                To feel your gentle guiding hand upon my shoulder just one more time.

                You share your touch with many

                And when you visit all the others I must patiently wait my turn

                For you to come around again.

                When you are gone I struggle to find the correct words and images.

                Oh my Muse, my glorious torturer.

                You flow past on gossamer wings

                Leaving a contrail-like mist to swirl softly around and through my body.

                Pores soak in the pearlescent droplets

                That hold the next installment of lines and images to be poetically dispersed.

                My bloodstream carries each drop around

                Until it surges through my brain to my fingers as I quickly write.

                Oh my Muse, my glorious torturer.

Beth Ellen Cook               

9-16-2011

Monsoon Moons

       Zala

Stanzas	6
Lines	7 = 42 lines/line
Syllable/Words	11 syllables
Rhymes
Repeat	Line 1 repeats sequentially (1, 9, 17, 25, 33, 41 or 42)

Monsoon Moons

1              The sun passes behind the clouds one more day.

                Each morning of July starts bright and sunny.

                High noon brings blue-gray clouds building all around.

                Closing in from all directions oppressively.

5              Mid-afternoon and the storms start their heralds;

                Thunder murmurs and yells across the landscape

                Depending on where the cells collide overhead.

                Cats are hiding under the furniture as

                The sun passes behind the clouds one more day.

10           Wind blows plastic cups off the kitchen counter

                Through the window left open to catch the breeze

                Which has been morphed into a swirling banshee.

                Step outside the door and you breath is ripped out,

                Leaving you with a gasping need for oxygen.

15           The air cools quickly and smells of hard blown rain.

                A deluge sweeps out across the high desert

                The sun passes behind the clouds one more day.

                Rain plunges through the sliding patio door

                Accidentally left open, carpet soaked.

20           The torrent ends as abruptly as it started,

                But it’s over too soon and the heat returns.

                An F0 tornado can be seen spiraling,

                Lightening flares around the white-blue-gray cycloid.

                Awesome to look at from five miles distance.

25           The sun passes behind the clouds one more day.

                More impressive than its’ dust devil cousins

                As a cyclone creates a distinct damage path

                That can be followed from up-well to dispersal.

                The thrill of monsoon rains fades as nights pass by.

30           Excitement replaced by predictability,

                Until the power is K.O.ed with no warning.

                Then life is plunged almost back to the stone-age.

                The sun passes behind the clouds one more day.

                Save the work you’re doing on your laptop

35           Before the battery has a chance to die.

               

                If you can attune yourself to Mother Earth

                The monsoon’s rhythms will bring you comfort.

                Eleven full moons have passed since last season,

                Thirty-ish days will end the present cycle.

40           The Indian summer nights will then commence.

                Children will be groaning as school starts again.

42           The sun passes behind the clouds one more day.

Beth Ellen Cook               

7-5-2011/7-10-2011

Edge of the Storm

      Zabby

Stanzas	2
Lines	8 = 16 lines
Syllable/Words	10 syllables/line
Rhymes
Repeat	Line 1

So this is a zabby and a half.  I needed an extra stanza.

Edge of the Storm

1              When the birds started their trilling again

                I knew at last the storm had passed us by.

                A micro-burst had struck fifteen miles away,

                A tornado had touched down just forty.

5              The T.V. was telling everyone to

                Heed the tornado warnings until 8:00.

                At 7:39 a new line hit.

                At first it was cool and then I was scared.

               

When the birds started their trilling again

10           And the sky started to lighten up

                My anxiety started to level off.

                And by 8:10 P.M. it was over.

                No more rain, thunder in the distance.

                The lightening had quit flashing around me;

15           Some bolts of which had struck very close by.

                The T.V., which had quit, was broadcasting.

When the birds started their trilling again

                I knew a smidge of what Joplin had felt

                But I still can’t imagine that horror.

20           In a half hour, my world had been shaken

                But at least it was still, completely, here.

                The lightening may have struck a few trees down,

                But I’ve turned the computer back on

                And sit here without fear of being hit.

