Where do you stand?

It's the old tug of war,
left vs right
us vs them
Except someone's found a tractor
and set the field on fire

Where do you stand?

They're busy yelling out the rules-
of up is down
and down is up
of watch thy neighbour burn
I've never been good at following rules

Where do you stand?

I've never been very good at standing, either
but now the heat's on
are you worried we'll make it-
left, right or in the middle?
Authoritarian or liberal?

Where do you stand?
And who stands with you?

A.J. Ponder


To find out, why don't you take the Political Compass Test https://www.politicalcompass.org/test
For many it is an eye-opener, it's easy to believe you're more moderate than you are, that a party is left leaning, when it is really right leaning, or a party is libertarian because they are against taxation.

Now while you might not agree with everything in it, it does seem to work, and is a ready frame-work to compare countries, parties and even movement over time. For NZ, US, AU, UK, DE, and more.

Have a great week people, let's hope we can all pull together and put out the flames. :)

The Tug of war competition at the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris - Denmark/Sweden v France

From http://www.olympic.org/uk/utilities/multimedia/gallery/index_uk.asp

This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less.

The Moment by A.J. Ponder

There's more than this -
more than the endless
wait
for expert idiots
who've yet
to reach the 21st century

The plane's on fire
smoke trailing
from the fuselage -
and you think
the remedy'sto look the other way?

So yeah,
I'll push
because you won't find this
without stepping out
into the abyss
of
might have been
should have been
 So keep your false
promises
of tomorrow
and take the leap
because I'm tired of watching
as you
destroy the engines,
shred the parachutes
and pretend
the moment is not upon us

The moment
when today
has lost it's luster -
and
today is
almost gone

A.J. Ponder 


It's been a good week, an angry week. So I hope you enjoy my angry poem :) And just so I can do the search engine thing - global warming, climate change, but of course that's not what this poem is about not really - just incidentally. I'm hoping it still works, anyway.

Thanks for dropping by, and have a great week!
A.J.
 

Happy 2016 - time to break out the structured poems again?

The New Year is always time for resolutions, even when they're resolutions not to have any New Year resolutions.
 
I'm keen to keep up the blogging, but write fewer poems, while reintroducing a few more structured poems, especially poems around special events. 

Maybe I'll even manage a New Year sonnet, or even maybe a Christmas one. There's something about the constraints on old fashioned poetry that, as a poet, I think are worthwhile pursuing. In the meantime, This Year of Fire, is as good a New Year poem as any, it's a near-traditional sonnet, although it's very dark. I admit, I really wasn't sure about it at first, but it's grown on me. And I think that's always a good sign with poetry - since it's considered a good sign for music and other art forms!!!


Anyway, Happy New Year everybody, best wishes to everyone who follows this blog, and a sad final farewell to 2015, and of course the Tuesday Poem, which was the impetus to me blogging most Tuesdays, although I do hope to keep that up in 2016 and beyond.

cheers to you, my readers, and to the New Year, may it be a good one.

A.J. 
Author of Quest, Prophecy, Omens, Miss Lionheart and the Laboratory of Death, Wizard's Guide to Wellington, Attack of the Giant Bugs - a You Choose Science Adventure, and The Frankie Files

Find my stories and support my writing on ko-fi   And tell me which poems you'd like to see in my upcoming poetry book—2024

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday Poem : My Empire by A.J. Ponder

I should have known
My sweetest friend
That you could have it all
In the end


Someone told me long ago
that it would end this way

Tho' I keep searching for
An answer,


There is nothing I can say
Hanging on the promises
You never thought to give
You're scared

Of the pain you feel,
Maybe it's raining
Or the sun wont shine
I know

You've never seen the rain
except there's a rainbow
above you
burning


I've had two songs going through my head for a long time now, "I should have known," by the Foo Fighters and Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails. There are a couple of other lines that have been thrown in (attributions below), but this song poem, "My Empire," could just as easily been called "Earworm"...

If you enjoy poetry, why not check out the poems at the Tuesday Poem Blog, free every Tuesday.

(Also included Whitesnake, "Here I go again," lyrics, John Fogerty's "have you ever seen the rain," lyrics, The Eagles, "Desperado," and maybe even afew from Joss Whedon's "Once more with feeling." And if I have accidentally placed an unattributed line, please don't hesitate to say. Have a great week!

thanks for dropping by,
A.J. Ponder

Tuesday Poem: Ahi Kā by A.J. Ponder and Eileen Mueller

Ahi Kā

(Prose and interwoven sonnet, Truth Lies in Fire and Dies in Flame)

Winning entry (first equal) in NZSA NorthWrite 2013 Collaboration Contest

By Eileen Mueller and A.J. Ponder

Howls pierced the fog of my dreams. I clutched Ahi, shaking her awake. “Are they real?” Yowling wound through my ear canals, ricocheting inside my head. “The dogs, Ahi, can you hear them?”

She woke, startled. “Hurry, Manaaki. They’re coming.”

We scrambled out of our bush-clad hideout, dashing up the hillside, sliding in the damp earth, ponga fronds whipping our faces.

Frenzied yelps closed in on us. The creatures’ vicious snarling drowned our laboured breathing.

Blue eyes pursued us, hot gas flames in the dark.

Were they real?

I yanked my meds from my pocket. Pills scattered in the dirt. I scrabbled for them. One stuck in my throat before sliding down.

