Author: poeturja

I'm an independent poet--since the age of four--and a Romani drabarni (Gypsy herbalist/adviser). Recently taught myself to play ukulele and now a wannabe songwriter. Prefer writing poetry simply, striving to compose musically, including talking blues, folktales, and memoirs of life. All music genres inspire me, but I especially vibrate to Classic Rock, Folk, Romani (Gypsy), and Cajun with an emphasis on guitar, ukulele and violin music mainly in a Minor Key. I hope to heal souls and maybe poetry can accomplish that. https://www.facebook.com/RomaniGypsyBooks https://poeturja.wordpress.com/ http://t.co/JSvNROn15t

BLOGETRESSA: SHAMBOLIC POETRY

Here is the Kindle edition of my newest book now available on Amazon. The paperback edition will be finished in about a week. Just when I think I can’t write any more, I manage to find dozens of poems demanding to be born 😀

UNSETTLED PITCH

No more points or angles
Circles for me
Unity
Ouroboros
Me a Romani
Luck of the Gypsy
Depends on angle-less-ness
Exceptions?
Sweet music
Chiming around the universe
When strings overwhelm
Let my tribe
Drum the tambourine
Me a Romani
Percussing a triangle
Softly for the babies
Passionately for the men
Compassionately for the women
Mysteriously for me, a Romani
When accepting the
Jagged edges of life…

TANKA (HURRICANE MICHAEL 2018)

Thank you, Hurricane
For not touching down on me
Yet no happiness
Thinking of those affected
Survivor’s Guilt floods instead….

(struggling with this emotion)

ALTER EGO

Swore I’d age gracefully
No hair dye, no cosmetic surgery
(to pay, would have to commit burglary)
So ok, cheated a bit
Black to look thinner
Sunglasses for misdirection
standing back when the
*!$&%#@ camera lens
Zooms in compassionlessly
Now is the time, I say
No more images to post
Where were phone cameras when
I was young and unlined
Always unlucky on the space time
Continuum of life
Emulating Frankenstein, Jekyll
And Dorian Gray
Today
I fashioned an alter ego
Pumpkin Clarissa
Thin, unwrinkled and
Tall (well, taller than me)
Perfect tenor guitar player
Worthy of Hendrix
(Use your imagination)
Man, I love me!
I mean her!
Versatile
Different mask each holiday
Wish I could download my brain
Well, all right
That’s a bit vain
Still,
If only I could figure out
How to animate her
Hmmmmmm…
Where’s the lightning
When I need it?

Hallowed Swamp

Ghost of a song
Echoing down dirt lanes
Ectoplasming past my tin home
Dead-ended in the swamp
Classical Spanish music
Evolving into Flamenco
Three in the morning
More dangerous than midnight
Traditional Chinese Medicine
Proclaims it the ruling of lungs
Emergency Medical Services
Named it the heart attack hour
Both are right

Call and response
Tenor guitar slung on my shoulder
Wisp of a ghost, maybe two
No fear from me
I strum with the shadows
Exercising my lungs
In the dark, I sing
That moment
That moment one’s percussive heart
Keeps time with the melody
Music taking wing
Jolted by the strings
Controlled by invisible fingers
Chords seducing their
Gaggles of ghosts
Who suddenly surge
Down the road, into the muck

Last Quarter Moon glimmers
Through a pellucid sky
Glitters on wet swamp earth revealing
A crucifix, dirty yet untarnished gold
Wipe it on my long black shirt
Treasure forced to the surface
From heavy rain
Overflowing swamp

And I see a long line led by
A history book explorer
Hernando DeSoto, I’m sure
Once memorized for a test
In a long-ago inner city school:
620 men from 9 ships
220 horses
Priests, farmers, soldiers
Up from Tampa Bay
Hiking through Safety Harbor’s burial mound*
To the Weeden Island Cultures’ mound**
A few miles from me
In New Port Richey
Mound to Mound

