Traveling Sideways

By Barbara Blanks

Going off-track is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can be the best thing that ever happens to you. If you can't get to where you want to go straight ahead, why not take a detour: go up, go around, splash through, leap over, travel sideways.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359678471

Book preview

Traveling Sideways

TRAVELING SIDEWAYS

More Prize Poems

by Barbara Blanks

Copyright 2019 by Barbara Blanks

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any way without written permission from the author, except for reviewers who may quote brief passages in a review.

ISBN 978-0-359-67847-1

The author may be contacted at:

[e-mail]

Website:

www.barbara-blanks.com

My thanks to all the judges

of so many different contests

in so many different states

who chose my poems as winners.

Occupant

The elevator

was empty—

and I danced

up to the 4th floor.

BEASTS AND BEAUTIES

their eyes reveal a knowledge

Self-Propelled

A caterpillar

  the child wonders

  how it controls its legs

~~John Tiong Chunghoo

dandelion puff with multiple feet

grooves to the thrum of the butterfly beat

on ripple-y, tickly, tippy-tap toes

it follows itself wherever it goes

sinuous segments of supple design

dancing a singular conga line

Monarch Cycle

eggs release larva

smorgasbord of leaves nourish

voracious babies

butterflies spring from

silken caterpillar caves

flutterize the air

migrating monarchs

feast on sap oozing from trunk

dying ash tree blooms

hibernation sites

orange fires banked until earth turns

wings fan north again

haiku series

Here Be Dragonflies

Perhaps I may not often speak

of my obsession for unique

creative modes of dragonflies

in any art that glorifies

their shapes, for they epitomize

the athlete’s trim and fit physique.

A dynamo in air, as sleek

as cat and just as agile, flies

with acrobatic skill—defies

the laws of gravity, relies

on long and narrow winged-technique

to hover, flit, fly backwards, streak

across a pond to catch a prize—

mosquitoes, wasps, and other flies—

voracious feeders for their size.

As earrings, paintings, and batik,

art captures dragonfly mystique.

Dutrey

Tanka

bees embroider air

exploring ants weave through grass

flies needle humans

having picnic on patchwork

quilt under appliquéd sky

Moonlit Sonatas

On summer nights I hear them croon

a spectral, whirring melody

of romance on the patio. June

moths flirt and dally

with a yellow porch-light moon.

Fireflies flashing Morse code

sonnets serenade their ladies—

who don’t need manuals to decode

the signals of  Come hither, please,

each time their macho fannies glowed.

Close Encounters of the Best Kind

I want to swim with dolphins off the coast

of Florida—Key Largo is my goal.

I need to get away from here—a host

of tragedies has taken heavy toll.

I’ll be renewed in underwater scenes

of dreamy movement, close encounters found

in freedom with a mask and fins—routines

mean nothing when the dolphins are around.

Delightful dancers of the sea—they speak

to me on levels that I understand.

Their eyes reveal a knowledge—a mystique

that lifts me from despair to wonderland.

No matter how depleted, sad, and worn,

these laughing mammals make me feel reborn.

Shakespearean sonnet

Pink—Naturally

beaks turned upside down

flamingos feed on brine shrimp

tall cool