Life/Lines - April 9

Submitted poems for April 9, 2020

A daily poetry practice to generate and sustain the Life/Lines among us, for published and novice poets alike

Join us to receive a daily poetry prompt every weekday during April. Sign up here!

 


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.

     Start
     Travel
     Breeze
     Jostled
     Life

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


 

Poems submitted for April 9

I awoke once more with a start-
Moments of life in viral times creep,
then move much too quickly.
The breeze from the open window
jostled my memory.
Not yet may I travel to touch, to hug
the ones I love.

— Laurie J


***

Breeze travels over my face,
Starts at my cheek,
Jostles my hair,
I feel life.

— Anonymous


***

Note to Myself
Start here and now
Travel far, breeze behind me
Be not jostled
by life's little ironies, slings, arrows
and what not ...
Enjoy
         
— 2020 04 09                   by Lloyd Klinedinst


***

Start by travelling inside yourself
Harsh breeze has jostled joy from life
Dogs are my best friends

— Braveheart


***

Early start: 5:25
Repeated tapping
against the bedroom window.
Tree limbs jostled
by this morning's winds.
Spring's fickle weather
defies yesterday's warmth,
which now only lives
in my thoughts.

— L. Dennis


***

As the grass jostled from the gentle breeze
My thoughts travel with andante ease

To start, ups and downs makes life go 'round
But a gust brings new adventures abound

— ted frigillana


***

When the world begins
to travel again,
when a new breeze folds
over airplane wings,
when we leave this jostled life
and restart old journeys,
remember this pause.
Our inhalation held
as a guard against expiration.

— Tassy Hayden, BA 07 MD 11


***

Life starts today
She closes her eyes and feels the cool breeze as it kisses her skin
She dreams of the streets of Paris and being jostled by the crowds
Now it is her plans that have been jostled
But she is well traveled and knows in her heart
That once you have been bumped in to,
It is best to right one self quickly and move forward, knowing that
Life starts today
She closes her eyes and feels the cool breeze as it kisses her skin

— Mary Clemens


***

Almost unimaginable:
a new start, permission to travel,
to shoot the breeze
with someone closer than six feet away,
to be jostled on the street,
in the grocery store—
life, as it was.

— Sharon Bangert Corcoran


***

I start my one-mile loop like any other day
and life prepares to repeat itself
but the strong breeze that follows unseasonal rain
does more than keep Californians in their homes.
Hair whipped back, I travel to Hurricane Ridge
the ranging peaks clothed in flowers and the distant water and the way you feel as expansive as the view
The touch of my partner’s hand jostles me back
but for a moment we were there together.

— Britt DeVore, Class of 2015

 

***

09.04.2020

In the breeze of sadness
life has ended as a travel.
The metaphor is irritating jostled with
another cliché
Start a new life.
Everything will take new turn
may be the cliché will come back
as history repeats itself.
Every now and then.

— Jey Sushil (Track for International Writers)

 

***

Conscience Excursion

I’m seated plump rump-close,
jostled on a capacity-full catamaran
filled with island locals who travel
to the mainland at the start of day.

Sea breeze and salt spray dampens my guilt
as I contemplate how my tourist life
compares to those on the other side
of a fence without a gate.

— Linda O’Connell


***

How is it that life seems to start
when I travel?
I’m jostled this way and that,
as a leaf
floating
on
a
breeze
In my daily comings and goings.
A trip from the mundane
is all the difference.
I come alive
again.

— Anonymous

 

***

My father always claimed his nickname
in high school was "The Breeze."
I myself have been jostled by life.
I start and stop, stop and start.
My father had to travel to Nam.
Today I'm thinking
I might try walking to Kroger's.

— Matthew Freeman

 

***

Breeze from the south
Brought in the celebrated drunks

 Jostled our sleep
It was a start

We had stopped life
If you can travel there

You can live there

— james goodman  4.9.20

 

***

Life, or this microscopic viral version of it,
has jostled us into close proximity with ourselves.
Such great company we are,
Like Jefferson dining alone.
And here we wait, patient
until a cool breeze across our faces
beckons us to start again.
Go. Travel.

— Steve Givens

 

***

The breeze conveys the leaf in all its simplicity,
verdant veins, unspoiled by decay, comprise the weft of its body.
Jostled along the flowing path,
the start of its voyage began at its withdrawal from branch.
Windy extrication from life-giving tree,
its artful form, destined to find entombment in some field afar.