#

Cry havoc and let us unloose the dogs

the dogs, let slip those hellish brutes of war

for tonight Manaaki will have to choose

to run—

#

“Hellhounds,” Ahi yelled, bounding up the mud and crumbling rock.

Menacing growls raced through the underbrush. Ahi yanked a nail from her fingertip. It flared to light, illuminating the black-hackled beast leaping towards us.

“Ahi?” In all our time together, her fingernails had never exploded into fireballs. I stared at her and swallowed another pill, tasting dirt.

The hound, with pain-stricken yelps, was devoured by flame. Wild baying echoed in the valley below. More hellhounds.

Ahi stood, fingertip bleeding. Her hand, with only four nails, reached out. Warm blood sticky in my palm, she yanked me uphill.

Had my medication stopped working?

To be sure, I gulped another down.

#

Laugh in the shade of the slavering beast

let fire light his eyes and make death tame

the boy is mad—

#

 The hellhounds thundered behind us. Racing through the darkness, we tripped, smashing our knees on jutting rocks.

I gagged on the stench of the hounds’ hot breath. They snapped at our heels—and bit deep. I screamed.

Ahi ripped off another nail, flinging it over her shoulder. The beast yelped and fled, trailing flames.

Fingers spraying glistening blood in the flame-light, Ahi aimed nail after nail at the perilous beasts, until only two nails remained.

#

The boy is mad to thwart this hunter’s feast

the dirt he tastes will never bear his name

and yet he stops and turns—

#

Ahi flung her penultimate nail through snarling fangs.

The beast combusted. Singed fur and burning flesh. A pale demon loomed behind the hellhound’s flaming carcass. Worse than hellhounds. Worse than my lover-turned-stranger beside me, oozing blood from her torn fingertips. Worse than hallucinations.

I screamed.

Ahi smiled through her blood and tears. She tore the final fingernail from her hand and pressed it into mine. “Swallow this,” she whispered.

#

Truth Lies in Fire and Dies in Flame

Cry havoc and let us unloose the dogs
the dogs, let slip those hellish brutes of war
for tonight Manaaki will have to choose
to run through fire and flame or face the maw

Laugh in the shade of the slavering beast
Let fire light his eyes and make death tame
The boy is mad to thwart this hunter’s feast
The dirt he tastes will never bear his name

And yet he stops and turns, his wild fear tame
Ahi Kā, Manaaki keep the home fires burning
In blood and fire—with life he stakes his claim
Ahi Kā, let us stand where he is standing

Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds;
But burn those who chase Manaaki out of bounds

Story and sonnet A.J. Ponder and Eileen Mueller

I hope you enjoyed this foray into literary fantasy,

cheers,  
A.J. Ponder

You can find A.J. Ponder at:

Ponder Books - Get ready for Adventure

Bookbub

& Amazon

Amazon aff link

This Year of Fire

Michael demanded a rhyming poem before he went to bed - citing only rhyming poetry was proper poetry and the rest was just prose and far too easy.  Yeah right - cue the Tui billboard.  In any case, I have worked hard tonight to comply with his "request" - but even so this almost sonnet, almost certainly needs a little work...or at least the cold light of day.  Or should I say the far too hot light of day? 
 

This Year of Fire
by A.J. Ponder

This year is sorrow as the flowers bloom

the blush of petals flawed with pockmark trails

clutch withered seedpods and fade all too soon

before they fall into the wailing wind -

tears blown against the murky sky, the year

bruised dull grey and faded in its sorrow 

as the sun beats down in heated fear

past all boiling point, sublimed snow and fire -

an endless rage against an endless year.

Now we must bring a cool change, a frost bite,

a deadly drowning lest we persevere

with hope.  Lest we dare fight the raging tide

and fall not with the solar wind and searing rain,

but hold an icy compress against this pain.

Fav's this week are Helen Rickerby's choice of Incident by Fleur Adcock, thanks Mary McCallum for putting me on to Alice Spider, by Janis Freegard,  Harvey Molloy's The Schoolboy by William Blake, and Robert Sullivan's New Eclipse, for Ralph Hotere.

cheers,
A.J. Ponder

P.S. If you love sonnets and want to read some more "Running Away with a Christmas Sonnet"  and "Sonnet to the Muse" are fun, and if you want to learn how to write a sonnet The The Poetically Incorrect English Sonnet is there to help (watch out for the bad language though! 

A.J. Ponder's books are available through Rona Gallery, Amazon, Paper Plus and good Wellington bookstores.

Burning

A flame

small

lost.

The wind grabs it

and it shivers -

come close,

protect it with your hands.

A flame...

a fire...

an inferno.

You gotta respect that

from a distance.

A.J. Ponder

 There's all sorts of burning happening over the last few weeks - mostly peoples money going up in power bills.  And the mash up - fire with book - not quite appropriate, but I saw the "Catching Fire" title and I thought wouldn't it be fun if I could mash it up as a book catching on fire.  It might not be perfect, but I think its worked well enough, after all I'm not exactly known for my art so there's not much of a reputation there to lose. Besides, Suzanne Collins is a great author, lots of fun.  

I hope everyone is having a great week.  And to make it even more exciting you may want to visit the Tuesday Poem hub here, or my review for A Dance with Dragons/Game of Thrones at the Rona Gallery blog here. 

A.J. Ponder's work is available through Rona Gallery, Amazon, and good Wellington bookstores