Mud Dance [Free Verse]

DAILY PHOTO: A Colorful Street in Melaka

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Photograph taken in Malacca (Melaka,) Malaysia of colorful building facades.

PROMPT: Habit

Daily writing prompt
What’s one habit that has improved your life the most?

Getting up every morning.

Sun Pierced [Haiku]

thunder rumbles —
gray clouds stretch overhead;
sun finds its way through.

DAILY PHOTO: Saadat Ali Khan’s Tomb

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Photograph of Saadat Ali Khan's tomb in a park in Lucknow's Qaisar Bagh.

PROMPT: Chapter

Daily writing prompt
What’s a chapter of your life you’d title “The Hard Years” — and what got you through it?

Chapter 7. Chapter 8.

NOTE: Incidentally, I would not title a chapter of my memoirs “The Hard Years,” so as to avoid the assumption that that was when I worked in porn. People would either skip said chapter… or skip to it.

Banana Leaf Ant [Senryū]

an ant on a leaf seems small; 
on a banana leaf -- somehow -- big.

BOOKS: “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes

The Weary BluesThe Weary Blues by Langston Hughes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Available online — Lehigh University

Langston Hughes was one of the greats of 20th century American poetry, and The Weary Blues was his first collection (1926,) containing some of his most beloved (and anthologized) pieces, including: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “I, too, sing America” [a.k.a. Epilogue; which plays off Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing.”] I’ve always loved how Hughes used the rhythm of repetition and the technique of standing in for the everyman (as he famously did in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” but in other of his poems as well.) He also had a gift for concision.

These sixty-nine poems deal in a wide range of themes including race, travel, love, etc. Music, be it Jazz or Blues, is an ever-present force in Hughes work. In addition to the aforementioned classics, among my favorite pieces from the collection are: “Winter Moon,” “March Moon,” “‘The Night is Beautiful'” [a.k.a. Poem,] “When Sue Wears Red,” “Water Front Streets,” “Long Trip,” “Seascape,” “Suicide’s Note,” “Songs to the Dark,” and “Lament for Dark Peoples.”

I’d highly recommend this collection for poetry readers.

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