Tag: poetry

Genie Unleashed
art · creativity · poetry · writing

Genie Unleashed

V.J. Knutson42 Comments

Artistic sensibility
hungered by the exquisite
craves expression

The critic guffaws
decries creativity
starves the impulse

Who unleashed
such nonsense,
such magical thinking!

To think beauty
once espied
can be replicated

and by such an amateur
the unskilled hand
an unworthy representative.

But the artist, unleashed
knows only magic –
this genie will not be rebottled.
(Thank you to Reena’s Explorationchallenge, whose prompt line is: The genie is not getting back in the bottle.  Art work my own – self-critiqued and found lacking, thank you.)

A Convertible Summer
childhood · culture · poetry · writing

A Convertible Summer

V.J. Knutson36 Comments

Summer of ’67
British invasion
Canada claiming 100 –
Dad arrives home
in a powder puff
blue convertible.

Back seat sisters
long hair flapping
bellowing along
with 8-track tunes:
Loving Spoonful
“Do you believe in magic?”

I, barely nine
idolizing a sister
sixteen – a model
with go-go boots
and hippie style

Cottaged at Sauble
muscle cars prowling
oiled bodies lounging
and all eyes lit
on sister, and I
wondering at the draw
made castles in the sand.

Surfing the waves
avoiding the baby
whose brash cries
and quick, chubby legs
keep Mom distracted,
I am observer of the life
Neil Diamond is promising:
“Girl, you’ll be a woman soon.”

Ah, to be 9, in summertime
few the cares, and ideas
like popcorn, burst and pop,
forgotten in each watery plunge
still content to be a child.

(A Convertible Summer first appeared here in June of 2018.  I submit this edited version for Eugi’s Causerie Weekly challenge:  summer.  Image my own.)

 

 

Quarantined Thoughts
creativity · culture · current affairs · poetry · writing

Quarantined Thoughts

V.J. Knutson52 Comments

Oh, the plans I make –
swept up in sudden quietude –
art, writing, books to read –
creativity leaps with excitement

And yet, there is a somber tone
ringing in my head – an anxious
whirring – reframing solitude
as social aberration…

And in this dance of light and dark
how shall I weave the threads
braid together a semblance of order
find a balance I can live with?

(Inspired by the prompting of Reena’s Exploration Challenge: quarantined thoughts.  Image my own.)

In Dreams, She Awakens
art · change · creativity · current affairs · dreams · nature · poetry · writing

In Dreams, She Awakens

V.J. Knutson14 Comments

I dream of a woman
Mother-centred
grey-haired essence
oozing strength –
a vessel, rain focused
decoding political lies.

Leaders are locked
targeting anxiety
selective stances
patriarchal bedmates
ending unsafe

Rioters blow up
martyr consciousness
metamorphosis in throngs
chemicals insignificant
when innocence ignored
temples violated.

What is next?
A future gatekeeper
spouting personal freedom
recalling pleas, charming
ghosts of the past?

We need
discernment,
a woman
Mother-centred
grey-hair wise
leading the way.

(I dreamt of a goddess figure, and attempted to capture her in the pencil drawing featured.  Working on that dream, many things have emerged.  The poem above is just on example.)