Beth Ellen Cook               

6-1-2011

Music of the Night

      Zusty

Stanzas	1
Lines	17
Syllable/Words
Rhymes	Line 1, 7, 8, 9, 17 rhyme, the rest none
Repeat

Music of the Night

1              The crows called to each other raucously as they settled for the night.

                Sharing with each other, and the world, their trials and tribulations

                As the sun set beyond the horizon far in the west, where they’d never been.

                The crickets slowly started to tune their orchestra.

5              First one here would do a sound check, then another over there

                Until they were all vibrating in time as the crows wrapped up their set.

                Occasionally the crickets give way to cars passing their homesite.

                The reverberation of rubber on pavement giving them a violent respite

                Over which nothing else can be heard as tires take the spotlight.

10           The music flows into the breeze as it moves through the trees.

                Leaves sway together, brushing against one another

                A quiet, gentle counterpoint to tires and crows is sighed.

                A croak comes from nowhere, and then another, and another.

                The frogs are hunting in full force in the dark of the day.

15           And then a single trill comes from the east, followed by one more.

                The song birds awaken to face another day as the sun lightens the sky.

                The summer concert will have an encore when again there’s no daylight.

               

               

Beth Ellen Cook               

5-31-2011

Winds of the Moon

       Zuma

Stanzas	3
Lines	8 = 24 lines
Syllable/Words	11 syllables/line
Rhymes	2/stanza
Repeat

Okay, so I broke form and didn't rhyme this one.  I'm not sure about stanza's 2 & 3, so give me some feedback.

Winds of the Moon

                Around all the moons swirl gentle solar winds

                That sometimes metamorphosize into storms.

                No matter which wind blows, it gathers moon dust

                Which sparks to life in the glowing of the sun.

                Most motes settle back to the moons’ arid surfaces,

                Occasionally a spark travels beyond,

                To drift through space until it finds the right mind,

                Lodges there, giving stellar inspiration.

                The mind that receives this sparkle of the moon

                Transforms the ordinary into brilliance.

                Creativity becomes their driving force.

                Others may not understand their leaps and bounds

                As they are progressives ahead of their time.

                When the others finally catch up, they say, “Ah,

                NOW we understand just where they were going.”

                No longer are they the crackpot on the fringe.

                But the driving force is the most important.

                It coalesces things without connection.

                The moon dust swirls through the mind on solar wind

                Bringing in the knowledge of whole galaxies

                To flow through either gently or as a storm.

                The creativity can be a constant

                Or come from nowhere in frenzied fits and spurts.

                The mind just smiles and lets it all flow forth.

His Chair

      Zozo

Stanzas	3
Lines	6 lines, 7 lines, 8 lines = 21 lines
Syllable/Words	15 syllables/line
Rhymes
Repeat

His Chair

1              I used to feel no compunction about sitting in his chair

                After he’d made his way upstairs, going to bed for the night.

                Now the dark blue La-Z-boy recliner sits where its’ always sat,

                In the corner of the living room, partially blocking a door,

5              But the family doesn’t sit in it, unless company comes.

                No one has said, “Don’t sit in Grampy’s chair,” it’s just understood.

                That’s where Grampy has sat since my first memory as a kid;

                In his recliner, surveying through the big picture window.

                Random comments about what he saw would boom across the room

10            And he’d expect a comment back agreeing with what he said.

                His decrees about life from his throne were often times funny

                Especially when he was watching all the evening news shows;

                He definitely thought he could do a better job than most.

                Everyone knew to wave as they went by, whether you saw him or not,

15            Just in case, or you’d hear about it the next time he saw you.

                It was all in the good nature of ribbing between neighbors.

                If anyone needed help with anything Grampy was there.

                If advice was needed for a project, he’d give you plenty,

                Especially if it was planting a vegetable garden.

20            He’d watch from his chair in the living room as neighbors planted

                Shaking his head and planning his next bit of advice to give.