Looking down on the ground
Kicking with my black combats
Scattering pottery, human remains
Two skulls head to head
Holding hands
In moldy bed
Since 1539
Buried in a swamp of time
Forbidden love?
Oh, yes
In the shadows
An armored man
A doe-skinned woman
Holding hands
As a priestly spectre
Waving a crucifix
Shouts heathens must die
And they collapse
To the tune of soldiers’ muskets
Loudly exploding, drowning out the music
And the lovers become history
In a piece of Florida swamp
Encroaching on my future backyard
As earth is kicked over
Hiding the pair
Guitar notes evaporating

And the moon silently wanes
After a final wail
From wraiths
I pale
Among ancient bones and faded gold
Alone and not dreaming…

* http://seesafetyharbor.com/Philippe-Park/Indian-Mound/
** https://www.pascocountyfl.net/1193/Oelsner-Indian-Mound

TORTILLA TOAST

1 scrambled egg
1 small tortilla
Snowed under
Ground black pepper
Nuke 2 minutes
Cayenne pepper to blush the
Van Gogh yellows
Bowlful of black coffee
What a morning it’ll be
Especially
While communing with Orion
At 5 in the dark
All that’s missing is a cigarette
25 years since we parted
But wild dill showers
In morning dew
Spread scent to rival
Nicotine
And I am content…

TANKA (National Coffee Day)

My favorite day! Enjoy this tanka and the video, La Chanson du Cafe, from everyone’s favorite Cajun band BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet:

Bright blue sky, white moon
Fading into morning mist
Dark consolation
Coffee smoothes the wrinkly day
Enriching timeworn burdens…

Video: La Chanson du Cafe, BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet

MY MEDICINE BOOK (LOST SONNET)

Wrote this as an introduction to my Drab Lil book in 2013. When I deleted my first WordPress blog, this was “lost” from the internet. In celebration of Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s newest book in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series (Labyrinth of the Spirits) I am posting the sonnet I wrote when publishing my first book. Can’t wait to read Zafron’s book!

Will it take a century to be read
Just like the Book of Talismans I found?
A hundred years lying like the undead
Surfacing in the dark of night, unbound?

Or will it wait upon a shelf somewhere?
Or molder on the web’s ancient server?
Discovered by a person who will care,
Or public domain miners with fervor?

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books
As created by Carlos R. Zafon
Is modernized in Kindles and in Nooks
And would serve as the perfect stepping stone.

So here is my book for posterity
Please try to read it with sincerity!

BEYOND THE MUSE (Autumn Equinox)

Ancient Muses
Paired for every
Art and Science
Overrated
I prefer to see
A hovering shadow
Appear
Like the tarot’s
Lovers
The Poet and her Lover
The Muse of Ideas
While above the deuce
An Angel of Wisdom
That some call Athena
Roiling clouds of creation
Inspiring one line
Enabling the poet’s thoughts
To morph from beauty
Or humor
Or memory
Encouraging the poet’s soul
To share wise words
A secret of life
A reverberation
Through the ages
Longingly I wait
For the rare perception
To align the poem into
Perfect harmony
Celestial equator
Intersecting the ecliptic
Possible on this day
Of Equinoxing …

WANTON WEATHER

How small and helpless
The Eastern shores of
A super power country
Florida dangling
From the crotch of the nation
Flaccid and vulnerable
As the Sahara Desert winds
Ragingly produce
The African Easterly Jet
Spotting the Atlantic Ocean
Closer and closer
And I tremble in my
Tin shack of a mobile home
Wondering why I huddle
Year after year
A swampy prisoner
Of unbridled weather…

	cherylfoston on TANKA (HURRICANE MICHAEL …
	Alexis Rose on BLOGETRESSA: SHAMBOLIC POETRY
	poeturja on BLOGETRESSA: SHAMBOLIC POETRY
	Alexis Rose on BLOGETRESSA: SHAMBOLIC POETRY
	poeturja on BLOGETRESSA: SHAMBOLIC POETRY