— Brooke Bulmash, Class of 2021


***

SORROW
My life has been jostled by death
Even though he died four years ago
I am still waiting for a soft breeze
Of comfort to travel through me
To ease my hurt my loss my pain
So I might start to live again

— Betty Springfield


***

“Write a poem,” my friend the poet says.
But I’m no poet, so where do I start?
Do I mention how birdsong rides on the breeze
or how the call of a barred owl jostled me from sleep?
Or do I write about the nomad life and exotic places I once dreamed of going
―when today I long only to travel beyond my front door?

— Dianna Graveman


***

Girl Interrupted

Since you ask, yes my insides are a little jostled
what with travel being forbidden, life utterly interrupted,
demanding I not start out from my house on my daily
schedule.

The breeze bringing a cold-front is chilling my bones
and making me dread this new normal.

— Karen Sterbenz, 4/9/20


***

Across the street, some weeks ago,
I saw my neighbor's pear tree come to life,
start to blossom.
Today the breeze has jostled every blossom loose.
They travel, a wild murmuration of blossoms,
billowing into the air.
Oh, dancing happiness!

— January Kiefer


***

Haiku

Jostled on the breeze,
seeking a host to start life,
virus travels on.

— Julia Gordon-Bramer


***

at the very beginning
                                        when did it start?
it seemed a respite
                                             what was life before?
overworked, jostled, endless travel
                                                    how will you get back home?
a moment to stop and feel the breeze
                                                             when will you stop counting?

— Anonymous


***

Taking Life As It Comes

I don’t believe that it is such a problem to breeze through the days here
In the way a lilypad might travel radially in the pond near my house.
As it is jostled by the wind, toads, bees,
The energy somehow converts to a gliding of petal across water
Which starts like an ice skater whirling so furiously that he is lifted into the air
Where he is weighless for a few resplendent seconds.
Where he can see the bars and houses outside of the stadium becoming miniatures.
And his swift revolutions begin decelerating until the metal gingerly
descends upon the ice.
Floating forever until the next wind.

— Ellery Saluck, Class of 2021


***

Haiku in April

Breeze starts to travel,
Leaves rustling, petals falling,
Spring jostled to life.

— J.D. Brown


***

We start out, full of cocktails and excitement,
Feeling the breeze, spotting dolphins,
Unbeknownst to the grief
The Gulf would bring.
As we travel the great body,
Our bodies are jostled by the force of the waves.
Flushed faces, barf bags in hand,
We sit, praying to reach land
And for dear life.

— J. Thomas


***

These days I travel in place.

Sitting cross-legged on the back porch
I sift through memories of past journeys.

A full life’s highlights flicker
like reels of film:
sailing on the Seine
trekking through Karakoram
jostled by crowds; tossed by the breeze

I’ve never been to any of those places,
but you have to start somewhere.

— Anonymous

 

***


tomorrow

what's your life worth
travelling through the wasteland
enjoying a good acid breeze
the fog in your mask, worse than ever
we didn't act when there was still time
jostled our kin instead
and now we wish we could just
start over

— Tobias Feldmann (International Writers Track)

 

***

Life is not a bowl of cherries
I'm content in my decadent darkness
I don't want to the jostled poked or jollied out of it
Travel with me if you dare
Otherwise breeze on home to your Pollyanna world
Leave me with my demons
They are much more interesting than you

— Carol Haake   4/2020


***

With a start,
And a vigorous breeze at his back,
His travel took him among the trees,
Whereupon he jostled for the self,
That was the longing of his life.

— KFR


***

the rudest way to enter another day of pandemic
with coffee jostled down my scrubs I try to shake
the terror of traveling in heavy traffic at top speed
down I-70 while climbing back in the driver’s seat
from the hatchback of my ’85 Cavalier
summer breezes whipping through my hair
I always start awake just before impact with
a semi-truck or limestone bluff ends my life

— Cam Whelr MD


***

Carried Away

Wind jostled seeds
Breeze travel
To start life anew.

— Karen Engelkenjohn 4/9/2020


***

What does it mean to travel with the wind?
Well.
The breeze-jostled life is not easy
Stop, start, hop,
Skip, up, up, up,
Down.
Up.

— Holly Gabelmann


***

First day of vacation! Cant wait!
Time to relax and leave behind the burdens of responsibility in my harried pace of life
It'll be a breeze, I think.
Travel by car is cumbersome; a plane is faster.
The reality?
Long lines, x-rayed luggage, shoes and belt off
Jostled by another passenger, attempting to get my belongings from the bin.

