Submissions by VeronikaB
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
Writer of poetic prose (fiction and non-fiction) — Builder of a fantasy world — Traveller on the Heroic Journey — literary translator since 1984 — discovering my dormant poetic potential
SELF POEM
Published
4th Dec 2024 6:01pm
4th Dec 2024 6:01pm
The Wild Courage of Despair
WHEN VULTURES OF HOPE
close in on my field of vision
in a man-made desert
parched by the gods
of money tech and power
inner wisdom beckons
the afore-bidden Fruit
of Knowledge to pick
out forlorn esperance
as an obsolete mirage
to forsake futile
hope and expectation
and dowse a hidden well
WHEN SNAKES OF DESPAIR
slither around my heels
sink me to my knees
tempt me to drink the divine
will to live my life
every drop of clarity
quenches the thirst
of my soul to summon ...
close in on my field of vision
in a man-made desert
parched by the gods
of money tech and power
inner wisdom beckons
the afore-bidden Fruit
of Knowledge to pick
out forlorn esperance
as an obsolete mirage
to forsake futile
hope and expectation
and dowse a hidden well
WHEN SNAKES OF DESPAIR
slither around my heels
sink me to my knees
tempt me to drink the divine
will to live my life
every drop of clarity
quenches the thirst
of my soul to summon ...
#courage
#desert
#despair
#emotions
#hope
44 reads
0 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
23rd Nov 2024 12:34pm
23rd Nov 2024 12:34pm
Sometimes a Wild Dog
Paralysed by fear
impossible
to think straight
to decide what to do
on your own in the dark
on the edge of a Portuguese village
when a growling sound
could be a wild animal
could attack any moment
Run! Hide! Where? Shout?
a motor revving up
unscrambles the knotted web of fear
a guy on a motorcycle drives past
rumbling fades into the night.
impossible
to think straight
to decide what to do
on your own in the dark
on the edge of a Portuguese village
when a growling sound
could be a wild animal
could attack any moment
Run! Hide! Where? Shout?
a motor revving up
unscrambles the knotted web of fear
a guy on a motorcycle drives past
rumbling fades into the night.
#fear
47 reads
4 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
20th Dec 2023 10:02pm
20th Dec 2023 10:02pm
·The Shepherds' Field ..
Candles nestle ˳·˖
into the nooks and hollows ੈ✦
of the vaulted limestone walls ੈ✧̣̇
flames flicker 𓆩 ੈ
filling the rocky womb ੈ ࿔
of Mother Earth with a warm glow ✶
aromas of freshly baked bread and roast lamb ࿐࿔
waft through the underground caverns ࿔ ✶
following the scent-trail ੈ✦
birthday guests ੈ✧̣̇
gather from far and near ੈ˖✶
to celebrate Jesus' special day...
into the nooks and hollows ੈ✦
of the vaulted limestone walls ੈ✧̣̇
flames flicker 𓆩 ੈ
filling the rocky womb ੈ ࿔
of Mother Earth with a warm glow ✶
aromas of freshly baked bread and roast lamb ࿐࿔
waft through the underground caverns ࿔ ✶
following the scent-trail ੈ✦
birthday guests ੈ✧̣̇
gather from far and near ੈ˖✶
to celebrate Jesus' special day...
#happiness
#childhood
#Christmas #magic
#Christmas #magic
130 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
22nd Nov 2023 7:04pm
22nd Nov 2023 7:04pm
IMAGINE P.S.
Imagine there’s no races
I wonder if you dare,
No colour, size, or status,
No difference or care
Imagine all the people,
Creating life from joy, you
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
Today I call you to join us
So the world can live as one!
I wonder if you dare,
No colour, size, or status,
No difference or care
Imagine all the people,
Creating life from joy, you
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
Today I call you to join us
So the world can live as one!
#love
#kindness
#hope
#inspirational
#respect
131 reads
4 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
2nd Nov 2023 11:57am
2nd Nov 2023 11:57am
How to Feed a Warmonster
React to the warmonster with my trauma responses?
¿Inherited from past generations??
I goad it on to prove its strength.
Throw shreds of factoids between its jaws?
