Viral Dailies, Day 5

On April 5, 2020 By robertalanrifeIn Theology / Spirituality, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Today, National Poetry Month, my Viral Dailies poetry features and Holy Week converge. As such, this entire week will feature poetry that helps us turn our attentions in that direction. Palm Sunday of course recognizes that day when Jesus enters Jerusalem, riding the back of a donkey. It was an act of subversion, reversal, theology; it was, ultimately, an act of peace. On Palm Sunday, God in Jesus says ‘no’ to empire and ‘yes’ to the communion of the lost-and-found. In this act, Jesus pictures himself ruling not as dictator or caesar, but as Prince of Peace.

Today, I give you an older poem suitable to the day. Let’s have a blessed Holy Week together, sharing sacred thought and memory, and swallowing whole the hope it brings as we huddle in our homes, hiding from the COVID-19 scourge.

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the stones know something we do not

their tears now stain a palm-laden street

and cries reserved for a different day

burst out

unsettled

unstoppable

unreserved

for today only the stones understand

who rides upon them

(c)Robert Alan Rife, 4/13/14

Image found here

Viral Dailies, Day 3

On April 3, 2020 By robertalanrifeIn Guest Bloggers, Waxing Poetic2 Comments

Kelly Belmonte.jpg

Today, I’m featuring someone who’s become a good friend and favourite contemporary poet, specifically her short form works. Lately, she’s been collaborating with other poets, visual artists, and photographers. In so doing, magic has emerged.

She writes about today’s collaboration: “Tom Darin Liskey was born in Missouri but spent nearly a decade working as a journalist in Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil. He is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi. His poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The Red Truck Review, Deep South, Driftwood Press, Biostories, Spelk, Heartwood among others. His narrative and documentary photography has been published in The Museum of Americana, Change 7, The Blue Mountain Review, Cowboy Jamboree, Literary Life and Midwestern Gothic, among others. He lives in Texas. Connect with him on Instagram at tomdarin.l and https://www.tomdarinphoto.com/.”

I could make a stumbling attempt to recreate the magic here. But, alas, I think it better to simply send you directly to her wonderful poetry blog, All Nine Muses, where that collaboration sings a truer tune.

Happy National Poetry Month!

Viral Dailies – Day 1

On April 1, 2020 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

We are, all of us, in a coup of sorts. The forced injustice of disease stomping its boots on our collective heads. It’s one of the unknown dangers of our diverse lives lived frantically, furiously, frenetically in close quarters.

But, there can be light in dark places. People are finding it all the time. And, serendipitously, April brings with it the hope of poetry: National Poetry Month. Into this current of shared shared beauty I would cautiously but willingly wade.

A poem a day. Sometimes my own. Often the works of others, both new and historic. I pray you’ll take this wordish journey with me as we cry out our voices against the melée and toward our healing and the comforts of physical community again.

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We write so many poems

We write so many poems.

Some, like bones, protrude through thinner skin

of vulnerability and loss.

Others meander in slow-drift brooks

of thought-filled cadence.

Still others jostle, ruffians of heart, reminding

us we still have memory and expectation,

angels and devils of our days to contend with.

But, all the time, as words spill out

they grow us up, closer to the stars –