Gemini Ink Writing Lab - Week #9 - Dreams

Engaging the Active Imagination: Writing as Activism

Writing prompt

• Describe the details of a daydream housed in your imagination

Poem: String of Millionstars* (draft)

And you,

string of millionstars,

knocked about

the bedside table

with one swift kick

from the rustling sheets,

you ascend,

strung up swiftly

across the ceiling

by the conductor's

hands,

and there you remain,

suspended,

in the warm glow

of lovers' laughter,

until heaved

in a celestial downspin,

to be gathered
on your bed

of molten amber.

* - Millionstars, also known as Baby's Breath (Gypsophila paniculata), are a type of perennial flower covered with tiny, loosely-scattered, white petals.

Gemini Ink Writing Lab - Week #8 - Wanderlust

Engaging the Active Imagination: Writing as Activism

Writing prompt

• Write what keeps you rooted or what moves you to spread your wings

Poem: Meditation on the San Antonio River (draft)

From the trampled reaches
of the trickling river bed

the great white heron bathes

in the waves of the mallard's call,

and the live oak leaves refuse

the reprieve of the unwelcomed breeze

while the younglings stir

restless in their nests,

but when the night owl's tempered

sugar skull begins to rot

the dwindling cypress pine needles

cry out,
PEOPLE OVER PROFIT!

National Poetry Month: William Carlos Williams

It's the anarchy of poverty
delights me, the old
yellow wooden house indented
among the new brick tenements

Or a cast-iron balcony
with panels showing oak branches
in full leaf. It fits
the dress of the children

reflecting every stage and
custom of necessity -
Chimneys, roofs, fences of
wood and metal in an unfenced 

age and enclosing next to 
nothing at all: the old man 
in a sweater and soft black 
hat who sweeps the sidewalk — 

his own ten feet of it — 
in a wind that fitfully 
turning his corner has 
overwhelmed the entire city

- "The Poor", William Carlos Williams

National Poetry Month: Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

- "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front", Wendell Berry

Gemini Ink Writing Lab - Week #7 - Tale of Two Cities

Engaging the Active Imagination: Writing as Activism

Writing prompt

• Which side of the tracks do you come from? Write the perspective of your city as you see it through your lens

Poem: Frontier Town (draft)

Where the cracked-tooth smile politicians
with their supreme visions of longitude
file the copy papers for foreclosure
beside their former chief of staff.

Where the gypsies on main street
stripped of their right to sleep
rush to retrieve the confiscated
split-bar benches dumped in the river.

Where the good samaritans facing fines
in the commissioner's court
sit idle in the principal's office
while their most loyal patrons starve in the park.

And the leaves of the garden house lay wilting
and the stone fountain in the city runs empty.

National Poetry Month: Beirut

Uptown, the street's in a calming way
And outside is warm as a bed with a maid
And I find it's all our waves and raves
That makes the days go on this way

I heard the sad sound of words
Spoken from a beak of a wise old bird
Uptown, the streets are kept to a flow
Our ground never leaves me alone

He means well, saying, I've got stories
Of wine superb and, of course, my childhood
Forks and knives and a hospital bed
Where I turned my life over and over again


- "Forks and Knives (La Fête)", Beirut

National Poetry Month: Hafez

One rosy face from the world's garden for us is enough,
And the shade of that one cypress in the field
Strolling along gracefully for us is enough.

I want to be far away from people whose words
And deeds don't match. Among the morose and heavy-
Hearted, a heavy glass of wine for us is enough.

Some people say that good deeds will earn them
A gated house in heaven. Being rakes and natural beggars
A room in the tavern for us is enough.

Sit down beside the stream sometime and watch
Life flow past. That brief hint of this world
That passes by so swiftly for us is enough.

Look at the flow of money and the suffering
Of the world. If this glimpse of profit and loss
Is not enough for you, for us it is enough.

The dearest companion of all is here. What
Else is there to look for? The delight of a few words
With the soul friend for us is enough.

Don't send me away from your door, oh, God,
Even to Paradise. Your alleyway, compared
To all space and time, for us is enough.

It's inappropriate, Hafez, for you to complain
Of your gifts from Fate. Your nature is like water,
Your beautiful flowing poems for us are enough.

- "One Rose is Enough," Hafez (translated by Robert Bly)