— Kim Lehnhoff


***

The news jostled life
cutting like a breeze on a sunny spring day.
The start of summer
now a blurred line of time and space we travel alone.

— Eric R


***

Start your day with meditation.
     Travel into yourself letting
The breeze of your inhales and exhales clear any blockages in your flow.
If you become jostled by how easy the concept is, let that be your new focus.
Letting the breath be life.

— Anonymous

 

***

Jostled orbits

If I told you desire was a place to travel,
would you pack up and leave, would you
take me along? Once I believed in life and the after, and now
I know better than to start from my knees. Please let me kiss you, here
comes morning before promises sprout wings to ride
this breeze at our back. Everyone in a hurry, I feel
abandoned in the dark without a star to point the way.

— Casey Hampton

 

***

Time Travel (The only kind allowed during quarantine)

The honeysuckle-scented soap jostled my memory:
Walking home from grade school past tangled thickets of vines,
Sweet smells carried on the breeze,
Nearly the start of summer.
Life, so full of possibilities.

— Pam Hughes


***

We can't start the baseball season
We can't travel

We'll be alright, though,
when this is over, and friends and family congregate again

There are those, however, who are always alone
For whom the closest engagement with life
is watching, through the window, a branch jostled by the breeze

— Anonymous


***

Heading down the highway,
Jostled by the cracks along the way,
I’m on my winter travels for fun,
To seek the warmth of the sun
But I enjoy the breeze that I feel flow
Through the open window.
Ah, this is life!

— KJR

 

***

(Italian)
Dopo una lunga estate, una brezza di mare
Mi urta dal stupor che il calore intollerabile
Ha inflitto nel mio cervello.

Con una gioia inesprimabile, io urlo
“Da quest momento, ricomincerò la vita da capo!
Viaggerò alle terre sconosciute
Vedere degli animali strani, uccelli ignoti.”

After a long summer, a sea breeze
Jostles me from the stupor that the intolerable heat
Inflicted on my brain.

With inexpressible joy, I cry out
“From this moment on, I will start life over from the beginning!
I will travel to unknown lands
To see strange animals, unknown birds.”

— Robert Henke

 

***

Pools of Color

Jostled from their moorings,
petals of flowering trees
pirouette on morning breeze,

travel the curling currents
down,
down,
to start pools of color

upon the ground
greening
to life.

— Cathleen Callahan  April 9, 2020


***

Sometimes it felt as if her life was stuck in a constant state of travel,
A perpetual wait at the gate, clenching a ticket to start the journey.

Hoping the flight would be a breeze,
Her shoulders jostled against others in the crowd to be the first to board.

Instead, she took an alternative mode of transportation,
Summoning her courage to take the train.

— Tanvi Kohli


***

turn key to start
live your travel fantasy realness
breeze in hair
that wide open road

comings and goings of a little life
jostled on impact

— Jay Buchanan

 

***

Driving home with sandpaper eyes
straining at traffic lights.
Life travels past me
headed to start their day.
Jostled by a breeze
that's when my brain drifts to you.
The patient at 4AM who reminded me
why this will always be worth it.

— Hailey Shepherd


***

Gamble

Jostled by life, I start to travel--
Blown sideways by the headwind
I tack the sails—first zig then zag
Still moving forward, defying all odds.

— Jo Schaper


***

An ordered life is jostled
As a frail moist breeze escapes
A briefs delay at the start of her travel
She ought not have eaten those old soft grapes.

– Ted

 

***

It's was very rough start
As I travel down this dark and lonely road
the pain pierced my heart as the cool breeze jostled my soul
Constantly feeling like I'm holding on for dear life
Refusing to give up, whether I be wrong or whether I be right
This one truth still remains, I am always worth the fight

— Kenytha Harvey

***

Growing Old (Kwansaba for James)

One day we’ll wake with the dawn
and we’ll be old; worn bones will
creak and moan to travel the breeze
like two silvery ships set a-sail
jostled by a wind, we’ll start our
journey again. I cannot wait to begin
the rest of my life with you.

— Susan Lively

***

pick up pieces, travel west on breeze
scented trails from start-up jostled
adventures caked with life

— Sabrina Spence

***

breeze jostles the start
of a song, the travel of
music, of life-Spring!

— Bernie Mossotti

***

The Beginning

First, a breeze grazed our necks like
a single bee barely waking
our unease. Next, it swelled
into a gust that slowed our travel, a swarm
that chased us behind doors, no end
in sight after such a glancing start --
more than one life
jostled.

— Jill Hinners

***

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

Headline image: Nicole Baster on Unsplash