WUSTL Life-Lines (4/24/20)

Write a short poem (rhyming not necessary) that includes each of the following 5 words (anywhere and in any order). Poems should not exceed 7 or 8 lines.

     Remote
     Shelter
     Digital
     Breathe
     Distance


It is easier to breathe
at a remote distance—
in my digital shelter,
for instance.
-James B. Moog

Poems submitted for April 24

WUSTL Life-Lines (4/23/20)

Today’s prompt
Write a short poem (rhyming not necessary) that includes each of the following 5 words (anywhere and in any order). Poems should not exceed 7 or 8 lines.
     Aspen
     Shadow
     Fever
     Hidden
     Promise

Aspen now hidden.
A promise of fever
Lingers like a shadow.

-James B. Moog

Poems submitted for April 23

WUSTL Life/Lines (4/20/20)

April 20

Write a short poem (rhyming not necessary) that includes each of the following 5 words (anywhere and in any order). Poems should not exceed 7 or 8 lines.

Breath
Last
Rage
Close
Fortune

“Rage-Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses.”
King Agamemnon held his fortune too close, his pride doubly cursing his great fighters’ their bodies made carrion.
Apollo, son of Zeus and Leto, incensed by the dishonorable treatment of his priest by mortal Agamemnon,swept a fatal plague through the army that spread upon man’s own breath.
Man killing Rage flowed through Achilles’ blade as well, driving it toward his King but Pallas Athena appeared before him beckoning caution.
Wise men fear the Gods and Achilles stayed his rage and returned to his men at last.

Poems submitted for April 20 

WUSTL Life-Lines (4/17/20)

Prompt

Write a short poem (rhyming not necessary) that includes each of the following 5 words (anywhere and in any order). Poems should not exceed 7 or 8 lines.

     Soft
     Glass
     Honey
     Gust
     Rest

A wanderer, though still
I might rest
but for the cold gust
hard against my skin, now
cracking like glass.

Oh, to reside forever
in halcyon fields where
the wind flows sweet
and soft like honey…

— James B. Moog

Poems submitted for April 17

WUSTL Life/Lines (4/16/20)

Prompt

Write a short poem (rhyming not necessary) that includes each of the following 5 words (anywhere and in any order). Poems should not exceed 7 or 8 lines.

     Sunlight
     Ceiling
     Nostalgia
     Bleak
     Mother

Faust's Dream

The passageway is bleak,
the ceiling low—far
below sunlight.
“Follow it down,
’twill lead you to the Mothers.”
Beyond nostalgia:
delight in what exists no more
and yet waits to be.

— James B. Moog

Poems submitted for April 16

WUSTL Life/Lines (4/15/20)

Prompt

Write a short poem (rhyming not necessary) that includes each of the following 5 words (anywhere and in any order). Poems should not exceed 7 or 8 lines.

     Silent
     Oxygen
     Truth
     Dedication
     Owl

The truth is hidden
like the legs of an owl
and silent
like oxygen.

It takes some dedication...

— James B. Moog

ALSO

A silent moonlit dance.
against the silhouette
of an owl’s desire

Behold its prey, straining
for oxygen, in dedication
to its own truth.

— James B. Moog

Poems submitted for April 15

Theory of Color

In the Winter of 2016, my omonim[1] visited me

And my Korean fiancé, her daughter, Emily

To plan our wedding ceremony,

Eagerly anticipating our matrimony.

Before going to dinner one night,

We visited a Merdardo Rosso exhibition.

Illuminated by interactive light,

My omonim insisted, love creates the aesthetician.

I think back often to what she said:

Indeed, True Relations clarify.

Now, I find myself well-wed,

And wise enough to never dare defy

My wife or her mother

In the least

With no one above her

I am allowed celestial peace.

Returning to Ol’ Rosso,

I enjoyed his plasters most oscuro,

Supported only by dusky luminescence

While his works in wax seemed incandescent.

-James B. Moog

---

[1] Omonim means mother-in-law in Korean.

WUSTL Life-Lines (4/14/20)

April 14

Write a short poem (rhyming not necessary) that includes each of the following 5 words (anywhere and in any order). Poems should not exceed 7 or 8 lines.

     Gift
     Fall
     Brief
     Still
     See

Send us your poem via our Submissions page or post on Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag #lifelines.

I submitted a haiku this time:

Spring’s gifts are so brief.

Still, I long to see Summer,

Fall, and Winter too…

-James B. Moog

And another poem:

The fruit of knowledge,
overripe, a gift
of gravity after
a brief fall. 
We see only
the necessary.

-James B. Moog

WUSTL Life-Lines (4/13/20)

Prompt

Write a short poem (rhyming not necessary) that includes each of the following 5 words (anywhere and in any order). Poems should not exceed 7 or 8 lines.

     Star
     Stairway
     Memory
     Hour
     Light

***

a pathway of pebbles at night,
memory’s labyrinth of light
reaches a dark star
through an hour ajar
and a heretical power
ascends subterranean
staircases to the heart.

— James B. Moog

Many thanks to Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo who did me the great honor of surprising me with a Spanish translation which I prefer greatly to the original English:

Senda de guijarros nocturnos:
la luz laberíntica de la memoria 
rebasa a la estrella oscura 
de esta hora entreabierta. 
Entonces una fuerza herética
asciende las escaleras sumergidas 
que dan directo a nuestro corazón.

-James B. Moog

Finally, I couldn't help submitting another poem anonymously:

Ambiguous light falls upon
an unsuspecting hour.
Memory, that silver star, refuses
her curtain calls. I am
enchanted by a spiral stairway—
shadow play
before and beneath it—
and a single candle.

Poems submitted for April 13

WUSTL Life-Lines

Washington University in St. Louis has been inviting daily poetry submissions.  I submitted the following, which was published here.

The Human Eye

Don’t call me Ishmael;
I’m tired of that talk.
I live beyond the Whale
And reside now with the flock.

Oh, in harmony beneath the sky!
No longer seeking the celestial or the True;
Against waves of Fate, only an If am I.
Just a possibility beneath cerulean blue…

- James B. Moog

Poems submitted for April 10