I jump into the bottomless pit of addiction.
Appease the warmonster by fighting fear?
I cook up hunger for more.
Fight the warmonster by nurturing fear in others?
¿Just to prove my point and win an argument??
I become complicit in the brutal business of War.
Flee the fear, ignore the warmonster?
¿Hope it will go away??
¿¿Fizzle out???
¿¿¿Become...
¿Inherited from past generations??
I goad it on to prove its strength.
Throw shreds of factoids between its jaws?
I jump into the bottomless pit of addiction.
Appease the warmonster by fighting fear?
I cook up hunger for more.
Fight the warmonster by nurturing fear in others?
¿Just to prove my point and win an argument??
I become complicit in the brutal business of War.
Flee the fear, ignore the warmonster?
¿Hope it will go away??
¿¿Fizzle out???
¿¿¿Become...
#war
#monsters
#suffering
#RainerMariaRilke
#fear
163 reads
4 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
17th Oct 2023 12:44pm
17th Oct 2023 12:44pm
You Don’t Have to Understand Life
You don’t have to understand life,
then it becomes a celebration.
And let each day for you arrive,
like blossoms blown towards a child
from every whiff of wind while walking on.
To gather them, collect and save
would never cross the youngster’s mind.
But from the tangled curls of hair
wherein the flowers would be kept ensnared
those two young hands release and bare
the lovely tender years towards new finds.
(Rainer Maria Rilke, first published in 1899, translation © Veronika Bond, 2023)
then it becomes a celebration.
And let each day for you arrive,
like blossoms blown towards a child
from every whiff of wind while walking on.
To gather them, collect and save
would never cross the youngster’s mind.
But from the tangled curls of hair
wherein the flowers would be kept ensnared
those two young hands release and bare
the lovely tender years towards new finds.
(Rainer Maria Rilke, first published in 1899, translation © Veronika Bond, 2023)
#LifeCycle
#FirstLove
352 reads
3 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
13th Oct 2023 3:59pm
13th Oct 2023 3:59pm
I Live my Life in Rings that Wax (translation of a Rilke poem)
I live my life in rings that wax
and cast themselves across the things
I might not make the final track
but I intend to give it a spin
I orbit God, that primeval form,
go round and round thousands years long
and I don’t yet know: am I a falcon, a storm
or one grand song
and cast themselves across the things
I might not make the final track
but I intend to give it a spin
I orbit God, that primeval form,
go round and round thousands years long
and I don’t yet know: am I a falcon, a storm
or one grand song
#LifeCycle
176 reads
4 Comments
NON-FICTION PROSE
Published
5th Oct 2023 3:15pm
5th Oct 2023 3:15pm
The Myth of Mythos
"We need images and myths through which we can see who we are and what we might become."
〰 Christine Downing 〰
MYTHOS AND LOGOS
In Ancient Greek ways of thinking, patterns of imagining, and waves of feeling Mythos and Logos appear as fraternal twins. Both carry a range of meanings, which lead time and again to the same essence 〰 captured in the English symbiont word.
Logos and Mythos cover the whole territory of phenomena which rely on and are nurtured by the spoken word ::: speech, account, tale, story,...
〰 Christine Downing 〰
MYTHOS AND LOGOS
In Ancient Greek ways of thinking, patterns of imagining, and waves of feeling Mythos and Logos appear as fraternal twins. Both carry a range of meanings, which lead time and again to the same essence 〰 captured in the English symbiont word.
Logos and Mythos cover the whole territory of phenomena which rely on and are nurtured by the spoken word ::: speech, account, tale, story,...
#narrative
#PowerOfWords
#mythology #symbolism
#mythology #symbolism
165 reads
0 Comments
NON-FICTION PROSE
Published
27th Sep 2023 3:56pm
27th Sep 2023 3:56pm
The Symbiocene in Waiting
"A word is more than a mere combination of letters and sounds.
The potency of words reaches the substrata of all of us.
Words carry culture, carry history;
they form and confine our thoughts.
Words matter."
〰 Nora Bateson 〰
THE CHTHULUCENE & OTHER MINDBENDERS
"Diverse human and nonhuman players are necessary in every fiber of the tissues of the urgently needed Chthulucene story," says Donna Haraway, American historian of consciousness and feminist studies.
In her essay Tentacular...
The potency of words reaches the substrata of all of us.
Words carry culture, carry history;
they form and confine our thoughts.
Words matter."
〰 Nora Bateson 〰
THE CHTHULUCENE & OTHER MINDBENDERS
"Diverse human and nonhuman players are necessary in every fiber of the tissues of the urgently needed Chthulucene story," says Donna Haraway, American historian of consciousness and feminist studies.
In her essay Tentacular...
#evolution
#PowerOfWords
#mythology
#magic
#philosophical
260 reads
6 Comments
NON-FICTION PROSE
Published
20th Sep 2023 4:25pm
20th Sep 2023 4:25pm
Words from the Cracks
It seems like things want to fall apart.
It seems like we’ve been stolen from home.
Where do you go when things fall apart,
when home has been taken away from you,
when the cracks appear?
〰 Bayo Akomolafe 〰
ANTHROPOCENE
The current era of human history is sometimes called Anthropocene, the ‘Age of Man’. All previous word composition with -cene (from Greek kainos = era) 〰 like Miocene, when the Alps and Himalayas were formed, and Pleistocene, when glacial periods caused extinction of many...
It seems like we’ve been stolen from home.
Where do you go when things fall apart,
when home has been taken away from you,
when the cracks appear?
〰 Bayo Akomolafe 〰
ANTHROPOCENE
The current era of human history is sometimes called Anthropocene, the ‘Age of Man’. All previous word composition with -cene (from Greek kainos = era) 〰 like Miocene, when the Alps and Himalayas were formed, and Pleistocene, when glacial periods caused extinction of many...
#inspirational
#evolution
#PowerOfWords
#mythology
#philosophical
152 reads
6 Comments
NON-FICTION PROSE
Published
14th Sep 2023 3:42pm
14th Sep 2023 3:42pm
Phemes Infamous Brood
"We make a space inside ourselves so that being can speak."
〰 Martin Heidegger 〰
RUMOUR
In last week’s wordcast we met Pheme, the daimona of fame and rumour in Greek mythology. In everyday language, the Greek word pheme simply means ‘speech’. It is fairly alive and familiar in the English words blasphemy and euphemism. Less so in the linguistic term pheme itself (= word as a grammatical unit).
Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers held the daimona (Pheme / Fama) responsible for anything related to the spreading of stories via...
〰 Martin Heidegger 〰
RUMOUR
In last week’s wordcast we met Pheme, the daimona of fame and rumour in Greek mythology. In everyday language, the Greek word pheme simply means ‘speech’. It is fairly alive and familiar in the English words blasphemy and euphemism. Less so in the linguistic term pheme itself (= word as a grammatical unit).
Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers held the daimona (Pheme / Fama) responsible for anything related to the spreading of stories via...
#PowerOfWords
#mythology
211 reads
9 Comments
NON-FICTION PROSE
Published
5th Sep 2023 2:42pm
5th Sep 2023 2:42pm
The WordFairies
Who the Hex are Word⚘Fairies?
That witches and wizards use words to cast magic spells is well known. Lesser known is the fact 〰 at least as true as the etymon in etymology, and arguably more original than the PIE system of W. J. jr. 〰 that words have fairies.
Being born and bred on Planet Human, Word⚘Fairies are mostly earthbound creatures. Although they can fly too. They can jump from one human to another. But not too far. At least with spoken words.
When words are spoken, their fairies move like grasshoppers 〰 or dragonflies...
That witches and wizards use words to cast magic spells is well known. Lesser known is the fact 〰 at least as true as the etymon in etymology, and arguably more original than the PIE system of W. J. jr. 〰 that words have fairies.
Being born and bred on Planet Human, Word⚘Fairies are mostly earthbound creatures. Although they can fly too. They can jump from one human to another. But not too far. At least with spoken words.
When words are spoken, their fairies move like grasshoppers 〰 or dragonflies...
#PowerOfWords
177 reads
8 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by VeronikaB
